Without more details there's a whole lot of nothing here, however:

> The pins that were supposed to nestle into the motherboard were instead pointing skyward and it was utterly obvious that no electricity could flow through the part.

> Someone had soldered the chip in place regardless.

How can the chip both be soldered in place and not have any electrical connection? I suppose it could be one of a handful of ICs with both a top and bottom metallic thermal pad, but those are incredibly uncommon.