Computer troubles :(

[davidave]

okay before i get into the nature of the problem here is some background information on my system


2100+ amd athlon
soyo dragon lite (? not certain of this, but it is soyo) motherboard
512 crucial ram
80 gig maxtor/ 120 gig wd harddrives
santa cruz sound card
ati radeon 8500 all in wonder dv
17" kogi lcd


i built this system myself about a year ago and it was running fine until i was running media intensive programs on it and then it start having software conflicts after about 8 months. at that point i reformarted the system and it was running well until i brought it home from school and then it start to restart suddenly when i was using it or freezing (this system has never frozen on me before). i had the hunch that the system was overheating (it was running at about 57C) so i took the covers off which seemed to prolong the time between sudden reboots. just today i was doing some reading and i read that thermal pads are better that thermal paste (i used the stock paste that came with my cpu. the computer worked allright before i started to work on it today. and the only 2 changes i made during this was changing the paste (i never moved the cpu itself just the fan) and i moved my primary harddrive down one slot, it was situated directly under the slave hd and i thought it would be better to move it down one to avoid any heating issues. when i finished and sealed up the case. i reconnected my monitor and my monitor gave me a "no signal". this is most frustrating because i cannot run diagnostics on anything to find the problem. i did connect another monitor and that yielded the same result. sometimes on my ati, it will switch to tv as primary output but in those cases it would at least have a bootup screen on the pc screen before it blacks out on the pc. this was not the case this time but regardless, i tried to hook it up to the tv anyway. and there was no signal through the tv. i'm about to try another graphics card on here but that is a lot of work and i'm trying to get an idea of what direction i should head in. did i possibly damage the cpu? or maybe harddrive? there is no indication that the monitor is plugged it at all, it is completely unresponsive (but i can assure you it is)

thanks for any help


dave

 

[nickaskew]

Hi Dave

First thing, remove the cpu heatsink and check the top of the chip.. there should only be past on the cpu 'die' - the polished metal oblong in the centre of the chip, if the paste you used is spread all over the place you may be shorting one of the tracks on the top of the cpu (beside the die) - remove it thoroughly and reapply a tiny amount - ensure a thin film of it covers the top of the die, clean the underside of your heatsink and reseat it on your processor. (thin film = less than 1 mm of paste.. it really is all that is needed, anymore and you risk blow-out, blow-out is when you put too much paste on the die, the die heats up, fires globs of your paste all over the top of your processor.. pretty useless really.

Second, make sure you have plugged your heatsink fan power lead back into your motherboard, some refuse to boot up unless they sense the presence of a cooler.

Any beeps when you try to power up? - you should get a BIOS error beep at least, even if the chip is busted.. if you don't, then check your power supply is plugged firmly into your motherboard.

Regards

Nick

 

[davidave]

thanks for the reply nick, there is actually no beep and a friend of mine suggested it was due to a busted cpu. the thermal pad(sticker kind) i'm using is a little larger than the center metal bit. i trimmed it down to just around the impression on the pad. the heatsink runs fine as i am testing it with the cover off. and the overall system seems to "booting up" in a sense as all the fans are running and the cds drives light up as does the harddrives.


thanks for any more info you might have


dave

 

[davidave]

edit: i double checked the wires and the only set of wires out of the power source not connected to anything is a bundle of orang, red and black wires. i don't recall these being connected to anything, i could be wrong :/. i tried to find the same cpu at the local computer shop and it's been discontinued and i still have to investigate the warranty. still open to suggestions.


thanks

dave

 

[nickaskew]

Hi again

Sounds very odd if all cables are connected (was a cable connected to your 8500? - I don't know the tech specs on that vid card, but mine needs its own power supply.)

If you are certain all cables are plugged in ok, and you say the fans/hd powers up which means your mobo is doing its job and having seen plenty of duff CPU's this generally doesn't happen.

Last resort for me would be to reset the bios, get your mobo manual out and find out which jumper clears CMOS/BIOS.. turn off pc, pop jumper over pins identified in manual, pop power on for 5 seconds, power off, remove the jumper and power back on again - if your graphics card wasn't seated correctly when you first tried to power it up having done your stuff to it, it may have bothered the BIOS on your mobo.

Regards

Nick