Did I do something really stupid (arctic silver II)?

[FrodoB]

I put an excessive amount of arctic silver on the middle of an Athlon 1.4 GHZ and the heatsink. As I was trying to clamp the heatsink to the cpu socket, it smeared everywhere on the cpu. Not reading the directions or doing anything about it, I had no idea that was a bad thing to do. The computer booted to a blank screen. Nothing. After that, of course I went to the arctic silver website and read the directions on how to put a small amount. I thought more was better. I tried out a Duron 700 in the same computer and the computer booted fine. I was able to clean off most of the stuff off the cpu with dish liquid (the arctic site actually says this), but there is a bit still on the cpu. And it still doesn't boot. Can an excessive amt. of this compound on top the cpu ruin the cpu? Is there a better way to clean it off? Is it really possible to actually put a cpu under running water to clean it? This is an OEM cpu bought at a computer show, so there is a good chance the chip was faulty to begin with, I guess. This cpu is installed on an ECS K7s5a. Even worse is the fact that I am building it for someone else. I would greatly appreciate any help.

 

[amdskip]

I would try finger nail polish remover and make sure the artic silver doesn't make a path between any parts of the processor, could be dead and I wouldn't recommend using water to clean it

 

[theplanb]

was it a first time to boot the system with the CPU? (athlon)?
Are you sure that the overuse of artic silver is the source of problem?
Do any lights come on or do fans move at all? Do you hear any beeps?
What kind of PSU are you using?
Do you see any cracks on the CPU?
Have you double checked all the necessary jumpers?

 

[bacillus]

yeah, the AS blurb suggests that it's non conductive under normal conditions!

 

[Maggotry]

As long as you don't get it on the bridges, it doesn't matter. If you shorted your bridges with the power on, it's probably dead. Theplanb has some good thoughts too.

 

[veryape]

As everyone has already mentioned, unless you shorted the bridges I very much doubt using to much hs compound is the source of your problems, since all that would do is maybe raise your temps a degree or possibly two or three but no more than that.

 

[FrodoB]

Due to my own stupidity, a lot was smeared around the cpu. But it wasn't severely smeared to the outter area of the cpu closer to the edges until I started cleaning it. Everything powers on, including the fans. No beep at boot, though. The jumpers are set correctly. The power supply is decent - an AMD Reccommended Eagle power supply - 300 watt. The cpu isn't cracked. The older Duron works fine. There's still some residue left on the chip. Maybe if I clean it completely, it will work? Hopefully. I have a feeling it might have been faulty when I bought it. I guess that's the chance you take buying oem components from a computer show.

 

[Jerboy]

<< Due to my own stupidity, a lot was smeared around the cpu. But it wasn't severely smeared to the outter area of the cpu closer to the edges until I started cleaning it. Everything powers on, including the fans. No beep at boot, though. The jumpers are set correctly. The power supply is decent - an AMD Reccommended Eagle power supply - 300 watt. The cpu isn't cracked. The older Duron works fine. There's still some residue left on the chip. Maybe if I clean it completely, it will work? Hopefully. I have a feeling it might have been faulty when I bought it. I guess that's the chance you take buying oem components from a computer show. >>




ASII is capacitive and could interfere with something operating at high frequency. If its not all over the bridges or CPU pins, its fine though.

Be careful when using any solvents on CPU, because it can damage the rubber foots on the corners.

 

[Jen]

i had same similar thing happen to me with a duron. even though i was carefull to get it on as little as possible some how i must have touched one of the bridges with it. i heard a beep from the motherboard then nothing..........i shut it down quickly and took it apart that is when i noticed just a bit on one bridge. after carefull cleaning with liquid soap then tried again there was no beep. i tried another processor and it worked fine. this was a learning lesson for me that day .



Jen

 

[baldy]

Arctic Silver=conductive.

If in the wrong spot, it will trash a CPU the instant you fire up the system.

Silver=metal
metal=conductivety
conductivity=bad juju of on the wrong spot.

dispite what their website says, the compound is conductive. i have a box full of cpu's that took the full brunt of Arctic Silver, 2 athlons and three tbirdys of the slot A variety. bad experiments with Arctic Silver and copper shims.

baldy

 

[Doomguy]

AS2 killed my T-bird 1.0ghz . AS2 was smeared all over the top of the cpu. One day I rebooted and it was dead. Heatsink made perfect contact with it. AS2 is really the only thing that could have killed it.

Now i'm much more careful about how much grease I use.

 

[FrodoB]

I think I got lucky. It works! I cleaned the cpu off with rubbing alcohol and nail polish remover. It's practically spotless now. The system actually booted with it. I previously set up the new mobo (with the old Duron) in Windows ME, which required a lot of fiddling to reinstall all the new mobo resources (at first windows wasn't happy to see a new mobo). So with the new cpu, windows crashed during boot up. It worked fine in Safe Mode. ANd it crashed again booting in normal mode. So I then checked the cpu temp and it was in the middle 70s!!! I think it's because the heatsink still had the old artic silver on it and I didn't apply any new compound to the cpu. And I spot cleaned the rest of the heatsink, except for the middle. Most likely more extreme idiocy on my part. So would it make sense that I need to buy a new heatsink/fan combo and new thermal compound to lower the temp again? Are my high cpu temps caused by the messy old heatsink? I am really surprised the cpu even works!

 

[John]

<< So I then checked the cpu temp and it was in the middle 70s!!! I think it's because the heatsink still had the old artic silver on it and I didn't apply any new compound to the cpu. >>



There's your problem.