New comuter will not display

[TheBlackOut]

Edit: See POST 3

I am helping a friend build a computer and we put it together and it will not display. It will power on but it will not give us a display. We've tried two monitors and swapping the two ports the card has... no dice.

The Radeon HD 4850 has a red light on it... is that bad? What else could it be?

C2D E8500
4GB of RAM (2x2GB)
640GB HDD

What could it be? I think even with a bad HDD the BIOS wouldn't show up... could it be the CPU? A cord we didn't connect?

 

[TheBlackOut]

Nevermind, we fixed it. We forgot to plug in the ATX on the mobo...

 

[TheBlackOut]

Okay... problem. The computer runs and we're trying to install Windows, but it powers off after a bit 30 seconds. We were thinking the CPU is overheating and my friend thinks we should apply thermal paste to the heatsink but the instructions didn't call for any. Should we? What else could it be?

 

[robisbell]

running it with the right power cords not plugged in may have damaged something like the motherboard or the video card, or both.

 

[TheBlackOut]

Okay... it shut down when I tried to format the drive. Now when the computer boots it says "Error loading Operating System". Even if we set CD boot first, it says this.

 

[TheBlackOut]

Originally posted by: robisbell
running it with the right power cords not plugged in may have damaged something like the motherboard or the video card, or both.

They were the right cords, we just forgot one. We might have fixed the turning off problem, but now we ran into more problems.

 

[TheBlackOut]

Okay... now we got to the Windows menu again. Now we just need to hope it doesn't turn off... That might still be a problem.

 

[TheBlackOut]

Well guys, good news. It worked but the CPU is running around 55C at idle. This is pretty hot, right? Or is this good?

 

[Boobs McGee]

Well I wouldn't feel comfortable running my machine that hot.

I suggest powering everything down, removing the HSF and applying some thermal paste. It wouldn't hurt to read a guide online so you are sure to get it right.
Google: clean heatsink apply thermal paste or something along those lines and you will get some good guides to go off.

 

[TheBlackOut]

Okay. When he ordered his computer I told him to order some thermal paste (turned out to be 'grease'). Is thermal paste just that, grease? http://www.arcticsilver.com/as5.htm

That's what I got him to order. He put a little on there, but not a lot. Maybe he should add a little more? What if he does and it still retains that temperature? Should he try grabbing a new heatsink?

 

[Boobs McGee]

AS5 is just fine. You might be running into the issue of having too much grease/paste if you put some on and didn't clean off the stuff that comes preinstalled on the heatsink. Too much is a bad thing just like running without any is. It doesn't take much. Check out some guides online so you get a good visual.

 

[TheBlackOut]

We did. The stuff that the heatsink came with by default didn't seem very good, so we scraped it all off and applied the AS5. The instructions said put very little, transparent thin, which we did. I thought it could have used a tad more but I think he did the right amount. It's definitely not thick.

Is there a way the heatsink fan might be on "low" or anything? Is the default intel heatsink good anyways?