Originally posted by: Grimbor
Playing around with my system, it is very likely I was mistaken about putting the dimm in backwards because I can't replicate doing that with both tabs snapping in place, plus both dimms show burn damage. I do see a melted spot on the MB dimm slot that corresponds to the burn mark on the worst burnt ram chip, so it seems they were in fact installed the correct way. I just assumed I may have installed them backwards because when I researched why a dimm would burn up like that, it seemed backwards installation was the cause in all cases.
You CAN'T put a DIMM in backwards without applying absolutely inhuman amounts of strength. You'd basically be forcing the bridge right through solid material. I doubt many people would even be capable of such a feat.
To cover a few other things. I was not as incompetent as my original post may have sounded. When I said I got thermal paste all over while struggling with the HS, I meant by the time I got the heatsink snapped in place, the CPU was already covered by the default thermal paste AMD puts on their heatsink, but it was only spread on the CPU and seemed pretty uniform. I wasn't grinding the heattsink side to side or touching the paste, in fact I was even wearing surgical gloves when building. The lever I was talking about pulling in the end was not the CPU lever as someone else assumed, it was the lever for the heatsink to latch it into place.
It wouldn't have caused burns on your DIMMs. And thanks for explaining that lever bit
Now, another post has me a bit worried as well because I did match the arrows on the CPU with the MB and followed the limited MB directions in placement of the CPU, but now I am wondering it it went in the right way. I did line up the triangle with the triangle on the MB and the CPU dropped fully in place with gravity, and the CPU lever went down with no problem, but am still a bit worried it went down correctly.
If you lined up the triangle on the CPU with the one on the mobo, and it slid in without problem, then it's fine. It was just the taiwanese genius who wrote my manual who apparently can't figure it out.
A friend suggested taking a dimm from my old system and trying it out to see if the machine will post, but this presents another concern. Since the original dimms seemed to be in place right, I may well burn out my old dimm testing it. And maybe the problem isnt my MB but instead the 450 watt L&C PSU that came with the case.
I wouldn't do that. Whether it was the mobo or the DIMM's that were at fault, it'd be VERY risky to put yet another DIMM in...
I would just call them and see what they can do for an RMA.
It could be a PSU issue, if the PSU sends way too much power through the 20/24 pins connector, but it would have fried several other items long before it ever got around to frying your DIMMs.
Last problem is even if I try and RMA the MB, I cant get the heatsink off, it's just too tightly affixed. Even using a screwdriver, I still can't get enough force on it to get the clip off the MB fastener, and I'm really afraid if I go all out in forcing it I'll either crack the MB, crack the CPU chip or the screwdriver will slip out and slam into the MB.
That might be a bit of an issue yeah... Not much advice I can give you there except to try to leverage it bit by bit. (having someone help might be advisable).
You won't crack the CPU, but I've seen motherboards snap under the pressure of the heatsink, so you do want to be careful.
Really, I was pretty careful putting this thing together, I just don't have the knowledge to troubleshoot when things go wrong like they have.
Try to get the heatsink off again, and call about a motherboard RMA. If you really can't get it off, you could talk to them to see about just sending the whole caboodle (mobo + CPU + heatsink), just as long as you make sure that they acknowledge the fact that you're sending more stuff IN WRITING.
I doubt they'll allow you to, but it's worth a shot if you really can't do anything with it.
If all else fails, take it in to a computer repair shop, they can probably get it off (and most decent ones won't charge you anything or not anything outrageous).
Creston
Facebook
Twitter