Troubleshooting new build

[treadhed]

I'm building a rig with a 2500+ Barton and a K7N2 Delta(which I know, for about the price I coulda gotten Athlon64. I bought the parts a month ago and they just arrived. I still think I should have gotten a 64.)


Memory: 2X512Kb OCZ PC3200

Anyway, I just got everything together, and I turned it on and I got nothin'. It gives me three quick beeps and a beep. When I connect the diagnostic LEDs which come with the MB it stays at the CPU startup, which in the book says CPU not in correctly or CPU is damaged. Neither should be the case. I checked the cpu, looked good. I did get some of the thermal paste on to the circuitry around the core. It says that this is not a bad thing but should be avoided. That is my only guess on the problem so I'm going to clean it off.

First off, any suggestions on this problem?

Any suggestions on cleaning off the paste? It said alcohol was good, so I figured Barcardi 151 or Everclear would be good. j/k. I plan on using 70% isopropyl rubbing alcohol.

For cooling I'm using a Arctic Copper Silent II. Is this better than the AMD fan?

I do not believe I have damaged the core, I was gentle putting on the heat sink.

Thanks in advance for any assistance

 

[Cook1]

You need to get to your motherboard's site and look at the beep codes to figure out what the problem was. My build was like this as well, turns out I had a stick of RAM that my board didn't like. But the stick worked in another machine so I guess some boards are picky like that.