Won't boot after Arctic Silver 5

[anutoshi]

Hello Everyone,

In attempting to fix my son's PC (he was getting blue screens, corrupted registry and files, weird colored verticle lines on monitor at startup, p2p program crashing), I decided after using motherboard monitor that cpu temps from 54C idle to 63C load might be a bit high, I thought I'd replace the 4 year old Arctic Silver with the latest Arctic Silver 5, When I first wiped the old paste off the core, I got a small bit of it on the ceramic portion of the cpu, and having read that it could be slightly conductive, I used Goof Off and 91% alcohol (recommended on their website) to clean the core and the ceramic area around it. It looks fine. I applied the new paste, reassembled, switched on the power and I get the green light on the MB, the CD lighting up, no start up test beeps, nothing on the monitor, no access to bios. I've reset the CMOS, disconnected every peripheral, hard drives, etc. I had another duplicate MB by chance, I configured it and installed it and gained the hard drives powering up but everything I stated above remained the same. I feel the power supply is working fine. Did I short the CPU? Is there a definitive test to know that a CPU is fubared? A new Athlon XP 2400 is only about $70 but I'd like to know this one is truly shot before I spend more on a system that is, for all intents and purposes, somewhat ancient. Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks Tom
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Lian-Li PC 60
Enermax EG 465P-VE(FC)
AMD AthlonXP Palamino Model 1900(1.6 ghz)
Asus A7V266 E
3X256mg CORSAIR PC2400 DDR
Swiftech MCX 462 Heatsink
Sanyo Denki Fan
Swiftech Rheostat
Arctic Silver II
2XIBM 60GB 7200rpm Deskstar GXP Raid 0
Plextor 24X10X40 CD-RW IDE
Pioneer DVD-116 Atapi16X/40X
V8200 T5 Pure Geforce3 Ti500 Nvidia Titanium
Creative Audigy Platinum
250MB Zip Drive
3COM 3C905CXTM PCI 10/100
Teac FD235HF(704) 1.44MB
Sony CPD-G420S Monitor
MS Windows XP Pro Edition

 

[rise]

just to bump you up to the top, i'm assuming you have tried reseating it again? fan plugged into the mobo header?

it doesn't wound like anything that would have fried your chip.

 

[anutoshi]

Yes on both counts

 

[lenjack]

You did no harm by getting the AS5 on the ceramic. AS5 is conductive only under extreme pressure. You need to doublecheck everything. If you can, let someone else knowledgeable look at it. Sometimes it takes another set of eyes to spot something.

 

[Jeff7]

Crunched the core perhaps?

 

[SVT Cobra]

goof off an a CPU?? alchohol would have been fine next time...but that still wouldnt have hurt it...try rechecking everything...

 

[Greenman]

Look for traces of AS5 around the core. If 2 mobos have the same problem with that chip and there is no AS5 stuck to it anywhere I'd guess it's toast.

 

[keeleysam]

I'm gonna say that you broke it.

 

[Slowlearner]

You havent said anything about the CPU fan coming on. This looks like a classic case of the heatsink not sitting on the CPU core. Yes I think you should re-check, or even better bring the mb out of the case and asemble outside to test. By the way the Palomino's run hotter than Thunderbirds, and if your CPU is really toast - consider replacing the mb too.

 

[VigilanteCS]

The same thing happened to me. I was reseating the fan after cleaning dust out of it and it turns out I broke the motherboard (Asus A7V8X). The CPU was fine though. Although it broke because I was pushing down too hard on the HSF.

My suggestion:

Try a spare CPU in it if you have one, otherwise I'd try a new CPU.

 

[anutoshi]

Thanks for the input guys, I think I'm just going to buy a new cpu.