New HeatSink, nowComputer Won't Boot, no screen, no beeps

My CPU has been overheating w/ the factory Pentium heat sink so I decided to upgrade to a Zalman CNPS 7700 heat sink. In order to do this I had to disassemble the computer and remove the mother board to install the bracing for the heat sink. I also removed the CPU from the mother board to remove the thermal grease. I replaced the Chipset heat sink with an aftermarket as well. I did this and put the computer back together and now it won’t boot.

When power is connected to the PSU the green mother indicator light is on. When I press the power button the red indicator light goes on, all fans, HD’s, Disk drives…..kick on. The mother board POST display goes threw its routine and finishes w/o error but the computer does not boot. The monitor, mouse and keyboard show no sign of activity.

I’m afraid I killed something but don’t know what. Could it be the graphics card? Wouldn’t the mouse and keyboard show signs of power? If the motherboard is fried how could it Post w/o error?

Removed all non essental stuff, removed drives...no change

I built the PC
Abit AS8
P4 3.06 w/ ht
Radeon 7000 graphics card
WD Hard Drives
Misc. ram & CD Drives

I would remove the motherboard and check for things under it, then after making sure its all good, carefully put it back, making sure you don't miss a screw or leave anything under the board

and is the brace for the new CPU installed correctly, is it metal? it might be possible that if different from the original it shorted something out, but if that possible i would assume that something would be provided or recommended in the manual to prevent it from shorting, so did you read the directions?

Thanks,

The heatsink brace is all plastic and plastic coated nuts, so there is no chance of shorting out there, and yes, I did read the directions... I don't think the issue is there. I did replace the Northbridge heatsink with a fanless heatsink.. I don't think that is the problem either.

I think it might be the CPU. When I removed the CPU to clean the last bit of thermal grease, I noticed three of the pins on the CPU were black instead of gold colored. What I don't know is how this could have happened. The computer was working (hot) 15 minutes earlier.

As for the motherboard shorting out, I will work on that this weekend and tell you how it went.

Thank you very much for your help.

did you check the boot device sequence?



Will it boot to a floppy or a CD?

Also, It can be handy to keep a bootable CD... something like a Live Linux CD

Thank you for your help. After working on it for a while I gave up and took it to a friends shop. He has the extra parts and "brains" I don't have.

We tinkered with it for three hours and found the suspected problem. There was a cat hair under the CPU. Everything else was normal.

It's the little stuff that kills us!!

Again, Thank you

That's a new one on me ! Still, glad you got it sorted out - wouldn't have thought of that one.

OK....SO THIS IS MY PROBLEM, LAST NIGHT MY COMPUTER WAS WORKING FINE UNTIL THE NEXT DAY, I COULDN'T TURN ON THE COMPUTER! I PRESS THE POWER BUTTON BUT NOTHING HAPPEND SO....I UNPLUG EVERYTHING THAT WAS CONNECTED TO THE COMPUTER (DSL,MOUSE,KEYBOARD,etc) SO THEN I FELT THAT THE TOP OF THE PC WAS SORT OF HOT SO I TOOK OF THE CASE OF THE COMPUTER, LEAVING THE INSDE OF MY PC EXPOSED, SO.....I WAS TOUCHING SOME PARTS OF THE COMPUTER UNTIL I FOUND THAT THE POWER SUPPLY WAS REALLY HOT SO THEN I PLACED MY COMPUTER IN MY LIVING ROOM TO COOL OFF......I HAD TO BRING MY FAN TO COOL OFF MY COMPUTER AND I PUT IT ON HIGH, AFTER AN HOUR....THE INSIDE OF MY COMPUTER WAS COOL ENOUGH FOR ME TO POWER IT BACK ON SO I DID BUT THEN A FEW HOURS LATER IT TURNED OFF AND THE INDICATOR ORANGE LIGHT WAS FLASHING A LITTLE BIT SO I PRESS THE POWER BUTTON BUT NOTHING HAPPEND SO I UNPLUG THE POWER CABLE AND PLUGGED IT BACK ON SEVERAL TIMES UNTIL I IT STOPPED BOOTING! SO NOW I CANT LOG INTO WINDOWS OR MS-DOS OR ANYTHING...... IT WAS STRANGE THAT WHENEVER I PLUG THE CABLE ....THE FAN TURNS ON AND SO DOES THE INDICATOR ORANGE LIGHT BUT THE PROCESSOR FAN THAT IS INSIDE DOESNT! .

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

A cat hair? LOL
I have to jot that tech note down... I have a cat, and a dog. The house is full of hair