[help!] Dead CPU?

Yesterday I came home to find my cpu fan making a loud noise (like the blades were hitting something, though the fan was definately still spining).

I opened the case and removed the heatsink and fan... When I did this I found that the CPU had stuck to the bottom of the heatsink, and popped right out of the socket. When I went to return the CPU to socket, It did not slide in like I had expected. Upon further inspection I found that several of the pins along one of the outer rows had been bent during the heatsink removal. The pin in the corner was bent to nearly a 45 degree angle.

I very carefully bent the pins back until the cpu slid into the socket, locked it in and replaced the heatsink fan (I could find nothing wrong or lodged in the fan). However when I tried to reboot my computer I found that it would hang while loading windows (win2k to be exact).

To give an idea the hang is in a spot like this: http://www.windowsreinstall.com/windows2000/Repair/Image13.jpg

However the bar of blue boxes is full (finished loading), and then it stops. There is still movement(animation) of the little scrolling bar just about that one.

At first I thought that maybe I had bumped or disconnected something while my hands were in the case, but now im worried that I killed the CPU.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Yesterday I came home to find my cpu fan making a loud noise (like the blades were hitting something, though the fan was definately still spining).

I opened the case and removed the heatsink and fan... When I did this I found that the CPU had stuck to the bottom of the heatsink, and popped right out of the socket. When I went to return the CPU to socket, It did not slide in like I had expected. Upon further inspection I found that several of the pins along one of the outer rows had been bent during the heatsink removal. The pin in the corner was bent to nearly a 45 degree angle.

I very carefully bent the pins back until the cpu slid into the socket, locked it in and replaced the heatsink fan (I could find nothing wrong or lodged in the fan). However when I tried to reboot my computer I found that it would hang while loading windows (win2k to be exact).

To give an idea the hang is in a spot like this: http://www.windowsreinstall.com/windows2000/Repair/Image13.jpg

However the bar of blue boxes is full (finished loading), and then it stops. There is still movement(animation) of the little scrolling bar just about that one.

At first I thought that maybe I had bumped or disconnected something while my hands were in the case, but now im worried that I killed the CPU.

Thanks in advance for any help.


Is your heatsnik making good contact with your cpu? Once you separate cpu from heat sink, depends on what the condition of your thermal paste is, you probably need to clean the old thermal grease/paste off and apply a new thin layer of thermal grease/paste on.

What you described can happen when cpu overheat due to bad contact with heatsink and/or dead fan. If your cpu is dead, your motherboard will beep and it wont' boot. If your cpu is not being properly cooled, it'll run until it's too hot, then either shuts down or burn itself out (older athlon do that)

how long are you letting it stay at that screen? also when you hit num lock does the light turn on and off?

how long are you letting it stay at that screen? also when you hit num lock does the light turn on and off?


The numlock key turns the numlock light of an on on my keyboard (capslock works also).

At first I only let it sit there a couple minutes, but after several tries I let it sit there several minutes, with no result.


I believe the CPU is making good contact with the heatsink, and I did clean off the proc/heatsink and apply new thermal grease. Also, from the bios setup I see my CPU temp around 36 degrees, which is just about where it usually is.

Again, thanks for any help.

Go to the BIOS and watch the CPU temps for a good couple of minutes. Do they rise any?

Go to the BIOS and watch the CPU temps for a good couple of minutes. Do they rise any?



After 10 minutes the cpu temp seems stable at 45c... I have one of those adjustable cpu fans and that is with the fan controller midway between min and max


I don't get it at all, it just hangs always in the same exact place/way. I have cleared my cmos and loaded failsafes... I can not even load windows in safe mode (at a point during loading I get the same effect, just a hang).

/ugh

Only way to check for sure is to get another CPU and see if that works.

After 10 minutes the cpu temp seems stable at 45c... I have one of those adjustable cpu fans and that is with the fan controller midway between min and max


I don't get it at all, it just hangs always in the same exact place/way. I have cleared my cmos and loaded failsafes... I can not even load windows in safe mode (at a point during loading I get the same effect, just a hang).

/ugh

Load windows step by step and see where it fails.

Load windows step by step and see where it fails.


I am not sure I follow quite what you mean, but I do have a correction to make.


The num lock key is NOT toggle the num lock light, I was mistaken about that.

When I did this I found that the CPU had stuck to the bottom of the heatsink, and popped right out of the socket.
You shouldn't just be yanking the HSF unit off of the CPU. You should have removed everything together to inspect it, but regardless you should be more gentle and twist the HSF a bit to loosen up the grease/paste. The CPU is very likely not damaged if you are getting to a Windows boot screen.

Have you tried booting into safe mode?
And, have you tried running checkdisk? That will probably fix your problem.

You shouldn't just be yanking the HSF unit off of the CPU. You should have removed everything together to inspect it, but regardless you should be more gentle and twist the HSF a bit to loosen up the grease/paste. The CPU is very likely not damaged if you are getting to a Windows boot screen.

Have you tried booting into safe mode?
And, have you tried running checkdisk? That will probably fix your problem.


Yes you are right, I should have been more gentle. I haven't actually had my hands inside this computer since I assembled it (or any other for that matter), which was nearly a year ago (and why I am asking for help)

I am unable to boot into safe mode (get a hang in that direction too), as well as get to a command prompt, although, as you may have noted I am not the most computer literate person out there and may certainly be doing something wrong.

Run checkdisk. Get out your install CD and run the recovery console. I *think* the exact command will be chkdsk /F C:.

Run checkdisk. Get out your install CD and run the recovery console. I *think* the exact command will be chkdsk /F C:.



Unfortunately, this is beyond me. When I put my win2k cd and boot and select cdrom as first boot device in BIOS, the system just starts running the win2k instal setup, and eventually hangs during loading. I get the same effect after loading using the 4 disks I created from the bootdisk making exe on the win2k cd (made earlier on another computer).

Something I neglected to mention, or rather just realized... The screen, whether loading windows normal or setup or safe mode, flickers... it goes black once for a moment and comes back, then goes black a second time a few seconds later for a moment then it comes back and is totally hung.

When booting into safe mode with command prompt it always hangs at a file agp something... one moment...

winnt\system32\DRIVERS\ag p440.sys

not that its of consequence now but, ill add:

i was finally able to windows setup and get to the recovery console and run chkdsk... however i was only able to do this by disabling the SATA controller in the bios and connecting a blank hdd to the main IDE chan (normall the sata hdd is the secondary master and the drive with windows installed on it)...

however, i dont know if these means there is a problem with the mobos sata controller or my drive :[

Wait, are you sure the noise was coming from the CPU fan and not the hard drive?

Wait, are you sure the noise was coming from the CPU fan and not the hard drive?


definately. it seems i merely stumbled onto another problem when i went looking to fix the first.

i now know the cpu is fine, because with the sata disabled and a blank drive connected via ide i was able run through windows setup and installation no problem

but after that it gets wierd...

when i turn sata back on, and connect my sata drive, and replace my win2k cd for a winxp cd i am able to get to the recovery console and run chkdsk, which doesnt seem to find any problems on the sata drive

yet sure enough if i try to boot from the sata drive i get the same hang while loading windows...