Boot problems : Everything powers on for 2 seconds, then turns off

MY computer was having overheating issues, and the video card gave out so i got a new video card. I havent opend my case in a long time, and while putting in the new card i noticed excessive amounts of dust.

so i get a vacuum and q-tips and get everything as clean as possible.

i took the heatsink off of the cpu and noticed that there wasnt much thermal paste at all.

Put in the new card, start it up and it only starts up for about 2 seconds, fans all spinning, then it shuts off.

i reseated the ram, and tried a different working video card and still nothin.g

What would be the problem? Bad power supply? not enough thermal paste on the cpu?

Did you reapply the thermal paste on the CPU before reseating the heatsink?

Did you reapply the thermal paste on the CPU before reseating the heatsink?


no, should i?

edit : ok just reapplied the thermal paste, and it works :D

thanks.

They make stuff called compressed air so people like you don't have to physically touch anything inside the computer because you are guaranteed to break it. :p:

did you clean the heat sink off before reapplying the paste?

keep in mind that there is supposed to be very little thermal paste for best results...basically you want as thin a layer as possible for maximum heat transfer. i believe instructions for small cpu cores (athlon xp's) ask for something like 1/2 a grain of rice worth of thermal paste. it is supposed to be applied ONLY to the CPU core also...just in case.

Yep, Amadeus was right on target. I had this problem recently building a Xeon server :) The heatsink was actually leaning on supporting stand-offs and wasn't making physical contact with the cpu metal plate. Thank you thermal managament.