When I came home today, I noticed my monitor wasn't showing anything. The computer was still on, the fans were running at max speed, and the clock on the front of the case read "--......." or something like that. I tried to turn off the power with the power button, was unable to with any amount of time holding it down. I unplugged the computer and plugged it back in.

Now, when I turn it on, the power light comes on and the disk light comes on but it doesn't sound like it's trying to access the hard drive. That goes off after about 2 or 3 minutes, but nothing ever happens. I tried switching hard drives, tried booting to the XP install cd. No floppy is in the drive.

I touched the heat sink and it was really hot. I tried removing it, and it pulled out the CPU with it. The CPU is basically cemented to the heat sink now. I don't know if that's normal or not. Does the thermal grease normally harden? I'm guessing not, but I really don't know. I built the computer about a year and a half ago and have never had any problems with it at all.

Oh, and not that I think it would matter, but I can't put the processor back now because the lever you have to lift to get it in there gets in the way of the heat sink, which, like I said, is quite firmly attached. I think if I pried them apart the chip would break.

HELP ME TWW, YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE? Is my processor fucked? What are the other possibilities? What can I do to prevent this in the future?

1/15/2006 10:17:57 PM

post a picture of it

1/15/2006 10:22:42 PM

are you overclocking?

1/15/2006 10:27:37 PM

The cpu is suppose to be stuck to the heatsink, if you need to separate them get a towel and place the heatsink on it and use a razor blade to get between the cpu and the heatsink and just push it will pop off after a little work.

1/15/2006 10:47:01 PM

It doesn't look like this does it?

1/15/2006 11:02:27 PM

I am not overclocking.

1/15/2006 11:40:15 PM

I was able to remove the proc from the heat sink and put them back where the ought to be.

Still doesn't work. Not that I expected anything.

Does anybody have a socket 478 processor lying around? Would swapping that out be a good way to test and see if that's what went wrong?

1/16/2006 12:08:57 AM

First off, if you're not getting anything, including bios, upon boot up some other possibilities could be
your mobo itself going bad (this shit does happen) or even just your RAM. Try switching out memory first, since it'll be the easiest thing to fuck with. If your switched out ram doesn't bug the new machine, try the processor. If both work fine, it's the board.

Also, make sure all your connections are solid. It could be you just got a loose connection somewhere - I've had my computer do something similar to this because the RAM would somehow work itself loose, I would remove it and reinsert it in the same slot again and things would be jake for another X amount of time.

1/16/2006 12:30:02 AM

Bigman suggested looking at my video card.

When I removed it, I noticed that the fan had FUCKING MELTED. wtf?

So I removed the card and tried the onboard video, which still doesn't seem to work. I'm afraid that something fucked up in the video card and it just ruined everything else.

1/16/2006 12:39:09 AM

Yea next time ripping out the processor should probably be the last thing you check, but if you do need another socket 478 chip I do have a 2.4 ghz laying around

1/16/2006 12:43:15 AM

I should also mention that I have a tiny fucking case which seemed like a grand idea at the time which makes doing basically anything a pain in the ass.

1/16/2006 12:44:57 AM

Holy shit, were you trying to fry an egg in there or something?

Ehh, if it's that bad, my best suggestion is to salvage what you can - see if the HDD is still coherent, ditto with the RAM.

Incidentally, was it dusty in there? Dust can seriously fuck up your cooling sometimes. Maybe not this much, but...wow. I really have no clue what this is - I was initially thinking just a loose connection or a freak power surge but I've never heard of anything that actually melted a fan before. Good luck w/ it, man.

1/16/2006 12:45:03 AM

Heres probably what happened...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1999499897470398424

1/16/2006 12:46:08 AM

^^ It was dusty, but not unreasonably so.

I had no problems with the cpu temperature leading up to this (unless there was a faulty sensor, but if it just doesn't work that sets off an alarm as well).

I've had no problems with this computer since I've had it. And let me say, once again, that nothing on this computer was overclocked whatsoever.

I just don't want to put up with this shit

1/16/2006 12:53:15 AM

haha, i like how they threw water on it in the end. i guess thats why you don't put a firecracker in your computer...

1/16/2006 1:22:46 AM

this is your computer...ON DRUGS

1/16/2006 9:39:45 AM

1/16/2006 5:50:44 PM

So did you figure out whats fucked up or is it still shooting out flames?

1/16/2006 5:58:21 PM

Well, the video card is the only thing with visible signs of damage. But I tried booting with the onboard video after removing that, and I got nothing.

1/16/2006 6:14:43 PM

Well if you don't really want to get a new system you might want to think about taking it somewhere and having it checked out to see if they can find out whats wrong with it.

1/16/2006 6:20:19 PM

Jon boy, you're going to hate this, but your motherwood is dead. The gfx card, too from the signs of it. I'd pull everything out stick it in an anti-static bag, and go buy a new one, and power supply just in case.

1/16/2006 6:30:42 PM

you should have gotten joie to make this thread for you............

1/16/2006 7:21:40 PM

Damn, you're right.

1/16/2006 7:39:41 PM

haha

1/16/2006 7:43:34 PM

Quote :

"Jon boy, you're going to hate this, but your motherwood is dead. The gfx card, too from the signs of it. I'd pull everything out stick it in an anti-static bag, and go buy a new one, and power supply just in case. "

I agree completely. fan probably died on video card then video card blew and took motherboard with it. I'd not trust the PSU either.

1/17/2006 12:00:45 AM

pssh, don't be so pessimistic, decent PSUs are rated at 100,000 MTBF with all rails at maximum load, even cheap ones are fused and have short circuit protection... 8 hours at an unknown load (relative to the PSUs capacity), if the order of occurance was indeed video card fan, video card chipset, (???), whole shebang then it is still fairly possible the PSU is fine. Get a tester, an old motherboard you hate, or a friend you hate's motherboard and see if it doesn't still work.

1/17/2006 12:16:29 AM

^^

1/17/2006 1:11:47 AM

I'm just gonna get a new case (read:psu) too.

I fucking HATE my case. It's tiny as fuck, which is all aesthetically pleasing until you have to actually install something.

1/17/2006 9:56:18 AM