Uggghhh!! What the hell did I just do?!?!?!

[Gouki]

Ok first off...lemme say that today was one of those days were I should have never gotten out of bed. <rant> Every little f'ing thing that could go wrong...did. Arrrrggghhh!!!</rant>

And this evening has proven to be no different. You'd think I'd learn to just leave the system alone now that it's stable...but Nooooo....<Gouki bangs his head against the monitor repeatedly>.

Ow.

Here's the basic rundown of my system and what's going on...

1700XP JIUHB on Epox 8RDA+
2x256mb of PC2700 Crucial
Radeon 9000 Pro 128mb

I did have the system running quite nicely at 12.5 x 177fsb or 2.2Ghz. Then I got to reading some reviews of the SLK-800A (which is what I'm using btw) and finally found out what those little rubber strips are for! It would have been nice if they could have packaged SOME kind of instructions with the heatsink and fan, but I guess that was too much to ask. Anyways...I had no clue what those were for until tonight. I found out you're supposed to stick those on the heatsink and then put the fan on top of the rubber strips.

So I take off the fan and notice that the heatsink is a little dirty, dust and what not...so I get as much off as I can without actually taking the whole thing apart. I put the rubber strips on, put the fan back on and fire it back up. It boots back into windows but not 5 minutes later the machine shuts off. So I check everything...and I realize that stupid me put the fan back on backwards...instead of blowing down on the heatsink it was taking air off. So I switch it...fire it back up...same thing! It boots into windows and loads everything and not 5 minutes goes by with it crunching FaD before it shuts down.

WTF!?!?!??!!??!!?

What the hell did I just do?!?!?!?! I take the rubber strips back off...and now everything is as it was before I touched anything...and it still won't run! I watched the temps in the bios...go all the way up to 51 for the cpu. Before...it was at 45 or 46 with full load.

I'm so pissed off and confused right now I don't even know where to begin. I know one thing for sure...I wish I had never touched the damn thing tonight! Ugggghhh!!!

Anyways...to reiterate this is ALL that was done to the system: Took off the fan, removed dust buildup from heatsink, put on rubber strips, put fan back on...switch fan after realizing I had it on backwards...take fan off again and remove rubber strips in a desperate attempt to make things as they were before.

Any clues? Help!!!

Doesn't sound like you cooked the CPU (although it's remotely possible). So I would think you have knocked something somewhere else - sounds like a power issue to me. Maybe a screw fell under the mobo and is shorting, maybe a wire is not quite touching (like a fan header) or something.

Go through and recheck all electrical conncetions. Make sure there are no loose objects rolling around under the mobo.

AND - peg it back down to normal until you get to the bottom of it. Maybe it's on the very edge of stable, and you pushed it over.

Good luck. Sounds like you'll need it.

Cheers
Mick

Oh, and stop banging your head on the monitor. No telling what damage you might do (to the monitor - not worried about the head! )

[Kuasimodem]

If you have any AS III or other heatsink paste handy, I would remove the heatsink, clean everything up and reinstall the heatsink.

It sounds like while you were remounting the fan you may have disturbed the thermal bond between the HSF and the CPU core.

You might want to wait until tomorrow to do this, going by what's happened so far today

[Bruneau]

Pull it and regrease. Should be OK.

[Bruneau]

so ya don't feel alone:
http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showth...hreadid=202190

[DPA]

I [we] have had this problem before, you aren't making contact with your CPU, and its shutting down due to overheating from improper Heatsink contact.

i would use a thermal grease/paste which really helps your heat dissipation percentage.

I personally don't use the rubber strips, and cut them off of my Heatsinks being as by processor already comes equiped with 4. besides, they kept my cpu's from touching the heatsink. Also, if you have a copper shim with your Thoroughbred core, throw it away, they also contribute to the distance between heatsink and core.

good luck

[Gouki]

It's another day...so let's hope this one turns out better then yesterday. lol.

Thanks for all the replies thus far...I backed off the cpu to 168 x 12.5 to 2.1Ghz and it ran fine all night...but then shut off not even 5 minutes after I got up. Ugghhhh....WHAT?!?!?! Were you waiting for me to get up just so you could do that?!!??! *ahem* Pardon me...<sigh>

Anyways...now I bumped it down to stock voltage and 160 x 12.5 for an even 2Ghz. I hope it's able to run for a while like this...cuz right now I don't have the time to take off the heatsink, clean the cpu, re-apply the ASIII and re-seat the heatsink...

I pulled the side panel off the case so hopefully that will keep things a little cooler in there until I get a chance to work on it.

Deal is...today is one of those days where I REALLY need my computer to be stable and just running...I'm taking 2 summer classes at the Univ and don't really have time to tinker around with it. I need all the time I can get for studying and doing homework. Uggghhhh...anyways thanks again for the replies I'll clean the damn thing up and reseat it when I actually get some time.

[Gouki]

Well I was really hoping that I could get most of my homework done tonight and that would give me time to tinker with the system...but my allergies had other ideas. Uggghhh.

Needless to say because of my allergies I didn't get much done at all tonight and I've already decided to take tomorrow off from work so I can get caught up on homework and whatnot. Hopefully tomorrow will be a more productive day and I'll get a chance to tinker with this thing.

Til then....

Gouki aka Snot Boy.

[jmichna]

Gouki,
Just to confirm... you are using the rubber strips as a spacer between the top of the heat sink and the fan body, right? (And not between the base of the HS and the CPU.) The purpose of the strips is to reduce vibration (hence noise) of HS caused by the fan, and to improve airflow (reduce area of central "dead spot").

As others have suggested, sounds like the bond line between your thermal paste and the CPU core got disturbed, or the HS base is not seated completely flush & parallel against the CPU core.
jmichna

[Gouki]

Correct. I put them ontop of the heatsink...and the fan on top of the strips. Although I took them back off when things started getting all weird...

Got quite a bit to do today...but I might have some time to tinker with this thing