Just tried to upgrade my 'puter from a P4 2.4 to 3.4 and it's not looking good. (I'm on my g/f's laptop). All the computer does now upon turning on is...well, appears to be turning on forever. I tried to turn it off to no avail. Nothing shows up on the screen, just a power light, HD light and CD light that stays on. Ended up having to switch off the computer using the power switch on the back.

I'm thinking this is one of 3 things, possibly a combination.

1. The CPU is DOA.

2. I accidentally touched the thermal pad thinking it was a liner for a thermal adhesive. But tried to fix it by using a plastic baggie and spreading it around a little bit.

3. When I tried to remove the old heatsink/fan, the old processor was pretty much fused to it that I accidentally yanked it out of the socket (the lever unreleased, unfortunately) when I pulled out the old heatsink/fan.

I'm thinking it's most likely #3 unless accidentally pulling the CPU out of a secured socket is ok (I doubt that). It could be #1 too, but I'm not willing to put my old processor back in because I bet it's already ruined, right?

Should I just take my lumps and buy a new system or is a new mobo all I need?

Thanks in advance,
Venek

Are you 100% sure that this motherboard can support a 3.4 cpu? That would be the first thing I check. If it can, then I'd replace the mobo, as yanking out a still connected processor from a motherboard can't be good...

I can't say for sure if your old processor is dead or not. If I were in your shoes, I'd try it. If it works, then you know that your motherboard is still working (and your new cpu isn't). If it doesn't work, then chances are that one or both may be damaged......and you're back to taking your lumps and getting a new board.

A tip for removing the cpu next time: Take a hair dryer to it for a minute or 2. This will warm up the thermal compound allowing it to easily seperate from the heatsink.

Hey yea, I checked that my mobo can take the processor. It's rated up to the Preshott 3.4 extreme and I only got myself a 3.4 Northwood, so I know the compatibility is fine. Your suggestion for putting the old chip back in sounds good, but if I yanked it out of a secure socket, doesn't that mean I ruined the old CPU, therefore putting it back in would be moot?

I'm starting to think about giving up and losing a bunch of money and putting together a new system with harvested parts from my current and DEAD system. Think I can make a nice amount of dough with an AGP ATI x850, 2 gigs of RAM and a probably dead 3.4 northy?

By the way, I followed suggestions online about leaving the computer on for a bit to warm up the processor/heatsink to separate it easily. Is it possible that by leaving it on for half the day that it fused together?

Well, I just tried re-installing my old CPU to see if it might work again. It didn't. At least I had something show up on the screen this time, telling me that the cable wasn't connected to the video card (it was) and beeping like a truck going backwards...but on steroids.

Now I'm convinced that not only did I kill my mobo, but both processors as well as I inadvertently yanked both of them out of a secured socket. The new one had fresh paste and I was surprised at how well it was secured to the heatsink.

My loss, my very expensive mistake...now it's time to admit my feebleness and buy a new system. Dammit.

Do me a favor, run up the bids on eBay for harvested parts from my dead PC, I need the moolah.

That's too bad . I remember messing around with my computer, and taking my processor out. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I got lucky. I went to rip the heatsink out and luckily for me the processor hadn't been stuck to it (It's a Dell, go figure ).

Well anyways I took the processor out of another computer to clean it out. It was doing what you were describing with all the lights on, but wouldn't do anything. After trying many things, it turned out a cable had come loose. We didn't even realize when tightening cables into places that we had pushed a loose cable back into place. So just try pushing every cable inside your computer into place, you never know.

Hope this helps!

TBH, I'm not 100% on this one. The way I'd look at it is that one, or both of them (cpu and mobo) is already dead. If they're both dead, then no harm done. If only mobo is dead, then nothing will work. If the cpu is damaged, then it shouldn't fit in there correctly (and don't force it!), so again, no harm done.



Shouldn't. Unless you didn't have any thermal paste in there...then it might, but I doubt it would fuse itself together.



Ouch....I must've missed the part in my earlier post where you mentioned that you forced both processors out. How did you force both out exactly?

Once the thermal paste is applied, then heated up, it's easy to remove it. Once it's heated up, then cooled down again, it hardens, almost "locking" the cpu to the heat sink. Using a hair dryer as I had mentioned will heat up the thermal paste making for easier removal.




Ummmmm.......no. With my luck, I'd win the bid then be stuck with dead parts!

I would think that the cpu's are fine. I have accidentally ripped one out before whith the cpu lock down. I thought I broke it for sure, bent pins and all. But I think Cpu's are tougher than people give then credit for. Mine worked fine after bending the pins back and stuff. I would also check what bios chip you have and look for the beep code for your chip. That could tell you exactly what you need to replace (if you need to at all).