Is My Computer Borked?

[Jub]

So long story short my PC was overheating. Not a big deal in itself, but I figured now would be a good time to pull the CPU cooler to really get it cleaned out as canned air just wasn't cutting it. Well, when I pulled the cooler the CPU came with it and the panel that locks the CPU in cracked. So that's potential issue one and likely requires replacing the entire motherboard.

Issue two came when the CPU wouldn't come free of the cooler. I used isopropyl alcohol to loosen the thermal paste but to no avail. I tried a little heat (under 90 degrees C) to loosen things but that also failed. Thinking that if I couldn't get it off I had to buy a new one anyway I grabbed a hammer and a wedge gave it a little tap and popped the CPU off the cooler. A little iso later and both the cooler and CPU are cleaned.

So I pop the CPU, sans cooler, into the motherboard and try to lock things as best as I can. This is just trying to get my PC to post and, given that I'm posting here, that failed. So now my CPU might also be dead. I'm using a little super glue to try to repair the locking grate on my motherboard and hoping that this will fix the issue.

I really can't afford even the $200 or so that it will take to replace both motherboard and CPU. So on a scale of the glue should fix things to new parts and hope nothing else has died, how fucked am I?

[Ace Pace]

1 - With no heatsink, your CPU is very unlikely to boot. Do not start your PC without a cooler for the CPU and expect things to work. Unless you live in like canada and it's winter.
2 - If all that's broken is the locking grate, you can fix it, but don't use superglue. You should also buy thermal paste, should cost like nothing and can let you reuse the heatsink.

Also, hammer???

[Jub]

1 - With no heatsink, your CPU is very unlikely to boot. Do not start your PC without a cooler for the CPU and expect things to work. Unless you live in like canada and it's winter.
2 - If all that's broken is the locking grate, you can fix it, but don't use superglue. You should also buy thermal paste, should cost like nothing and can let you reuse the heatsink.

Also, hammer???

I figured that the heat shouldn't spike fast enough to cause a boot failure, I literally just wanted to see the system POST and then kill it. Given the issue with the locking grate, I wanted to get a test in without the heatsink reattached. If you think heat might be the issue, I have thermal paste and can attach the heatsink for another test.

What should I use instead of superglue to fix the gate? I would assume some form of epoxy that can withstand heat would be preferred but it's literally never come up before.

Yeah, a hammer was involved. You have no idea how stuck that heatsink was. It was in the isopropyl bath for over two days and wouldn't budge. I tried to be gentle with it using floss and other thin objects to get a corner free. I tried using slowly increasing heat to soften the old thermal paste. I only resorted to a hammer, which never actually touched the CPU itself, because if I couldn't get the CPU off the cooler it was unusable anyway. I figured at least this way I could test the CPU before buying a new one.

[rapidsquirrel]

I'm guessing your CPU is dead, probably from the hammer. I've seen a Pentium 4 run sans heatsink for a few minutes before thermal throttling, so your CPU should at least post in this case. That or the broken locking gate is not allowing the CPU to get a good contact.

It's worth a try to fix that gate (epoxy is a better idea), but I'd be surprised if it worked. I don't think CPU's are incredible delicate, but hammer.

[Jub]

I think you may be expecting a lot worse than what actually happened when I broke the CPU free from the heatsink. It wasn't so much a brute force thing as it was a few quick taps to drive a wedge between CPU and heatsink to free them from one another. The wedge itself actually bent from pretty little force so I don't even think the CPU took that much of a shock.

I'm more worried about the socket and a handful of bent (now straightened) pins than the impact. It's also worth noting that the CPU in question is an FX-8350 so it might be hitting thermal limit right away. Those CPUs aren't exactly known for running the coolest though I'd guess that it should still have enough time to post even without a cooler.

[Solauren]

1 - With no heatsink, your CPU is very unlikely to boot. Do not start your PC without a cooler for the CPU and expect things to work. Unless you live in like canada and it's winter.

Depending on where you are in Canada, that won't last very long.

[Zaune]

You realise you could have just left the CPU attached while you cleaned the heatsink with a lint-free cloth, right?

[Jub]

You realise you could have just left the CPU attached while you cleaned the heatsink with a lint-free cloth, right?

Trust me. I cleaned off as much thermal paste as I could. I started out gentle with a nice soft cloth and moved up to using alcohol as a solvent. I've done heatsink and CPU swaps before and nothing was ever stuck like this.

If I could have slotted the CPU with the heatsink still on I would have done that too. Unfortunately with the locking grate I have (well more the lever) and the size of the heatsink that didn't work. Trust when I say that I didn't give my CPU an alcohol bath and sharp tap with a hammer as first choices.

[Jub]

Update: The locking grate issue was not at all solved by the little dab of super glue I applied. I did that before posting here and it's small enough that it could be cleaned up easily.

Unfortunately, either due to that, the socket somehow being busted, or that my CPU is dead; my next test also gave the same result. This came after pasting the CPU up and attaching the cooler. Same CPU light, same lack of any action. I tried to keep the CPU pressed in the same direction that the lock grate would push it in case that might help too and nada.

I'm still willing to take a swing at an outside shot, something I've missed, but a friend offered to mail me out his old i5 and a motherboard that he saved after a recent round of upgrades. So I'm not entirely fucked except waiting for the parcel to arrive.

[Ace Pace]

If your pins are bent, you can usually straighten them out with a credit card or similar straight pieces of plastic.

[Jub]

If your pins are bent, you can usually straighten them out with a credit card or similar straight pieces of plastic.

Did that already. I found an object that was spaced almost perfectly to the natural spacing of the pins, so I could slide it through and gently nudge any pins that were off back into place. The chip sockets just fine at this point but from that stage on I get the same nothing as before.

The cooler being attached to the CPU made no difference. So I still have a dead CPU, dead socket, or damaged locking gate as my points of failure. I tried manually adding a bit of sideways pressure to the chip to simulate what the locking gate should have done, and that failed. I'm not sure what else I can do at this stage without either a spare motherboard or spare CPU to test with neither of which I have or want to get with a friend sending me an i5 and motherboard both of which are upgrades to my rig anyway.

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Just for those who want to come in but don't want to read the entire thread here's the skinny.

When I pulled my CPU cooler the CPU came with it. This cracked my motherboards locking grate and bent a few pins on the CPU itself.

Then the CPU refused to budge from the cooler with any reasonable level of force. I started gently removing the excess thermal paste. Moved up to Iso-alcohol, even tried to get a thin piece of plastic or dental floss between the chip and the cooler. That didn't work at all. I moved up the scale and heated the CPU to around 70C, hot but not dangerously so for this CPU. That failed. At this point, I used a hammer, really a shoe because I don't have many tools, a fairly flexible piece of metal as a wedge, with that and a couple of quick taps and the CPU is off the cooler.

Now with the CPU free of the cooler, pins all as straight as I can get them, I socketed the chip sans cooler and failed to get my PC to POST.

I attempted a repair of the locking grate and found that it had failed today.

I socketed the chip with the cooler. Still no POST.

So I'm currently sitting here with my CPU as ready to work as it ever can be, the cooler ready to go back on the CPU, a motherboard with a broken CPU locking grate, and no idea what to try next.

[Zixinus]

A functional motherboard with an AM3+ socket to know whether the CPU is bad or the old motherboard. Or both, which let's face it, is likely.