Help! PC Booting And Restarting Issues + Removing Thermal Paste

Pervy · June 6, 2015

First things first, my PC specs.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/K8dPdC+ windows 7 ulti

Okay now the problem...

Okay so yesterday I got my Hyper 212 Evo and installed it...and the picture in the manual mislead me to think I should use a considerable amount of thermal paste on the CPU....plus I thought why not since I had issues keeping this guy cool before. So after getting everything installed, I got on my PC and everything worked fine for the rest of the day. I even fell asleep and left a pretty heavy game up, Black Desert Online.

I wake up today and resume playing said game and after like an hour of gaming and other things my entire PC randomly freezes completely. I pushed the reset button and it wasn't working for some reason, and simply pushing the power button didn't work either so I held down the power button and that managed to turn off the system. After all of this I'm suddenly unable to boot up my PC. It takes a bit longer to show the gigabyte screen and everything and eventually my monitor shuts off and all my peripheral's LED's go off. Turns out it was getting to the Gigabyte logo and then restarting...over and over. And after reseating my RAM it got to the screen where it says windows didn't start properly and gives me the option to run startup repair (Which I ran but it wasn't able to fix anything automatically).

So after a lot of troubleshooting I eventually determine it has to be either the cpu or the motherboard...I check the CPU and turns out the thermal paste had been getting into the CPU socket and there was a bit in the on the CPU pins and around the socket. I used alcahol to try and clean the CPU off, got most of it but there's still a little in the CPU pins and got most off the CPU socket but there's some holes that still have some in there.

After cleaning I put an old athlon CPU in there to test if everything was working and the computer started up fine and I let it run for about 5 minutes before trying with my 8350 again. It worked for a good while then shut off again and started the same problem I had before, this time it shows a blue screen that shows too quickly to read before it shuts off.

After a few tries my PC has stayed on long enough for me to make this post, idk when it will shut off again but if anyone can help me out here i'd like to know a few things.

1. What are the dangers of having thermal paste in the socket or on the pins? I don't believe it is conductive thermal paste but if anyone knows, it's the one that came with the cooler master hyper 212 evo.

2. Is there any way I can get the rest of the thermal paste out there without spending much money?

3. Any other recommendations are appreciated...

Thanks guys.

kevink817 · June 6, 2015

I'm not sure if the thermal material with that cooler is conductive or not, but at any rate, you should clean as much off of the CPU pins as possible. I'd use high-purity isopropyl alcohol (90%+) to clean off the thermal paste, probably using a soft bristled brush while being very careful to not bend any pins... If the paste is non-conductive, then instead of shorting the pins, it can actually work to insulate them and prevent them from making good contact with the board, so get the holes in the socket as clean as possible.

Good Luck.

G33k 4 L1F3 · June 6, 2015

1. What are the dangers of having thermal paste in the socket or on the pins? I don't believe it is conductive thermal paste but if anyone knows, it's the one that came with the cooler master hyper 212 evo.

2. Is there any way I can get the rest of the thermal paste out there without spending much money?

3. Any other recommendations are appreciated...

Thanks guys.

Thermal paste, if not conductive, and is on your pins, can cause interruptions between the board and the chip. if it is conductive, it can cause bridging with multiple pins... talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place...

Honestly, you done goofed on this part. If you are the most careful person in the world, and have the patience of a hawk, then see about using a toothpick and some 90% isopropyl alcohol, if not, your just going to have to see if you can return(doubt it.)

I recommend you read up on what thermal paste actually does. the only purpose is to help transfer heat from the CPU to the heatsink. with too much, you can cause the heat to take much longer to get through the paste, and causing a backup of heat, which can cause overheating. excessive paste that oozes out from the pancake heatsink to CPU winds up where you found it... which is bad news bears.

AMD chips need a edge to edge X of thermal paste on the CPU, intel only needs a dime sized dot in the middle. thats it. what you did, well, your just going to have to face that fact that you done goofed.

Flashie · June 7, 2015

Bring out the pins and needles and a strong torch and some freetime.

Pervy · June 8, 2015

I'm not sure if the thermal material with that cooler is conductive or not, but at any rate, you should clean as much off of the CPU pins as possible. I'd use high-purity isopropyl alcohol (90%+) to clean off the thermal paste, probably using a soft bristled brush while being very careful to not bend any pins... If the paste is non-conductive, then instead of shorting the pins, it can actually work to insulate them and prevent them from making good contact with the board, so get the holes in the socket as clean as possible.

Good Luck.

Thermal paste, if not conductive, and is on your pins, can cause interruptions between the board and the chip. if it is conductive, it can cause bridging with multiple pins... talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place...

Honestly, you done goofed on this part. If you are the most careful person in the world, and have the patience of a hawk, then see about using a toothpick and some 90% isopropyl alcohol, if not, your just going to have to see if you can return(doubt it.)

I recommend you read up on what thermal paste actually does. the only purpose is to help transfer heat from the CPU to the heatsink. with too much, you can cause the heat to take much longer to get through the paste, and causing a backup of heat, which can cause overheating. excessive paste that oozes out from the pancake heatsink to CPU winds up where you found it... which is bad news bears.

AMD chips need a edge to edge X of thermal paste on the CPU, intel only needs a dime sized dot in the middle. thats it. what you did, well, your just going to have to face that fact that you done goofed.

Bring out the pins and needles and a strong torch and some freetime.

**UPDATE**

So I managed to fix my CPU through the extreme carefulness and the patience of a hawk. I used some alcahol, a bunch of Q tips, and a tiny nail and went to town. At first the CPU didn't work but now it seems to be working fine. Seems I need to replace the motherboard though.