Computer will no longer power on.

kellyman · May 28, 2019

Hey everybody, I'm looking for some advice. I was installing some new drives and doing a bit of maintenance on my daily driver when I had the bright idea of taking the cooler off of my CPU and applying some fresh thermal compuond. This did not turn out to be as easy as I first thought and I ended up pulling the CPU clean out of the socket. When I tried to put it back in, the retaining arm no longer wanted to retain anything. I knew this was bad, but I hoped that I could use the cooler to secure the CPU to the mobo. It seemed to work until I tried to power the machine on and nothing happened. The mobo is getting some power as the RGB around the chipset turns on, but the power switch does nothing. The case fans don't spin, the lights on the video card do nothing, no signs of life. Does anyone have any advice as to how I can troubleshoot this problem? I was careful to make sure all the connections were where they belong, so I don't think it's something stupid like that. I don't want to buy a new CPU and mobo if only one is dead but I don't have any spare parts to swap around to try to find the source of the issue. The mobo is an ASRock Killer SLI/ac and the CPU is a Ryzen 5 1600x, if that helps at all. Thanks in advance.

TheKDub · May 28, 2019

Take the CPU back out, then take a look at the bottom of the CPU and at your CPU socket. Is there any damage on either? Any bent or missing pins on the CPU?

kellyman · May 28, 2019

3 hours ago, TheKDub said:

Take the CPU back out, then take a look at the bottom of the CPU and at your CPU socket. Is there any damage on either? Any bent or missing pins on the CPU?

Yeah, that was one of the first things I checked. Nothing looked amiss. Other than the retaining arm not holding the CPU down, everything appears fine.