ryzen 9 7950x New Ryzen 9 7950X Died After Thermal Paste Upgrade (PLS HELP)

[THEPASHKA]

So, I have upgraded my pc to a R9 7950x with Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master and Corsair 32gb (2x8) DDR5

 

During initial build/upgrade (2 weeks or so ago). I found that I have ran out of thermal paste. There was a bit left, but I didn't feel like it was enough, despite that I decided to apply what's left and buy some new thermal paste later.

 

PC worked fine, temps ware a *normal for that CPU* at 100% it was at 95c while boosting to 5.35 GHZ (Running with AIO), had some issues with AMD's EXPO mode, to get  RAM running at 5600mhz. After I have enabled it, It booted showing only 24gb instead of 32gb. After I did a reboot (It was long, around 5 - 15 min) and re-enabled EXPO, and it was working correctly at 5600mhz. (I did hear a low pitch noise from RAM sticks under load and sometimes in idle)
 

So a few days ago finally ordered well described Noctua NT-H2 paste.

It arrived yesterday, today I woke up, I booted up the PC for around 10 min and turned it off again. Waited for about 30 min for it to cool down (just in case). Removed the AIO cooler, cleared old thermal paste, applied new one, assembled everything back, turned it on, and immediately noticed that I didn't plug power & data cables for AIO Pump. Quickly powered off the system (it was running like that for less than 5 seconds).
Made sure everything is plugged in. Turned it on again, fans started spinning, everything looked normal, but there wasn't any post codes (I do not remember, if there was any during first "aborted" boot)
Onboard numeric display did not show any POST codes, and Q-LED was switching from DRAM to CPU for 1 second, every 10 - 20 secs. After a few minutes in this loop, it goes back to DRAM and stops switching.

 

I was careful when applying thermal paste,
I'm sure I did not over tightened the AIO,
I have tried using every single DRAM slot with both ram sticks, (except 1st one, AIO pipes covers it),
I have q-flashed the BIOS to latest version,
I have made sure all the connectors on RAM and ram slots are clear,
I have made sure all other connectors are connected properly,
I have tried using clear CMOS button & jumper,
I have tried unplugging the GPU,
I have tried booting completely without any ram sticks, (Same Q-LED indication as booting with ram).

I have pulled the board out of the case, and tried booting outside (Not sure what I was expecting, but yea..)
I have even gone to disassembling the board's backplate, to gain access to the CMOS battery, but the backplate have tones of thermal compound between it and the actual board, and I thought I might lose warranty if I started pulling that apart despite none of the screws having any "Void if removed" stickers.

Tried booting without any coolers attached, so I could feel the CPU, but it wasn't even warming up (I have touched it on the sides, and it was only running for less than 30 sec)

USB devices do light up, if trying to run the board completely without CPU, it doesn't even attempt to start.

I still think, it might be dead RAM. I did have problems with it, and I did hear low pitch noise when it was working, that noise was really noticeable when under load / stress testing. But I didn't think much of it, since DDR5 has a voltage controller thing on the actual stick that might have been emitting that noise

So, what should I do, other than going through RMA?
Or what have I done wrong, what could have possibly killed it?

 

P.s. This is way far from my first time upgrading components, replacing thermal paste etc... But never had anything similar. 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

So the postcode display is blank and not showing codes or is it stuck at 00?

 

Blank postcode = socket related or power delivery related, have a p8z68 deluxe that had dirty vrms so when the vrms didnt wanna work the board had blank postcode and the cpu was cold when touched (though i dont reccomend taking off the heatsink and testing like that unless you either got a low power cpu or you can shut the thing off within a second or 2 usually via shutting the psu off with its power switch), though its fixed now after dunking it in water (ofc discharged first)

 

00 = cpu ded (exceedingly rare) or socket related, well usually but 00 can be caused by basically anything that makes the board completely non functional and not even try to post (does not include stuff like ram, thatd likely get stuck at a postcode like 20 or whatever postcode for no rams detected

 

 

If the cpu is cold then rma the board cause vrms problably defective

[THEPASHKA]

28 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

So the postcode display is blank and not showing codes or is it stuck at 00?

 

Blank postcode = socket related or power delivery related, have a p8z68 deluxe that had dirty vrms so when the vrms didnt wanna work the board had blank postcode and the cpu was cold when touched (though i dont reccomend taking off the heatsink and testing like that unless you either got a low power cpu or you can shut the thing off within a second or 2 usually via shutting the psu off with its power switch), though its fixed now after dunking it in water (ofc discharged first)

 

00 = cpu ded (exceedingly rare) or socket related, well usually but 00 can be caused by basically anything that makes the board completely non functional and not even try to post (does not include stuff like ram, thatd likely get stuck at a postcode like 20 or whatever postcode for no rams detected

 

 

If the cpu is cold then rma the board cause vrms problably defective

It's completely blank (not lit up)
I would doubt that it's dirty vrms, the board is less than 3 weeks old, and it did function 30 minutes prior to the disassembly of the cooler. Damm, have I really managed to damage the socket ...
Wouldn't damaged socket prevent from Q-Flashing the board thought?  (If CPU is completely removed, the board acts differently)

[Somerandomtechyboi]

4 minutes ago, THEPASHKA said:

It's completely blank (not lit up)
I would doubt that it's dirty vrms, the board is less than 3 weeks old, and it did function 30 minutes prior to the disassembly of the cooler. Damm, have I really managed to damage the socket ...
Wouldn't damaged socket prevent from Q-Flashing the board thought?  (If CPU is completely removed, the board acts differently)

Take a pic of the socket

Sometimes boards just randomly die so yea not surprised

[THEPASHKA]

7 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Take a pic of the socket

Sometimes boards just randomly die so yea not surprised

Here are the pics. I can take it out of the socket as well, but I did make sure that all the pins are good a few hours ago

[Somerandomtechyboi]

35 minutes ago, THEPASHKA said:

Here are the pics. I can take it out of the socket as well, but I did make sure that all the pins are good a few hours ago

Take the cpu out gotta see the pins

May aswell take a pic of the cpus underside with the golden pads

[THEPASHKA]

5 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Take the cpu out gotta see the pins

May aswell take a pic of the cpus underside with the golden pads

Sure!