Help! New PC won't post.

[CrypticNetworks]

Yesterday, I went over to help a friend build a new rig that he really wanted. The specs are as follows:

• CPU-Ryzen 7 1700
• Mobo-Asus strix X370-F
• GSkill 16 GB of the RGB ram
• Asus strix GTX 1080

We booted everything out of the box and it posted like normal. We used the stock cooler then. When we booted it out of the box i dropped the cpu 4 inches and got thermal paste in the pins. I tryed to clean it to the best of my ability with a papertowel and toothpick. We put everthing in the case, boot it up and the case pcb for the front led logo (its a red H440) started smoking. My theroy is it shorted the motherboard or the paste affected the pins. I found something on Toms Hardware that suggests to stick the CPU in a cup of 90% alcohol for 5 to 10 minutes. And let it dry. We did that and i had to leave and that is as far as we got. Any ideas?  Thanks. The last thing i want to do is to RMA stuff. 

 

If you are in need of more parts just ask. Thank you. 

[stefanDB]

disconnect all the front panel connectors apart from the powerbutton, and also clean the motherboard with alcohol as good as you can. you should never have put a dirty CPU into that motherboard because an AM4 socket is really difficult to clean. and did you check if any of the pins were bent? if so, you can bent them back.

for the safety of other components it may be better to disconnect everything that isn't needed for a post, sadly there is no iGPU so the expensive GPU is the only option I guess, unless you have some old GPU to test it with. most likely the other components will be safe but you can't be sure. 

[CrypticNetworks]

16 minutes ago, stefanDB said:

disconnect all the front panel connectors apart from the powerbutton, and also clean the motherboard with alcohol as good as you can. you should never have put a dirty CPU into that motherboard because an AM4 socket is really difficult to clean. and did you check if any of the pins were bent? if so, you can bent them back.

for the safety of other components it may be better to disconnect everything that isn't needed for a post, sadly there is no iGPU so the expensive GPU is the only option I guess, unless you have some old GPU to test it with. most likely the other components will be safe but you can't be sure. 

Okay how do you clean the board. Just put a little alcohol in the socket and allow for it to evaporate?  No real bent pins. Actually none at all they all looked fine to my memory. I got a dino card ill use.