Thermal paste buildup on CPU pins is a common issue, but it can often be resolved by cleaning the area properly.
Thermal paste buildup on CPU pins is a common issue, but it can often be resolved by cleaning the area properly.
Hello, I just bought a motherboard, CPU, and RAM combo from the marketplace to upgrade my existing PC. Over the past two days, the system hasn’t booted up properly. The computer powers on with all fans running but no display output. After inspecting, I found dried thermal paste on several of the CPU pins. This seems likely to be the cause, so I’m planning to remove it and check if that resolves the problem. Any advice on how to safely take off this paste and whether it should actually be removed?
You don't need to worry about the thermal paste on the pins. If you really want to remove the paste off the pins, use isopropyl alcohol and a soft bristled tooth brush, just make sure you don't bend or break any pins.
700W PSU
700W is the advertised wattage of the unit, what is the make and model of the unit? How old is the PSU?
recently purchased a motherboard + cpu + ram combo from marketplace to upgrade into existing PC. For the last two days, I have been running into issues of the system not booting up.
You will need to reinstall the OS, due to you swapping the motherboard.
On that note, please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model. BIOS version for your motherboard at this moment of time. Since you performed an upgrade, we'll be seeing two sets of specs. One for before the upgrade and one for after the upgrade.
The CPU is much easier than getting it out of a socket. Many many youtube videos showing how to do it but basically it is as stated above you us alcohol let it soften the paste for a bit and then very carefully try to wipe it off. Paste on the pins seems to not make much difference there are also youtube video of intentionally putting massive amounts of paste into the socket to show the machine will still boot. The thermal paste itself will not damage the pins/sockets. Now if you were using something like liquid metal then that is a different story. Almost all thermal past is non conductive.
First I would search and see if you can find a diagram for the pinout and see what those pins do. There are lots of pins on cpu that connect to nothing and many others that are power and ground which there are a lot of extras.
Buying used stuff off used market is always a risk of getting scammed.
Gets really hard to troubleshoot issues like this if you do not have spare parts you can swap around to determine what is causing the issue. It is unlikely it is the thermal paste. More it would be how did paste get there. Your problem could be that the cpu cooler was mounted with uneven pressure which will cause one side of the cpu not to make good contact and maybe let paste get in. A improperly mounted cooler is one of the very many things that can cause a machine to not boot.
The motherboard isn't originally compatible with the 5600X. It might be due to a BIOS issue.
Updated the motherboard and CPU to start working after removing the thermal paste from the socket. Now the BIOS screen keeps asking to press DEL or F2 to enter UEFI settings, but pressing both doesn’t help. Booting into BIOS works whether one or all three drives are connected. It also produces a chirping sound when multiple drives are plugged in. After connecting several drives and still stuck in the boot screen, it automatically loads into BIOS. However, no bootable drives appear even though an SSD with a bootable Windows OS is present. Any advice?
A new motherboard usually requires a complete OS reset and reinstall. However, the non-drive identification differs significantly.