ATX Mobo sockets... a rant.

[SteamWake]

So my desktop took a dump.

One minute playing then 'click' no power.

I have seen this before, probably a loose heat sink on the cpu.

Flop the PC on her side, ensure the heat sink is seated properly hit the power and the fans spool up, LED's on the mobo light up, nothing on the displays. Not even the splash screen for the BIOS.

Crap ! Fried another video card (I think).

Installed an old cheap GPU plug everything in and hit the power button. The fans spool up, the led's light, nothing on the displays.

Well lets try re-seating the RAM sticks... same results.

Well lets try re-seating the CPU which requires removing the heat sink. I reseated the CPU put the heatsink/fan back on (and plugged it in LOL) and hit the power button. For a moment a brief glimpse of hope The splash screen of the BIOS appears and 'click' no power. Okay maybe I dident get that heat sink on just so... I double check the heat sinks 'mating' with the cpu and hit the power. This time the power stays on but blank displays again.

Well that brief glimpse of hope inspired me to try to re-seat the CPU again this time while I had the CPU out I noticed a little bit of heat conductive grease had gotten onto the teeny tiny wire contacts of the CPU socket.

Better clean that off ! .... HUGE mistake !

The contacts in the socket are nothing more than hundreds if not thousands of 1very fine pieces of wire bent in kind of a question mark shape. There basically spring loaded to make contact with the pads on the underside of the CPU.

WARNING !!! Do not even LOOK at these contact wires the wrong way !!!

I tried to wipe up 'gently' with a paper towel the excess thermal grease and bent... quite easly... a few of the contact wires "OH NO" my wife was not pleased at these words.

So obviously my trouble shooting has come to a screeching halt. Yes I tried straightning out the wires but its like micro surgery and deemed to be a futile effort by me.

So now wether or not it was the mobo Ill never really know for sure but I'm going to have to replace it.

Oh yea I tried a known good power supply too.

[FIREWALL]

I'm a bit confused here. Every mobo I've ever had, the socket had HOLES and the CPU had all the little pins.

The only way to straighten the pins on a CPU is with a very small coffee stiring straw or a WD40 straw.

An even better way is " DON'T BEND THE PINS "

BTW what kind of mobo and cpu ?

[Seth8530]

Have you considered that it could be a bad PCI e Slot? If the slot is bad putting in another card wouldnt solve your problem. Also i thought most thermal paste today is non conductive. Double check your thermal paste.

Try putting the GPU and CPU into another pc and see if they work. Make sure your RAM is firmly seated.

Fixing pc's is a process of elimination.

[Reece]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

The contacts in the socket are nothing more than hundreds if not thousands of 1very fine pieces of wire bent in kind of a question mark shape. There basically spring loaded to make contact with the pads on the underside of the CPU.

Originally Posted by FIREWALL

I'm a bit confused here. Every mobo I've ever had, the socket had HOLES and the CPU had all the little pins.

The only way to straighten the pins on a CPU is with a very small coffee stiring straw or a WD40 straw.

An even better way is " DON'T BEND THE PINS "

BTW what kind of mobo and cpu ?

Yes sounds like the plastic shell of the CPU socket came off!! that's a write off!!
If the computer is running fine for a long period when this type of problem occurs then it is not likely to be the CPU/heatsink, unless you knocked it, even then the paste doesn't go brittle for over a year or so, just swivel it a little to re-seat it! All I can say is good luck!
EDIT: It was probably cohesion that caused the heatsink to bond to the CPU, pulling up would hold with tons of pressure, would explain why the shell came off, in the future twist the heatsink from side to side till it comes adrift!

[Arclight]

Originally Posted by FIREWALL

I'm a bit confused here. Every mobo I've ever had, the socket had HOLES and the CPU had all the little pins.

Starting with LGA775, all Intel sockets have it the other way around; the fragile pins are in the socket, the CPU has just contact-pads.

I remember placing a chip in this board for the first time; scary as hell. Requires quite a bit of force, for something so fragile, to get the clamp down that holds the CPU in place.

[SteamWake]

Heh I've straightened out my share of socket 7 chip pins.

[Arclight]

Ugh, such a nightmare. Trying to bend it back; "just a liiitlle further..."

*snap*

[SteamWake]

Hell the pins on a socket 7 chip are like giant redwoods compared to the 775's.

I have a machine to check the cpu in but now its irrelevant the MOBO has to be replaced anyhow.

With my luck it will turn out to be the cpu most likely

[Arclight]

My money is on the CPU as well. I tend to go by: nothing happens at all > motherboard or PSU. Powers on, but doesn't post > CPU. Powers on, but beeps error code > RAM or cards.

Ah, hope you get it sorted. Sucks when a component craps out and you're not exactly sure what needs to be replaced.

[SteamWake]

The saga continues...

I plopped the CPU into a known good machine and after resetting the cmos works fine... phew..

So I set out to get a new socket 775 mobo and guess what? You can no longer find a board with ddr ram slots. Its ddr2 or better brother.. so add some ram to that bill

[Arclight]

Hmm, P4? Be glad you don't have one that requires RDRAM.

Pair of DDR2 sticks aren't that expensive. I use Kingston HyperX for gaming rig, and I'd consider that cheap (especially considering a DDR3 kit would cost double, even more if I want to match the low latency of my current DDR2 kit).

[SteamWake]

So.. 240 bucks later I install the new MOBO check and recheck the cables.

Fired right up... all looks good .. windows loading screen comes up... reboot

Oh crap forgot about that part.. new chipset and all.

Skillfully using a windows xp install disk and the 'reapair' I managed to get virtually everything back without having to wipe the OS drive !

Its a convoluted process half new insall half repair, time comsuming and patience wearing one wrong step in there and poof you just reformatted.

I pulled it of and it beats the hell of wiping my drive and having to resort to pesky backups.

(Looks around a whistles.. sure yea backups.. )