[SOLVED] CPU pins have dried thermal paste on them, can it be fixed ?

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EduardoG357

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Oct 2, 2020
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Hello, 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. The PC turns on with all the fans spinning but no signal on the monitor. I removed the CPU from its socket and found dried thermal paste on a few of the outer pins. This is probably what's causing the issue so I want to try to remove this and see if that fixes things. Any tips on removing this dried thermal paste from CPU pins and will this actually work or is the CPU probably dead?

Specs
Asus TUF B450M Plus Gaming Motherboard
AMD Ryzen 5600X
2x16GB RAM
700W PSU
RTX 3060TI
 
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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.
 
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Lutfij said:
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.
Click to expand...

Here is a full list of the specs.
Currently using a working PC to test out the motherboard and CPU. Essentially using all the parts from the working PC except the motherboard and CPU so I know for sure everything else works fine.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5600X
CPU cooler: Stock Cooler
Motherboard: Asus TUF B450M Plus Gaming
Ram: 2x16GB 3200hz
SSD/HDD: 500GB Sata SSD
GPU: RTX 3060TI
PSU: Thermaltake 700W PSU
Chassis: Corsair Obsidian
OS: Windows 10 64bit
Monitor: Generic HP 1080p monitor
 
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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.
 
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Update: I got the motherboard and cpu to boot after cleaning the thermal paste off the socket. Now I'm getting stuck in the BIOS screen stating "Please press DEL orF2 to enter UEFI BIOS setting". I keep pressing both these keys but nothing is working.



It does boot into BIOS when I have one or none of the 3 drives plugged in. It also makes a chirping noise when I have two or more drives plugged in.



After having multiple drives plugged in and stuck in the boot screen, it automatically loads into BIOS. Problem is that there are no bootable drives listed even though one of my SSD has a bootable windows OS. Any help?
 
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EduardoG357 said:
The bootable OS is from the SSD that was previously used on this pc. Just switched out the motherboard and cpu.

I updated the BIOS but that doesn't seem to change things.
Click to expand...
New motherboard often means a full OS wipe and reinstall.

But, the non-drive recognition is a whole different thing.

Physically disconnect ALL drives except the one you want the OS on.
Is it recognized?
 
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USAFRet said:
New motherboard often means a full OS wipe and reinstall.

But, the non-drive recognition is a whole different thing.

Physically disconnect ALL drives except the one you want the OS on.
Is it recognized?
Click to expand...


I disconnected all the drives except for the boot drive and it kinda boots. I keep getting an American Megatrends error of CPU fan not working even though its spinning fine. It after sends me to BIOS to which I can boot into Windows but I have to go through this cycle everytime.
 
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I was able to fix the CPU fan error by ignoring rpm speed in bios. So now the system works when using 1 drive only. When multiple drives are being used, I still get stuck on the bios screen and cant access it since its not recognizing my keyboard pressing F2 or DEL
 
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Another update:

Got Windows to boot with my 2 SSD. Problem now is my hard drive doesn't to work. Whenever the hard drive is plugged in, it makes the system get stuck in the BIOS boot screen. It also makes a loud sound as if a shaft was spinning without lubricant. My hard drive might be dead? It was working fine earlier today before dismantling the computer to put the new motherboard and cpu in. Any ideas on how to fix the hard drive?
 
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EduardoG357 said:
Another update:

Got Windows to boot with my 2 SSD. Problem now is my hard drive doesn't to work. Whenever the hard drive is plugged in, it makes the system get stuck in the BIOS boot screen. It also makes a loud sound as if a shaft was spinning without lubricant. My hard drive might be dead? It was working fine earlier today before dismantling the computer to put the new motherboard and cpu in. Any ideas on how to fix the hard drive?
Click to expand...
That sounds like a physically dead HDD.
Non consumer fixable.
 
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