I've had my current build for 3 years, it's been absolutely rock solid...well until yesterday.
i5-3570k OC'd to 3.8ghz
8 GB Patriot Viper Ram
ASrock Extreme MOBO
AMD Radeon HD7970
Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO
Samsung 850 SSD Windows 10 Installed
Seagate 1TB HDD Storage
Corsair 650W PSU
I decided on a whim that I'd reapply my thermal paste and cooler because...well I don't really know. It's been fine, I was bored I guess. I was cleaning out the tower, blowing out dust and decided to do it. I used my wife's nail polish remover (blue stuff with acetone) to remove the paste. I reapplied a blob...probably too much because some got on the front side of the CPU board itself (not underneath but on the green part of the board)
After reassembling, I ran Prime95 for 20 minutes and my temps were getting into the high 80c. I wasn't happy with this, but while gaming my temps never exceeded 65c so I thought it was ok. I was playing a match of Heroes of the Storm when the problems started. The computer had two lock ups, and then I lost both of my monitor signals while the computer was still on. Power was still being supplied to all components. I manually shut down, and then hit the power button to start it back up, not only does the monitor signal still not show, I cannot go to BIOS nor boot to Windows. Also, the computer will start up, shut down, then start up again and keep doing a cycle of starting up, shutting down, starting up over and over again.
My first thought is, oh crap I messed up my CPU somehow. Then I'm thinking it might be my PSU? Maybe MOBO? Who knows! I'm totally not technical enough to troubleshoot this on my own. I wanted to upgrade eventually but I was happy with my build, it ran all the games I wanted to play flawlessly and never gave me any problems until last night.
Any thoughts?
i5-3570k OC'd to 3.8ghz
8 GB Patriot Viper Ram
ASrock Extreme MOBO
AMD Radeon HD7970
Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO
Samsung 850 SSD Windows 10 Installed
Seagate 1TB HDD Storage
Corsair 650W PSU
I decided on a whim that I'd reapply my thermal paste and cooler because...well I don't really know. It's been fine, I was bored I guess. I was cleaning out the tower, blowing out dust and decided to do it. I used my wife's nail polish remover (blue stuff with acetone) to remove the paste. I reapplied a blob...probably too much because some got on the front side of the CPU board itself (not underneath but on the green part of the board)
After reassembling, I ran Prime95 for 20 minutes and my temps were getting into the high 80c. I wasn't happy with this, but while gaming my temps never exceeded 65c so I thought it was ok. I was playing a match of Heroes of the Storm when the problems started. The computer had two lock ups, and then I lost both of my monitor signals while the computer was still on. Power was still being supplied to all components. I manually shut down, and then hit the power button to start it back up, not only does the monitor signal still not show, I cannot go to BIOS nor boot to Windows. Also, the computer will start up, shut down, then start up again and keep doing a cycle of starting up, shutting down, starting up over and over again.
My first thought is, oh crap I messed up my CPU somehow. Then I'm thinking it might be my PSU? Maybe MOBO? Who knows! I'm totally not technical enough to troubleshoot this on my own. I wanted to upgrade eventually but I was happy with my build, it ran all the games I wanted to play flawlessly and never gave me any problems until last night.
Any thoughts?