What's up people...
The 478 socket on my motherboard is totally messed up, and the CPU pins won't engage no matter how I stick it in there, so when I power-up, I get zilch (black screen, no BIOS, CPU is not detected).
All I wanted to do was dust out my case; I decided to do a thorough job, since I rarely do it at all, and so pulled the heatsink out to clean the fins. But the heatsink was glued to CPU (thanks to the stupid thermal paste) and got ripped right out of the latched socket. I spent 45 mins trying to get the CPU off the heatsink without destroying it, reapplied thermal paste and stuck it back in -- the system started and everything was ok.
While playing Far Cry this afternoon, the computer suddenly rebooted: the CPU was overheating. Annoyed, I pulled it out to reapply thermal paste all over again, thinking I probably did a crappy job the first time, but when I put it back in, I got a black screen. I figured the CPU might be fried, so I pulled out an old 478 Celeron I have and put it in -- nothing, just a black screen.
I grabbed a flashlight and looked at the socket while playing with the lever; it's wiggling around in a weird way that doesn't look normal at all, like it's moving too far back. I'm also fairly sure it's the socket because I got the computer to boot once with the Celeron, but when I stuck the Pentium back in, the pins wouldn't engage. I tried the Celeron again and it stopped working too.
So, can I replace the socket, or do I need a new mobo? Any advice? And if someone knows about how these sockets function (mechanically that is), please share that info -- maybe I can jimmy it and get the pins to connect.
God I wish I had left the dust alone...
The 478 socket on my motherboard is totally messed up, and the CPU pins won't engage no matter how I stick it in there, so when I power-up, I get zilch (black screen, no BIOS, CPU is not detected).
All I wanted to do was dust out my case; I decided to do a thorough job, since I rarely do it at all, and so pulled the heatsink out to clean the fins. But the heatsink was glued to CPU (thanks to the stupid thermal paste) and got ripped right out of the latched socket. I spent 45 mins trying to get the CPU off the heatsink without destroying it, reapplied thermal paste and stuck it back in -- the system started and everything was ok.
While playing Far Cry this afternoon, the computer suddenly rebooted: the CPU was overheating. Annoyed, I pulled it out to reapply thermal paste all over again, thinking I probably did a crappy job the first time, but when I put it back in, I got a black screen. I figured the CPU might be fried, so I pulled out an old 478 Celeron I have and put it in -- nothing, just a black screen.
I grabbed a flashlight and looked at the socket while playing with the lever; it's wiggling around in a weird way that doesn't look normal at all, like it's moving too far back. I'm also fairly sure it's the socket because I got the computer to boot once with the Celeron, but when I stuck the Pentium back in, the pins wouldn't engage. I tried the Celeron again and it stopped working too.
So, can I replace the socket, or do I need a new mobo? Any advice? And if someone knows about how these sockets function (mechanically that is), please share that info -- maybe I can jimmy it and get the pins to connect.
God I wish I had left the dust alone...