Should there be a "crunch" when I lock it down?

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Halo Diehards

Halo Diehards

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Jan 17, 2014
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Hello, I am a first-build newb trying to trouble-shoot wth is going on with my computer. I have threads all over this place researching and narrowing down what the prob might be. Up here, we have the memory of the CPU "crunching" when I locked it down. It was horrifying when it happened, but everything seemed to start up and run ok - - for awhile.

I'd like to remove the CPU and take a peek at it, after reading a post somewhere this morning about the CPU fan possibly causing problems with RAM if it's not seated properly, and the importance of checking if there are bent pins. From the "crunch", I don't see how it's possible there isn't, but I also don't see how I could have done anything wrong; I mean, it's pretty self-explanatory: you drop the thing in the motherboard and clamp it down, right?

So, I was hoping to get some instruction on what I'll need to do to put it back together before I fire it back up. Will I need heatsink paste stuff for sure? (sorry, don't know the lingo) or is it something I can eyeball, or wat?

The clamps on the CPU "guide" and the motherboard guide did not match the actual clamps, so I basically had to figure it out by looking at it, but really I don't see any other way than how I did it. It wasn't "easy" though, and I had to apply more pressure than I was comfortable with. And then there was that crunch...

CPU: AMD FX 6300
Motherboard: Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0
 
Solution
M
the socket for amd chips slides to lock it in. with the lever down, the holes are closed. when the arm is up, the holes are open. when you put the chip in, when you close the lever, you are basically sliding the holes closed again. obviously, there are pins there now, so there will be a straining sound that you hear because the room that it had to close before, is no longer there and it is thus, clamping the chip down by grasping the pins.
intel is different these days where they dont use pins anymore, but there is still the straining. intel uses a different system of flat connections on the bottom. since there arent pins, they have a different way of clamping it down where there is almost a cover that folds down onto the chip, and...
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There should be no crunch. Did you align the arrows on the cpu and socket?
 
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I have locked/unlocked hundreds of AM2, AM3, FM2 cpu's. There is no "crunching" sound whatsoever. If it works he must have seated it properly.
 
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i never said it would "crunch", but depends on what his idea of "crunching" sounds like. i also have mounted plenty of CPUs in my day. they will definately sound like the clamp/lever is straining when it is being closed, and perhaps that is the sound he hears?
if you hear crunching like eggshells, or lightbulbs are being stepped on, then you will probably have an issue. but by crunching, he probably means the straining sound that sounds like a heavy duty spring makes when it is being compressed.
 
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p.s. biggest thing to pay attention to is to match up the arrow. there will be an arrow on the socket, and an arrow on the top of the chip that you light up. this is how you know you have it in the right way. also, make sure that the socket is all the way open when you are securing it. if not, the pin holes may not be all the way open thus causing the cpu to not fully be in the socket., on the other hand, if this was the case, you would know if you screwed it up.
 
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Yeah, the arrow was in the right place. The sound I heard was similar to what you might hear if you bent a ton of metal strands at the same time. It did not sound like springs from the bracket that holds it in, it sounded like it was coming from underneath the CPU. It sounded like something was grabbing the tines and bending them.

Can I check it, or do I have to reapply the paste if I pull the fan off? I don't have any, so I will have to get some first if I will definitely need it. The AMD processor had a strip on it w/ paste. There was also a bit of sliding around as I was trying to figure out the bracket, so maybe it needs more paste? The temperatures always look good in bios, but Windows keeps getting DLL and other errors after being up and running for a bit, and goes downhill from there. Pretty sure I've ruled out the HDD and RAM, so I'm eyeballing that AMD.
 
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the socket for amd chips slides to lock it in. with the lever down, the holes are closed. when the arm is up, the holes are open. when you put the chip in, when you close the lever, you are basically sliding the holes closed again. obviously, there are pins there now, so there will be a straining sound that you hear because the room that it had to close before, is no longer there and it is thus, clamping the chip down by grasping the pins.
intel is different these days where they dont use pins anymore, but there is still the straining. intel uses a different system of flat connections on the bottom. since there arent pins, they have a different way of clamping it down where there is almost a cover that folds down onto the chip, and that is clamped down. that setup seems to have an even louder noise that is even more disturbing.

if the system is working, as it seems to, your chip is fine. if there was somethign messed up, it wouldnt work at all.
removing the heatsink, best practice is to reapply paste.
if there is dll errors, to determine the real issues, other than using device manager, find out what the dll's point to as far as the culprit goes.
 
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Solution
melonhead, if you know a way I can teach myself how to find out where the dll's point to, I would be extremely grateful. I'm on the third HDD but like the fifth or sixth Windows installation, pretty sure I've tried two different versions of Windows 7 (Professional and Home Premium, both 64, both legit), and I'm also pretty sure every time this happens it's different dll errors.

Thanks for the thorough explanation of the straining involved in bracketing these things down. It reassures me I probably didn't do anything wrong there.

I read recently if the cpu is bracketed down even a little uneven it can cause issues with RAM, and since I'm exhaustively going down every avenue (this has been going on for MONTHS; I'd love to be able to actually use my new build instead of my old, slow computer). The system is not working fine: yesterday at one point my HDD wouldn't even show up in bios for boot priority, and I can't get it to show up to attempt Windows repair through the disc. All over I'm reading tweaked RAM causes an unstable system, which sounds to me like sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I just purchased two additional RAM sticks and tested with them and all the problems still exist, so it's looking like it's either the cpu, motherboard, or psu cables.

I'm ordering heat sink and continuing my trials! Thanks for your guidance :)

Edited - PS: does it matter what kind of heat sink? Because there's a ton of different kinds 😵 (metal based, ceramic particles, mixed, etc)
 
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heres the deal. if a cpu is having problems, it typically wont work at all. if it does work, but has issues, it will be heat related, or bsod related.
i honestly dont think it is the cpu. it is possible that it is, but my personal educated opinion is that it probably is not.
other than programs, one of the biggest things that cause errors, restarts, etc. is ram related, but i think you have a bigger issue going on for you. i would almost have to ask myself if it is a motherboard issue. the reason why i say this is because the bios is not reading the fact that the HDD is connected. it could be a HDD issue, but if you have tried 3 different, i would have to say that it probably is not. you may want to try resetting the bios to see what that does (remove the battery for a couple minutes to allow it to reset). see if that helps with the bios detecting the HDD.
you may want to write down the dll's that you see coming up in errors. they are probably all related. easiest way i find to determine dll error is to look up what teh dll is from on google. if the errors dont seem to be attached, and are kind of all over the place, i would consider a new MB. try disconncting all un-necessary items (cd drives, extra HDD, all ram except for one, etc. leave the bare minimum to see if that changes anything with dll errors, or with the bios not detecting the HDD.

also, what brand/model is your psu, with wattage?
 
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also, just to make sure i covered this...for your hdd, make sure everything is securely connected. i know someone will probably mention it, and should always be the first thing done, and i assume you have done it already?
 
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Yep, made sure HDD was securely connected. I've tried different wires, and I've tried plugging it into different ports on the motherboard, just in case the first two were messed up. The First four ports on the mb are SATA and the last two, one of which the optical drive is connected to, is IDE. (was SATA but switched it yesterday because now I'm having trouble re-installing Windows and I'd reset bios to default)

I didn't know about removing the battery. I will try that.

It probably is the motherboard. I've thought it was since the second HDD "fail". Tried to tell the guy supplying my parts, who ordered all the parts for my build, but he just kept replacing the HDD. My instincts say it's the motherboard, though.

CPU is AMD FX 6-Core 3.5 GHz, 14.0 MB Total Cache

Edit - Oh yeah I keep forgetting to add I don't just get dll errors, I get chkdsk errors too.
 
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Kk, thanks. On the advice of another tech friend, I'm running the CPU through SiSoftware Sandra tests today to make sure it's not somehow a bad CPU (he says he's had similar trouble, swapped out everything including the mb and it turned out the be the cpu), but as I've said before I've really thought it was the mb all along.
 
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