Athlon XP 3000+ V. Thermal Grease

Raiser

Hi All,

My Athlon XP 3000+ started overheating recently & needed fan up to helicopter levels to keep system stable :rolleyes: - I've put it down to crap thermal compound I found in lying in a box somewhere at the time - silicon based, and when CPU was removed I could see that it had dryed out considerably and was indeed not up to spec.

Wanted Arctic Silver as a reputable replacement - best I found was Akasa silver-based Thermal grease in Maplins.

Cleaned cpu die with Isopropyl alcohol and applied a film of grease to die. Replaced Coolermaster Aero 7 - awkward and was a lot of play on fastener mech. resulting in heatsink moving across die messing neat grease film up etc., & possibly splaying grease onto CPU itself [?]

Have done all of above numerous times without issue. But in hindsight I would say that I prob. have always used too much thermal compound/grease whatever.

Now PC will not boot - everything has power, but there is no BIOS screen or even POST beeps. CD-ROM activity LEDs blink and thats it, no HD spin-up.

:eek:


So to conclude; could Isopropyl alcohol have damaged something? My take on this is that it evaporates completely within seconds [?]

Also if enough Thermal grease hit the CPU could it cause shorts and prevent boot up ? Is this reversible by cleaning it carefully or is there a likelyhood that the CPU is permanently fried ?

All advice from ye boards folks experts or even if otherwise and interested in pitching in your two cents would be appreciated

P.S. If this is a lost cause cheer me up with bargains for MBoards + CPU + and PCI-E Graphics cards.

el Bastardo

I had a similar experience with an Athlon XP1700 a few months back. I cleaned the excess silver compound off the CPU (also akasa), assembled everything, booted up... and nothing, not a thing.

My view is that something (one of those etched contacts perhaps?) got silvered and prevented boot up (not necessarily by shorting anything). Anyway, my setup was so old that I had to replace the whole lot.

So, until someone tells me otherwise, then I reckon it's a lost cause.

BKtje

try taking the heatsink off again and having a look at the chip and cleaning where necessary. I've dropped a cpu into isoprophy alcohol before and it worked fine (least thats what i think it was ).

el Bastardo

AFAIK, alcohol (isopropyl etc) doesn't damage chips. Chips can be washed with both distilled water and alcohol.

pred racer

As above. in my experience, most of the damage is done when trying to get the fiddley/too tight/badly designed heatsink/fan units back on, with some of them an awful amount of pressure is applied to the cpu and mounting socket, damaging both mobo's and chips.
again from personal experience Id say the cpu is borked, but try to get your hands on another one to test, or plug yours in another system.:o

edit:- The too much grease bit is normally only a problem for oc'ers unless that is it was flowing out the sides

Raiser

- will do a thorough cleaning job with IPA, reassemble & retest.

Unfortunately I don't have a substitute chip to give me instant answers.

Only thing now is that Conroe is beckoning and doing a nifty little jig that my Visa card seems to find ultra EROTIC.

Raiser

As per usual helpful advice here on the boards - took chip out and cleaned it with lashings of IPA - taking time and great care. Cleaned quite vigorously though as it was last chance saloon :eek:

Then let it sit a bit longer than last time to let every last bit evaporate.....

.....PC is booting once more.

Assume that that Akasa gunk does a great job of conducting electricity so.

- Am delighted as even though I'm going to jump on the Conroe bandwagon shortly I'm waiting for things to mature a bit and some new chipsets etc. to come out in next few months.

So thanks again for the help folks !!!