Hey,
I've never built a PC before.. but have upgraded and know the basics.

I had two cases/systems and took the best from both to make the best of both worlds.. (I got this done at a shop).. now I want to use all the leftovers to make a system.

I've never done a CPU/fan and I got some thermal tape, or paper? weird stuff.. did what it said on instructions, put it onto the CPU then the fan/heatsink ontop.
Hooked up all the PSU cables needed, one harddrive and then tried to boot.

The first screen came up then a few seconds later the power goes straight off. I tried getting into the BIOS setup but still after a few seconds it goes off.

What could this be?
I don't want to have to take this to a shop and pay for probably one little issue to be fixed..

Asus P532-E SLI-PLUS motherboard
Dual core processor
2gb RAM

If you need more info to help me please ask!

Thanks
David

Well David.. I'm afraid I've never heard of thermal tape, or paper. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but if I had to guess at your problem I'd say your CPU is over heating in a matter of seconds and shutting down.

A quick google search does show some results for thermal tape. Not anything I would use on a CPU though.

If you want to do things properly, you need some thermal compound, namely Artic Silver which is known to be some of the best out there.

You'll need to clean both surfaces completely (I use contact cleaner which will dissolve all the previous compound) and use a thin layer of the compound, then make sure that the heatsink is securely fastened to the motherboard and securely contacting the CPU thermal surface.

Here's some further reading to help you out: http://forums.whatthetech.com/Thermal_Inte...al_t103650.html

This post has been edited by appleoddity: Nov 7 2009, 11:28 AM

Thankyou.

PCWorld had ran out of Thermal paste and reccomended the tape stuff.. It may not be upto the job or I may have applied it incorrectly, anyhow as I have spare I will try again with what i've got and then if still fails I will get the artic silver you recommended.

Do you recommend just using Contact Cleaner? or is there any other ways I can clean without purchasing it.. just as I want to try get it working ASAP.. I am prepared to get the cleaner in the week if there are no other options.

Do you apply it so it covers the entire CPU and the metal around it? Same as how much Artic Silver you'd apply..

I will check out the link, hopefully this is the issue otherwise there seems no other reason!

Thankyou so much!
David

Hi David.

I use contact cleaner, but other solvents will do the trick in order to get a nice clean surface. I have heard Acetone, and rubbing alcohol. But, I for one know that rubbing alcohol will work but takes 10 times as long to clean the surface than contact cleaner. It just doesn't dissolve the stuff very well. Acetone (certain finger nail polish removers) will probably work much better.

Anyways, it is very important you clean all previous material off both surfaces of the CPU and Heatsink. You should have a nice smooth metal surface.

With the thermal tape, make sure you have a piece of it that is the size of the surface of the CPU or very close. Remove any protective paper or plastic from the tape and stick it to the top of your CPU. Make sure there are no other protective layers that have to be removed from the tape and then seat your heatsink on to the CPU and lock it in place. You only apply the tape to the top of the CPU and then mate the heatsink to it. Make sure that your heatsink securely locks into place on all four corners of the motherboard. They can be tricky sometimes because you'll think they are locked into place but they are not really all the way into the board. It must be locked in securely and it will actually flex the motherboard and take quite a bit of pressure to get it locked in tightly.

Good guide here:

http://forums.whatthetech.com/Thermal_Inte...ial_t95526.html

Thankyou for your replies.

Before reading the replies I tried again from scratch and still got the same result.. How can a CPU get that hot that quick? is that really it?!

I'm gonna have to get some of the decent paste and contact cleaner it seems!

David

It doesn't have to be the CPU overheating. But, yes, if there is NO heatsink the CPU will overheat in a matter of seconds.

I learned my lesson once when I thought I would briefly power on a computer to see if the CPU was good. I was also curious if the CPU was getting power. It was an older AMD processor. I put it in the motherboard, and I held my finger on the chip itself to monitor the temperature. As soon as I pressed the power button the chip got so hot so fast that I couldn't pull my finger away fast enough and it left a blister on my finger.

On another note, I have seen the Celeron equivalent of Pentium 4's run without a heatsink all together.

It really depends on the chip, the speed, etc...
If not an overheating problem I would suspect maybe a power supply problem. These are the kinds of things you just have to try to narrow the problem down. Unfortunately, if you don't have the extra parts around it may be easier and maybe even cheaper to allow a shop to diagnose the problem correctly before spending money on parts that aren't the problem.

Try the paste as these folks describe, but as appleoddity said could be power supply related, in the main power supply or as I found out in the past power on/off switch sticking or making contact causing the system to shut down, when pressing it to turn on.

Could be other problems also, its a matter of trouble shooting to find the problem, hardware can cause problems also. Again it a process of elimination.

Hello,

I would look for a short.

I had this problem a while back. I have a tower PC on my floor with two USB plugs at the bottom of the case.

When I bent over to remove a thumb drive from a USB plug, I broke the thin piece of plastic separating the two USB plugs and bent some pins that then shorted against the case.

From then on, the PC would sometimes refuse to start. When I reached down to straighten up whatever I had bent, it would work again. For several months, I never realized that starting (or not starting) was related to bending or straightening the USB plug parts. I swapped parts around from about three computers and replaced every part in the PC (several hundred US dollars!) before I realized my problem. When there is a short or an overload like this, some motherboards shut the power down after 0.2 or 0.3 second (LEDs in fans "blip" on then go off). Other boards put a warning on the screen like "USB port overloaded, shutting down in X seconds" (and it counts down from 2 to 8 seconds or so).

(or your BIOS could be set up to shut down if it does not see an RPM signal from your CPU fan, as I think others are hinting at.)

Hope this helps.

EDIT: If you get some extra money, and you don't already have this feature, a tower case with USB plugs on the top is a real treat (and it will prevent the possibility of shorting in this way).

This post has been edited by Atreyu: Nov 14 2009, 04:30 PM