Bad install - did I damage my CPU ? No beep on boot

How depressing....

I got a Soyo K7-VME mobo, Athlon 2400 mobile and Arctic cooling Copper Silent 2M. Waited all week to begin the building (wife went out of town today), and I think I've done a Bad Thing to the cpu. I'm trying to do a POST test, so this is all sitting outside the case, bare minimum connections. There's no drives connected yet.

I put a little copper paste on it (perhaps a little too much, it's spilled over the side of the die a little bit, but doesn't seem to be touching any other bared metal on the die) and attached the heatsink/fan. Trouble is, the bugger is so big it actually touches the place where the cpu fan plugs into the mobo. I think the four pads on the die are making up the difference in pressure, but who knows ?

I have a brand new 350W psu and *it* starts, but there's no beep and no video from the mobo itself. I'm pretty upset about it - this is my first build and I spent ages getting the parts at great prices (newegg - you rock !) but I seem to have messed it up. Is there anything I can do, or should I RMA the CPU ?

Yours un-techily
Brian

I should've mentioned that the CPU fan is not spinning up either, though the wires look intact on that, even though the heatsink is pressing on it pretty hard.

OK, n00b mistake...I only connect the main 24 pin power thingy to the mobo and didn't notice the 4 pin power thingy next to the cpu. It'd be nice if the freakin' soyo quickstart guide SAID SOMETHING about it !

Anyway, the cpu fan spins up for a second or two, then shuts the whole system down. Still no beep.

By way of reassuring myself that I *can* hook up at least one wire correctly, I HAVE A BEEP ! When I remove the RAM from the mobo, then boot, I hear one beep before it shuts itself down. When I put the RAM back in (Kingston 512MB DDR PC2700), I'm back to "4 seconds of cpu fan spin and goodnight sleepytimes") mode.

I have cleared the CMOS a couple of times. And now I'm going to sleep myself. I think maybe the issue with the heatsink not fitting snugly (one corner is right on top of the CPU FAN plug) is making it shut down. I'll pop out tomorrow and buy another fan, smaller this time, and see if it helps.

Thanks for reading me this far :)

I talked to a local computer repair guy and he thinks its the motherboard. Even if the heatsink is not *perfectly* fitted, it should still turn on and boot for more than a few seconds. The worst that should happen in my situation is that the cpu would run hotter than it should, because the HSF isn't completely touching the die.

So I'll try to get an RMA from mwave.com, where I bought the mobo.

If any of what I've said sounds wrong, I'd still like to hear about it.

Please use the edit button instead of multiple posts next time ;) And good luck with the RMA.

I had a similar problem with a build (rig one). I hit the start button, it would flash for a second, the CPU fan would make a couple of turns, then nothing. If I tried again, it would not work at all unless I turned off the power switch in the rear of the PSU, then it would do the same thing; flash and then nothing. Through extensive trial and error, I found that I had a bad case fan that shorted out and caused the PSU to trip. (F***ing Antec fans). After disconecting/replacing the fan, it worked fine. BTW, I'm not sure I get how your CPU fan is connected, but I think it is preferrable to use a 3 to four pin connector and connect the fan directly to the power supply with a Molex connector. Use an adapter with a connector using one wire to connect to the MOBO so you can monitor the CPU fan. Otherwise, a big cpu fan can kill the fan header on the CPU.

Wow...this is good stuff. Sorry about the multiple posts - won't do that again :)

I have the RMA from MWave, but their tech support said I might want to try another ram module, since the mobo beeps when there's no ram, and is silent when the ram is in.

I'm going to buy another fan, one that is smaller and so eliminate it as a consideration. I've just thrown the big one in the rubbish - I'm that angry at it :) Plus I damaged it trying to modify the shape of the plug so the 84mm length heatsink didn't touch it.

My mobo, BTW, can be seen
here
The 3 pin cpu fan connector is just below where the cpu sits, and the 12V molex is above it. When I connected the molex plug, the fan *did* spin, so I think *it* wasn't the problem. But it was too big anyway, so dropping another $20 on a proper sized one won't hurt.

Y'know, I can see why people pay to have others do this stuff for them :) Anyone live near West Palm Beach ? Would you come and do this for a case of beer and a pizza ? It's probably easy once you've done it a few times, but I'm feeling really dumb here.

Hi all,
thanks for reading my depressed rantings :) I bought a new smaller fan today and it solved the problem. As the kind fellow above suggested, the big HSF was pressing on its own wires so hard that it was shorting out the mobo and causing a shutdown. The new, tiny, pathetic fan shifts half the air BUT doesn't cut into the wiring. It will do for now and later I may upgrade it to something taller, stronger but with the same overall dimensions.

Thanks for all the ideas guys.