Accidentally overheated CPU?

[Lincis112]

Hey,

Did something really stupid today and need some advice now. Wanted to change thermal grease on my CPU today (it was almost worn off since the last time I've changed it), so I removed the CPU stock cooler off, applied the grease and started the system. Of course, I forgot to power the cooler back on. The system booted up for about 10 seconds, then it started beeping and shut down. After I saw my error and attached the cooler back on and tried to boot up again, a screen resembling bios pops up on the screen and says that CPU has changed and prompts me to open up bios, but when I press any of the buttons it tells me to, it does nothing. I have Pentium 4, btw.

I don't think I can fix anything here, but what's the situation? Did the CPU really overheat in that short time and it's cooked?

Thanks for any help!

 

[rolli59]

Try resetting BIOS! Possibly it is cooked!

 

[r3xx3r]

to reset the bios, pull the power cord and the cmos battery for 5 to 10 minutes (or use the jumpers or button) and after 5 - 10 minutes put the cmos battery back in then plug the power cable back in and try ur machine again.

 

[Lincis112]

I resetted the bios, but now the intel screen says "CMOS checksum error - defaults loaded"

 

[rolli59]

That is correct for resetting BIOS is it posting?

 

[Lincis112]

It beeped once (as in everything is fine).

 

[rolli59]

Does it load OS? If not you might have to do repair install since it could have corrupted it with the sudden shut down.

 

[Lincis112]

It completely freezes after that point and doesn't respond to any keyboard input. I tried putting in the OS disc, but it's still frozen and does nothing.

 

[rolli59]

Maybe the CPU is fried!

 

[Lincis112]

I guess so. Thanks anyways!

 

[festerovic]

double check the default settings are acceptable for your chip/RAM before you bury the dead.

 

[RazberyBandit]

If you can't even get into the BIOS, then the CPU's probably fried. That or the motherboard is. You could try stripping it down to bare essentials and breadboarding it, but I dunno if it's worth the hassle. Maybe there's a lesson to be learned...

I do find myself wondering how you came to realize that your thermal grease would "wear off" in the first place. And what exactly do you mean by "since the last time I changed it?" How often do you go around changing the thermal grease in your PCs?

Over the years, I've used some the cheapest/crappiest pastes ever and they worked for years. My brother's got two machines (AMD 754 and Intel Pent 4D) we built 5 or 6 years ago that run nearly 24/7/365, both using some cheap Dynex paste we bought at Best Buy. Neither has ever had a heat issue, and that's saying something for the P4 machine.