HSF trashed MB?

hotbbq

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Mar 10, 2002
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I recently purchased a Thermaltake Silent Boost HSF to replace my noisy Volcano 6cu+. Little did I know what I would have in store for me.

I began by taking off the old HSF and cleaned up the ASIII on the CPU because I was going to put on the new Ceramique. I cleaned up as much dust in the case I could. I also took the HSF off my video card and cleaned the stock thermal grease off of it and applied some Ceramique to it as well as cleaning the fan with damp cotton swabs. After putting Ceramique on the CPU I put the Silent Boost on with no problems and put everything back in its place, leaving the side of the PC open. I plugged the PC back and pressed the power button.

Boom! In about two seconds I saw smoke emanating from somewhere and smelt the oder of disaster. I immediatly turned off the power and inspected the components. Everything looked just fine. Nothing was burnt or appeared damaged. To be safe I diconnected everything (drives, case fans, cards) except my primary hard drive and my video card and memory. I pressed the power button and would get power for about 4 seconds before it would just turn off.

Thinking I may have blown the video card I swapped in a older one and got the same results. Disconnected the hard drive, same results. Swapped out the power supply, same results. Eventually I took out the Silent Boost and put the 6cu+ back in with no grease. This time I got sustained power, but a steady beeping from the case speaker. I finally figured out that I could only stop the beaping if I used one stick of memory at a time (have 3, all of them worked). The computer would now at least try and boot up, but Windows XP would not boot. To be thourough I put the Silent Boost back in with no grease and once again, I could only get power for about 4 seconds then it would turn off. I ended up buying a new MB since everything else seemed perfectly fine. Everything is running back to normal now with the new MB, but I would really like the new HSF in since it is so much quieter. What I would like to know is if it is possible for a HSF to toast a MB? It was seated properly and did not appear to be contacting anything. I really do not know what it could have been. Any ideas?

<b>Only in America would a drive-up ATM have brail numbers.</b>
 

unitron

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Jul 13, 2001
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Just a guess, but since you are getting continuous beeping, it most probably a Video or memory problem. Video has been ruled out with your swap test. And since it only worked after you swap out the memory then most probably during your HSF installation you may have somehow damaged the memory components of your motherboard. I know most boards have the memory and CPU very close to each other and installing HSF require quite a bit of force.

I damaged my own mobo recently after cleaning and reinstalling my HSF and all care have been taken to avoid any damage to anything.
 

hotbbq

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Mar 10, 2002
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I thought so as well, but the memory works fine in my new motherboard.

<b>Only in America would a drive-up ATM have brail numbers.</b>