was the thermal compound just misapplied to the "top" of the CPU?? If so,
its very unlikely that had any effect. Did you check for bent pins??

I think the most likely suspect is that you have something wrong with the
way the front panel switches are connected to the mobo.

As far as the slow loading problem goes, 128MB of RAM isn't very much these
days, even if it is DDR. I don't run less than 256 on a Windows XP machine,
and 512 is much better. 128 can be adequate for a Win98 machine, if software
loads aren't demanding.
Jerome

>>>
>>>  Hello all,
>>>  The other day I was trying out a motherboard which is an Elitegroup
>>>  K7VTA3 v5.0.  I wanted to have it on my system since it has
>>>  the newer USB
>>>  2.0 on it. It also uses the newer DDR rams for its main memory.  My old
>>>  motherboard is an Iwill kk266r, that has a 640mb PC 133 RAM   I swapped
>>>  my AMD Athlon 1000 CPU to use the K7VTA3 mobo, and also using a 128 DDR
>>>  PC2100 on it.
>>>
>>>  Since I noticed that it has slowed down the loading of my
>>>  applications, I
>>>  decided to just revert back to my old configuration using my old kk266r
>>>  motherboard.  But in the process of cleaning out and replacing the
>>>  thermal compound on the CPU, I accidentally spread it on some of the
>>>  other parts of the CPU other than the die and tried to remove them as
>>>  best as I can using isopropyl alcohol, paper towel and cotton
>>>  buds.  And
>>>  when everything was back in place, I fired-up the machine and it would
>>>  not boot unless I push on the reset button on the front panel of the
>>>  tower casing.  Could the spread of the thermal compound have damaged my
>>>  CPU?  Everything is back to normal though after it is able to boot.
>>>
>>>  I have tried isolating the other cards and ram on my system and also
>>>  changed some settings on my bios but all of it did not help as well.  I
>>>  also took out the battery on my CMOS to clear it but it also did not
>>>  help.  Could my CPU or motherboard have gone bad after messing the
>>>  application of the Thermal compound?
>>>
>>>  I apologize for the long post but I need your help very much since this
>>>  is the only machine I have and am using right now.  I'd really
>>>  appreciate
>>>  any help you could extend with this problem.
>>>
>>>  Thank you very much,
>>>  Jal

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