As I understand it, your computer stops somewhere in the booting process, you hit the reset key, and then
it boots and runs fine with no problems until you turn it off and have to repeat this process upon
turning it on again.

Where in the booting process does it stop?  While Windows is loading or before?  (If it is stopping while
Windows is loading, that looks more like a software problem.)

I doubt that you damaged the cpu, or your computer would not run fine after the reset.  Compound on the
pins might cause some intermittent connectivity  problems, but you are not experiencing this symptom.
You are very lucky, as the biggest danger to your cpu was not the compound, but static electricity -
which could have damaged it while you were cleaning it.

My guess for your problem is a weakening power supply.  It doesn't have quite enough oomph to get
everything going, but when you reset it, the disks are spinning so the higher start-up voltage/current
is not required.  This is just a guess - others may have a better suggestion - so don't go out and buy a
power supply just yet; after all, it IS working, just a little extra boot time is required.   (If you
could borrow a working power supply from another computer, you could easily test this.)

I suggest that you make sure all your connections are tight - sometimes when working inside the case you
loosen something.  Your symptoms don't seem to indicate that, however.

Dean Kukral


----- Original Message -----
From: Jal E. Montero
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2005 2:02 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] Boot-up problem


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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