Is my board dead?

[Elysium]

I've been using a E1200 CPU for about a week now while my E8400 comes. So yesterday I disassembled my system in preparation for the E8400, which is supposed to arrive Monday next week.

But, my dad had to get on the internet for some work related stuff. So he asked me to throw together my comp for the time being so he could get some work done. I put it together, no problems. Booted up. Comp says I have a new CPU (which I didn't) and that I needed to enter the BIOS. I noticed the CPU was a stock speeds (I had it at 3.2GHz, up from 1.6GHz before) so I proceeded to raise volts a little bit and exited the BIOS.

But after I exited the BIOS, the comp would not POST again. I cleared the CMOS, reseated the CPU heatsink, took out the battery for an hour, tried each stick of RAM individually in each of the slots. Still, the comp would go into a reboot cycle until I turned it off. There was no signal on the screen.

I thought the CPU might be overheating, so I reseated the heatsink again, and sure enough, the paste did not have an even spread. I cleaned off the CPU and heatsink, reapplied the ICD7, and tried again. Again, it went into this reboot cycle with nothing on the screen.

These are the only computer components I own, and I can't RMA the board because I put an aftermarket chipset cooler on it (voiding the warranty).

Any ideas guys?

[qazwsx]

Check for a short on the board, try putting it on a wooden table if needs be. Other than that, I cant see what it could be.

[Elysium]

Originally Posted by qazwsx

Check for a short on the board, try putting it on a wooden table if needs be. Other than that, I cant see what it could be.

Yeah, it's on my tech station (rubber standoffs) so nothing is shorting it out.

Lil update: Comp is no longer rebooting over and over, but now it's staying on but nothing is on the screen. I guess it's an improvement, but it's still not POSTing. Could it be my GPU?

[RA1D]

since the problems started immediately after changing bios settings, clear cmos, remove the battery and leave it off for some more time. try again later tonight.

[Elysium]

Update: Apparently the aftermarket heatsink was on too tightly. I loosened it a bit and now the board works fine. i guess there is a pressure limit of the NB?

[drew and not u]

That's.....
odd...

[polobunny]

FYI: The new CPU warning normally comes off everytime you install a CPU, whether or not it's new.

[Elysium]

Well, the comp is now POSTing consistently... but it's not booting into Windows consistently. I'm running Vista Ultimate 32bit, sometimes it makes it in and sometimes not, even at stock settings. Temps are around 25C for the CPU, around 30C for the chipset. I'm thinking my Vista install got borked when the HDD was laying around... is that possible? Would a reinstall fix the problem do ya think?

[Elysium]

I did a system restore... and it's somewhat more stable, but it still BSOD's super easy. Trying to connect to our wireless network made it BSOD. I couldn't read the BSOD though, it was too fast. This was all at stock settings BTW, so I'm kinda lost...

[Capper]

Nate, pull the power plug, pull the battery and short the CMOS jumper for 20-30 minutes.

If that doesn't solve the issue, reflash the BIOS.....DFI boards are notoriously finnicky