Help - Bios will not load (freezes) but computer will boot?

[jeff83nz]

Soooooo last night I tried to downgrade my server CPU from a i75820k to a Xeon E5-2630L v3 to try and save some power and thus the world, or real reason because I had a build bug and no moolah.

Anyhow did this while tired (idiot) and on removing the oversized Noctua heatsink and post cleanign the thermal paste and removing the cpu form the socket noticed some of the (non conductive) paste had made its way onto the pins. At this point likely would have been ok but had a mare involving cotton bud, alcohol, cotton bud residue and then crudely tryingt to remove residual with plastic tweezers.

Anyway the end outcome is
a) on the original CPU computer will boot, system info app shows its has 16gb of ram but system shows only 12gb. Windows is running with Hyper Z or whatever but only 1gb is dedicated to the PFsense virtualisation
b) on the xeon cpu it shows 8gb ram rest is the same.
c) if I try and load bios it freezes and the Asus x99 motherboard shows an A9 error code.
d) have tried to reset cmos / used the dim reset to no change. Haven't tried removing the battery for 15 mins will try that tonight
e) tried to install new bios using the inbuilt bios recovery Asus has on its x99 boards. Needles to say failed. As it has no update option through windows, and cannot access the bios itself basically cannot update it.


The thing that confuses me on all this is if I did damage I would have thought it would have been to the motherboard pins which would affect cpu powering. The bios has its own independent chip so this is all quite weird. The annoying thing about the situation is there are no cheap X99 motherboards either to replace it with.


Any help, guidance or general abuse of my idioticness welcome.

 

[8 Pack]

The problem is the pins. All of this comes from the socket and contact to pads on the CPU. You need to check these pins closely for bent ones and bend back into place carefully. I would also check if any of that paste is on the CPU pads themselves and clean with alchohol.

A tooth brush and alchohol is the best way to clean within a socket.

Trying to flahs the bios will make no diffence all thsi stems from contact in the socket.

 

[jeff83nz]

Cheers 8pack again, hugely appreciated. Have ordered some pure 99.9% iso alcohol to clean the socket and then will loop in the wife whose hand eye coordination well exceeds mine on fixing any pins.

Will report back Friday eve.

 

[jeff83nz]

Brief update. After inhaling more isopropyl than one should managed to clear out all the TIM. However the cotton buds actually at times required the plastic tweezers to completely clear. Moving onto the pins, well yeah there were three bends, got them all perfect except one which has bent in on itself. Thought would see how it went at this point, and well same unsurprising.

Going to have another go this weekend, but think it is more likely than not that this motherboard is officially poked by this idiotic brute. As the POS sky router has reset like 4 times in 12 hours, suspect it is going to be an emergency replacement, likely go some last gen ryzen i think.

Interestingly I did get the power meter to see what power I would have saved, about 25 - 30 w which would have resulted in a massive annual saving of £35 plus the £40 would have saved on switching CPUs. About half of what was hoping but not surprised as the X99 motherboards are so power inefficient in idle