DS4 e6300 very strange boot problem

[PhilipM]

Hi,

I have a problem with my mobo/cpu which is very interesting indeed!

With no heatsink installed, the system will boot.
Adding the pressure of a heatsink causes the boot to fail. No bios is displayed and the system continually powers on and off. All I am doing is resting the heatsink on the cpu and this causes it to fail!

I checked the seating of the CPU. There was a little thermal grease on a few of the contacts, but that might have been just me taking it out. I cleaned it off, reseated the cpu twice and each time it made no difference.

I'm also sure all the pins are there and making good contact since it will boot with no heatsink. Not sure what to try next!

Anyone seen anything like this before?

Thanks,
Philip

 

[PhilipM]

Thanks for the reply.

I have already tried the system out of the case in case of shorting. It makes no difference.

When I've been trying with the heatsink, I've actually just been resting it on the processor.

Interestingly, after leaving the heatsink resting on it overnight, it will now not boot at all, even when I remove the heatsink.

I will try reseating the processor again tonight and having a really good look at the socket. I suspect that it is some sort of minor flaw in the socket that is disconnecting the CPU once any pressure is made to the top of the CPU heatspreader.

 

[PhilipM]

I really can't see the fault. I have a really good light to inspect the socket and chip and I can see no problem. I can clearly see the fresh contact made on the surface of pads on the chip too. It now just won't boot at all!

RMA time.

 

[PhilipM]

I've RMA'd the board, cpu and heatsink and OCUK can find no fault. Yet I can't get it to work.

Any ideas what to do next? I'm tempted to buy an identical mobo as I'm 90% sure that's the problem. No cheap, but neither is all this unsuccessful RMA postage!