Help needed p7p550 pro MB RED CPU LIGHT

[Castoraurora]

Hello i recently bought my friends old PC since he upgraded to an I7, he sent me his old I5 750, p7p550 pro MB 750 watt corsair power supply etc via Parcel Force. The parcel itself was very well protected bubblewrap the end polystyrene bits and some of that air bag packaging it came in his new coolermaster haf x case box. When i opened it up for the first time apart from a bit of dust the first thing i noticed was that somehow in transit the stock intel cooler had become displaced and 3/4 pins were unpinned, apart from this there were no obvious signs of damage. I looked at the thermal paste and noticed there was half on the cooler and half on the cpu which was still intact and in its holder, i removed the CPU just to doublecheck being careful not to touch the underside and secured it back into place (im 100% positive i put it back in the right way lining up the arrow). I'd like to add at this point the thermal paste was looking quite dry and brittle as if it would almost peel off. Nevertheless i decided to try and boot to check there was no lasting damage so i pinned in the cooler again as best i could (although ive never actually done one before) and tried to boot. The green power light is on which is a good sign i guess but the CPU light flashes red, all the fans turn on for a brief second then it immediately shuts itself down, and without me pushing the power button again it reboots itself after 3-4 seconds and repeats the process. Some PC literate friends have told me its just the motherboard trying to save the CPU and either theres not enough contact from the heatsink or it needs some new paste. Ive since removed the stock cooler to find 2/4 pins at the bottom have snapped obviously where i tried to fit it back in (yes i know im special). Ive since ordered an aftermarket cooler and a friend will be fitting it, i would just like some reassurance from people that this will likely solve the issue. I'm aware that people may say check the RAM/Flash BIOS and other fancy things but the pc was running not 2 days ago when my friend had it.

EDIT: the red light flashes and is not permanent when the fans stop so does the light.

http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/3926/imag0019lq.jpg

Picture for reference ( since been well dusted )

Any input would be nice and thanks for your time, sorry if i've not given a lot of detail im fairly new to pc's.

 

[Castoraurora]

Thanks for the reply and the pins were never exposed to the cooler during transit although the cooler itself had come loose the chip was in the socket itself so im guessing the pins were out of harms reach. I wonder if the fact the cooler was obviously moving during transit whether its actually just a broken fan with it being a bog standard intel cooler? thoughts? and yes its literally 3 seconds turns off and about another 3 turns on and repeats

Found this video which is exactly whats happening

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjR58Tj07fo