Well, I decided to finally take apart this old eMachines to clean it.
Taking precautions, I carefully took out all the wires, took out the motherboard, took off the heatsink, took out the processor. Then using Isoprol alcohol I cleaned off the previous thermal pad from the processor and heatsink. I took some AS5, applied it to the processor die, spread it out, and put down the heatsink on it. Lockd it up, blew out all the dust, everything was ready.
Put everything back into the case, turned it on, and XP asks me whether I want to start normally or the last good config (or safe mode). I click normally and bam! It hangs.
So I take it apart again, remove heatsink, reapply thermal paste, put on heatsink, and lift it up to see if it made contact with the processor. Yup, thermal paste on the heatsink was visible. Put it back down. Turned on again, went into BIOS, Computer Health, and let it sit there. ~3 minutes of sitting and updating (it said the processor was 24-30C while it sat there unfrozen) and it locked up....
Put a huge fan blowing on the side of the thing (side taken off), and tried again in case it was a heat problem. ~7 minutes, hanged.
Took apart everything, reassembled everything. New thermal paste (for like the 10th time). Left only the wire to the front button for bootup, harddisk, and ram and processor. Everything else was disconnected.
Do the same "Start Last Good Config" with XP, froze there. Thought it was a HD problem. Took away the harddrive, let it sit there telling me there was no boot device. Suprisingly, the blinking cursor just kept on blinking, and I could normally shut off the pc from the button... so that meant it didn't freeze. Restarted, back into PC Health, ~6 minutes, froze :/ .
Back to bios after restart, "Fail-safe defaults", garbled screen. Restart, "Fail-safe defaults", waited around 10 seconds and all seemed fine. Restart, BIOS, health, ~7minutes, freeze =/.
Let it sit at the "no boot device" for another 10 minutes, cursor kept blinking.
Specs:
eMachines ~something~
Socket A [462] AthlonXP 2000+
Samsung 512 ram [PC 2100]
Foxconn ~something~ motherboard... Winfast, Socket A, AGP 8x slot
250W eMachines PSU
All these parts other than the motherboard are ~6 years old.... They worked fine before I cleaned everything... Ahhh!
Ideas please? Thanks in advance =).
Taking precautions, I carefully took out all the wires, took out the motherboard, took off the heatsink, took out the processor. Then using Isoprol alcohol I cleaned off the previous thermal pad from the processor and heatsink. I took some AS5, applied it to the processor die, spread it out, and put down the heatsink on it. Lockd it up, blew out all the dust, everything was ready.
Put everything back into the case, turned it on, and XP asks me whether I want to start normally or the last good config (or safe mode). I click normally and bam! It hangs.
So I take it apart again, remove heatsink, reapply thermal paste, put on heatsink, and lift it up to see if it made contact with the processor. Yup, thermal paste on the heatsink was visible. Put it back down. Turned on again, went into BIOS, Computer Health, and let it sit there. ~3 minutes of sitting and updating (it said the processor was 24-30C while it sat there unfrozen) and it locked up....
Put a huge fan blowing on the side of the thing (side taken off), and tried again in case it was a heat problem. ~7 minutes, hanged.
Took apart everything, reassembled everything. New thermal paste (for like the 10th time). Left only the wire to the front button for bootup, harddisk, and ram and processor. Everything else was disconnected.
Do the same "Start Last Good Config" with XP, froze there. Thought it was a HD problem. Took away the harddrive, let it sit there telling me there was no boot device. Suprisingly, the blinking cursor just kept on blinking, and I could normally shut off the pc from the button... so that meant it didn't freeze. Restarted, back into PC Health, ~6 minutes, froze :/ .
Back to bios after restart, "Fail-safe defaults", garbled screen. Restart, "Fail-safe defaults", waited around 10 seconds and all seemed fine. Restart, BIOS, health, ~7minutes, freeze =/.
Let it sit at the "no boot device" for another 10 minutes, cursor kept blinking.
Specs:
eMachines ~something~
Socket A [462] AthlonXP 2000+
Samsung 512 ram [PC 2100]
Foxconn ~something~ motherboard... Winfast, Socket A, AGP 8x slot
250W eMachines PSU
All these parts other than the motherboard are ~6 years old.... They worked fine before I cleaned everything... Ahhh!
Ideas please? Thanks in advance =).