I replaced the cpu cooling fan on my daughters pc (one blade had broken off and it was sounding like an airplane taking off). When I had put it all back together and booted it up, it immediately shut down, thats when the light went off in the brain...forgot to put the thermal paste on for the new heatsink.

So after taking care of the paste, I boot it up and this time it gets as far as loading up XP but then subsequently shuts off. Just wondering if anyone would have any ideas for what would be still the issue.

System ran fine before, just the noisy fan issue.

Any thoughts appreciated!

Sorry, was sure I had clicked on XP category

It would help if we knew the make/model of your computer. One thing I do need for you to do is to boot your computer in safe mode with networking (see how). If it still shuts down during boot up please list the last driver listed. If it does boot up try to run system file checker. Also try to hit delete before windows starts loading and in the BIOS setup menu look to see if there are any temperature readings listed (note if it isn't delete it might be F2). You must do this quickly. I doubt that it would overheat that fast but it's possible.

What was done with the computer when it was without thermal paste? Did you or someone else run intensive tasks such as playing a game?

As for make and model, this is a pc I put together for her. It has a P4 775 cpu on a 4CoreDual-VSTA MB. It ran fine until I switched out the broken cpu fan (was just noisy since a blade had broken off the fan). Nothing else has been altered. I just now managed to get into the BIOS during boot up and was able to see the temperature of the cpu and watched it climb until it finally shut down at 73* C.

I cleaned and applied a good amount of heatsink grease to ensure good contact with the heatsink (put a little on the heatsink as well as the cpu)...what is the correct amount?

Hopefully all these false starts are not damaging the cpu...but how else are you to put another fan on it right...is there some kind of flag that is triggered once the cpu overheats and you need to reset something? Or is it a case of keep taking the heatsink off and trying different amounts of grease?

I think got problem resolved...I apparently put a bit too much thermal paste, so after rectifying that, it seems to be running fine...around 52-54 *C.

Yeah there is such a thing as too much thermal compound.You need "just enough" to cover it and really you only need to cover the cpu. If you have too much it can't dissipate the heat. My computer shuts off at 75 so 73 is high for a cpu (graphics would be different). There shouldn't be any damage; that is what the shut off feature is there for. The problem would be if it wasn't shutting off. 52 is better. Mine is currently at 46 but some of the P4s are notorious for running hot.

I'm glad that you where able to figure it out.

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