In Trouble: Need Help

Hardware Build a PC
1

So tonight I was swapping out my old stock AMD cpu cooler with something new and shiney, the Cooler Master T4. Everything's kind of gone wrong though, and I need a bit of help. 


  1. power off, set up work space and bring PC over
  2. break down mobo, go to (gently) pull off old stock AMD cooler
  3. cpu comes off with cooler
  4. thefuck.gif
  5. set it aside, prep new cooler
  6. go to remove cpu from old cooler, still a little freaked
  7. wiggle off cpu, careful not to touch the pins
  8. bitch just FLIES off old cooler and hits the floor, solid side down
  9. oh fuck oh man ohfukcsfvs
  10. check everything out
  11. no bent pins, no nothing
  12. proceed as usual, install cooler no problemo, pea sized thermal paste etc. etc.


and then

  1. go to boot and no display, gpu just keeps revving then slowing, revving then slowing like it's hitting post over and over
  2. still nothing on screen
  3. power off, check all connections, retry, check everything else, retry, reset cmos, retry
  4. fucking nothing
  5. nothing at all


What does this mean? The logical assumption is the cpu is dead, but it just seems unlikely without there being the LEAST bit of physical damage to the chip. Any ideas? 

Failing that, could you guys point me in the direction of a new mobo/cpu (current mobo is only AM3, so any higher and I gotta upgrade) for UNDER $180 that matches my current performance?

System specs:

  • AMD 955 Black Edition
  • Radeon 6950
  • 8GB DDR3 
  • 80GB SSD
  • 1TB storage
  • 700W Corsair Gold PSU 


help me please ;_;

 

2

Make sure you have ALL the power cables plugged in. In you panic it would have been easy to miss one.

3

Checked everything twice, booted with no ram, one in each dimm, unplugged cpu, checked a boot with nothing but cpu etc. etc. Everything came up green. 

My mobo is durable trash. It's taken a lot of punishment but never produced stellar results, came with broken audio headers, and a screwy USB header. I went ahead and ordered an FX 6300 and a GIGABYTE GA-970A-DS3P. Had a little more cash than I thought, so whateves. 

Gonna overclock this badboy. Any experience from you guys with it?  

4

You don't need to overclock as the 6300 should be able to handle most of your needs.

A mild overclock will be alright with that motherboard, but anything more than mild would be a bit finnicky imo.

5

I can get that. It's still a budget mobo although it is an upgrade from my whatever-model-number-budget board I bought back in 2011. 

Really, I would just be OC'ing for fun. My 955 @ 4.0 has been more than enough even as of late. Just vidya gaming and moderate programming in c/java/VB/etc.

I feel like such a noob for letting that happen to my poor 955 though. :(