My main system (thank goodness this one still works) is having major issues.

- AMD 2000+
- ASUS A7V8X
- GF4MX 420

I come home from a 2 week vacation, turn the power on, and get no video signal. All the drives light up and spin, fans on the inside spin, but I get no video, the moniter light stays on power saver mode (like its turned off). I test it with another moniter and it still doesn't work. Unplugging the moniter from the computer gives the 'No Signal' message. I take my video card over to a friend's house and it works fine. I try reseting the BIOS with the jumper and pulling the battery, giving the whole system a good cleaning with canned air, and checked cableing and such. Still, no video signal. My system never gives POST messages even when it is (was) working so I can't tell from that.
The only thing i've noticed with it is that the CPU fan is a bit noisy and when i was cleaning it the heatsink was full of dust. I pull the heatsink off and check for any burn marks and it has a little black around the middle area but it doesn't look or smell burnt. I don't see any visable burn marks around the motherboard or socket area. If anyone can give me some insight to if its the motherboard or CPU or if its something else it would be appreicated.

When you pulled the heatsink off and replaced it, did you use a new application of thermal paste or pad? Is the heatsink fan plugged into the motherboard properly? Do you have any indication of power surges or similar power problems while you were gone?

I would check the capacitors on the board to make sure none have burst, leaked or bulged... there was a thread here recently about bad capacitors doing these things.

Others will be along with more thoughts....

And Welcome to http://www.pcguide.com/ubb/pcgubb.gif

The Heatsink is still off, and I had the computer plugged into a Surge Protector and all the other devices that were plugged into it were fine.

If you are trying to run it without the heatsink, one of 2 things will happen:

1. You will fry it.
2. Nothing. The system will not operate without the fan plugged into the motherboard and it will shut down as soon as the CPU starts overheating (a few seconds) to avoid frying it.

Hopefully #2 will continue to be the option. If you are going to test it further, you will need to put some thermal compound on the heatsink and reinstall it.

Err, maybe my post was a little mis-worded. What I meant to say was during the time I was troubleshooting it, I pulled the heatsink off to check, not that the heatsink has been pulled off before. The heatsink is one of those that came with the processor and has the thermal compound already on it, just have to take the tape off.

Yep, I got that....

I am not saying having the heatsink off is the original problem, but it is a problem now as I said in my last post. The thermal compound that is on there now may not be good anymore, so you may have to replace it. Regardless, you will have to get the heatsink installed again before you can do any more testing of the system.

That 'tape' or whatever it is, is terrible at best. It dries out after awhile and you wind up replaceing it anyway after you scrape it off.

You did mention a 'burn' make. That sounds as the processor has overheated. Been there done that. Do you have another processor you could try out?

Well, its fixed now. Turns out it was BOTH the processor and motherboard. Alas... when your gonna break, might as well do it all the way. Least I opted for a faster processor this time with the 2600+. Thanks for your input!