Computer crashed, can't get into Windows no more..

[Sharpstick68]

ok i will try that, and one last thing..should I have my friend try to reseat the cpu and cooler and see if I can get my system to boot? I have the rma already created and have the pre-paid shipping label from intel, I just want to know if its worth trying to reseat it before sending the cpu back to intel

[Steven P. Administrators]

If your friend is coming over to troubleshoot, I would also suggest trying to boot with one memory stick, try one, boot, see if it works and then again with the other memory stick like what was suggested in an earlier post.

Then you can at least rule out memory being the issue.

[Sharpstick68]

On 09/01/2025 at 09:10, Steven P. said:

If your friend is coming over to troubleshoot, I would also suggest trying to boot with one memory stick, try one, boot, see if it works and then again with the other memory stick like what was suggested in an earlier post.

Then you can at least rule out memory being the issue.

should I try with one memory stick in the same ram slot, or use a slot that that hasn't been used before? and should i put my video card in as well when testing with the one stick of ram?

[Sharpstick68]

so my friend hasnt come over yet to try and do the reseating of the cpu and cooler like I said yet, but I did show a picture of my motherboard with the thermal paste debris on the motherboard socket to someone at a local repair shop, to see if he can be cleaned it off easily. And he sent me back the picture I showed him and circled 2 areas and said those 2 areas are damage to the socket (not covered by thermal grease) and recommended I change the board and that my cpu should be ok. I just want to get a second opinion, I will also ask my friend for his opinion on what he thinks, but just trying to figure out if I should go ahead and get a new motherboard now or not..

 

and this is what the person at the repair shop replied back with to my e-mail "Check the 2 areas I circled. They are damage to the socket (not covered by thermal grease). You should consider changing the board, I'm sure the CPU is ok and the mobo is the culprit."

[Riggers]

I`d personally hold off on getting a new board just yet, you haven`t a clue yet if it`s the motherboard, CPU or even the GPU!

Try and get the area as clean as possible, tip it upside down if possible so bits can just fall off, just watch the pins.

When your friend comes over and helps put it back together try starting the system with the graphics card removed and the HDMI cable plugged into the socket on the motherboard. That at least takes the GPU out of the equation, move on from there.

If you try with just one stick of memory, that would go in slot DIMMA2 (second slot from the CPU), the second stick should go in DIMMB2 (furthest slot away from the CPU)

Good luck buddy, hopefully you`ll get there in the end...

 

[LaP]

The MB's diagnostic lights usually don't lie. If your MB manual says red is a CPU problem then it's more than very likely a cpu problem. If the MB's diagnostic reports a problem then the MB is likely fine a dead MB usually do nothing outside of proviging current to fans and leds. So it's likely either the socket or cpu itself.

Edited January 9, 2025 by LaP

[ShadeOfBlue]

Unfortunately, I do see at least 2 bent pins in the new photo. The one closer to the center is important. The other appears to be for hardware debugging and is not used in normal operation, though it is important that it doesn't touch any neighboring pins.

This must be damage that just happened. I don't think it explains the earlier booting problem because then it should have acted the same way since it was first assembled. The CPU is still the likely culprit for that.

Do you need a new motherboard? That's highly likely. You should make peace with buying one before going any further. But...

If I were working on this board, I would remove the debris with some micro tweezers, and I'd bend the pins back with some dental picks or other appropriate tools. All the while I'd be inspecting everything with a loupe magnifier. It's an art.

Unless you've done stuff like that before, failure is pretty likely. That's why I don't normally recommend inexperienced users to stick tools anywhere near those pins. Since there's nothing to lose at this point, though, why not learn? I mentioned some tools you may not have, but I'm sure you could come up with something. But I'll leave it to you to decide how adventurous you want to be.

Either way, don't install a CPU and apply power until you have a good socket.

[Sharpstick68]

On 09/01/2025 at 19:18, ShadeOfBlue said:

Unfortunately, I do see at least 2 bent pins in the new photo. The one closer to the center is important. The other appears to be for hardware debugging and is not used in normal operation, though it is important that it doesn't touch any neighboring pins.

This must be damage that just happened. I don't think it explains the earlier booting problem because then it should have acted the same way since it was first assembled. The CPU is still the likely culprit for that.

Do you need a new motherboard? That's highly likely. You should make peace with buying one before going any further. But...

If I were working on this board, I would remove the debris with some micro tweezers, and I'd bend the pins back with some dental picks or other appropriate tools. All the while I'd be inspecting everything with a loupe magnifier. It's an art.

Unless you've done stuff like that before, failure is pretty likely. That's why I don't normally recommend inexperienced users to stick tools anywhere near those pins. Since there's nothing to lose at this point, though, why not learn? I mentioned some tools you may not have, but I'm sure you could come up with something. But I'll leave it to you to decide how adventurous you want to be.

Either way, don't install a CPU and apply power until you have a good socket.

I see. And I suspect the damage to those motherboard happened recently when I took off the aio cooler block, I knew I shouldn't have done it myself!. I will eventually buy a new motherboard and replace the one with the bent pins, but...should I still continue with the RMA for my processor with intel? or should I hold off on that for now.

I am going to put together a new pc part list, not intel time and just go with a new system, and eventually down the line after I get the motherboard replaced on the intel system, either keep that for backup use or try and sell it and recoup my losses

[ShadeOfBlue]

On 10/01/2025 at 08:07, Sharpstick68 said:

...should I still continue with the RMA for my processor with intel? or should I hold off on that for now.

Unless you plan on having access to other parts to check the CPU with any time soon, you're just going to have to go with the information you have right now.

It's one of the CPUs affected by the bug, I assume it had been running on the older BIOS version for a good while before you recently updated it, and it became unstable until it no longer booted at all. So, it's not 100% for certain that the CPU is bad, but it's more likely than not. I'd RMA it.

[Sharpstick68]

I thought about something that I forgot/failed to mention when I originally made this thread. I think a day before, or on the day of the crash..my corsair cooler did start blinking red when running fortnite, and checing in iCUE that indicates the cooler is running in fail safe mode, and also the processor temp was up around lik 95C I believe while I had fortnite open. So I closed the game, restarted my computer because the cooler usually resets when I do that, but it was still blinking red, so then I just shut the computer down all the way and gave it like 5 mins for the heat to dissipitate and after I turned it back on again it was normal, and I didn't smell like a burning smell near the computer. I did notice though when I originally bought all the parts from micro center, one of the fins on the radiator is bent, I don't know if that had anything to do with it functioning correctly. But should I switch to a regular cooler? aio coolers I just never want to trust them again after all this that's happened..

 

[Steven P. Administrators]

On 11/01/2025 at 15:26, Sharpstick68 said:

I thought about something that I forgot/failed to mention when I originally made this thread. I think a day before, or on the day of the crash..my corsair cooler did start blinking red when running fortnite, and checing in iCUE that indicates the cooler is running in fail safe mode, and also the processor temp was up around lik 95C I believe while I had fortnite open. So I closed the game, restarted my computer because the cooler usually resets when I do that, but it was still blinking red, so then I just shut the computer down all the way and gave it like 5 mins for the heat to dissipitate and after I turned it back on again it was normal, and I didn't smell like a burning smell near the computer. I did notice though when I originally bought all the parts from micro center, one of the fins on the radiator is bent, I don't know if that had anything to do with it functioning correctly. But should I switch to a regular cooler? aio coolers I just never want to trust them again after all this that's happened..

 

It's fine, you only need to worry if the radiator starts leaking 😂 A little dent here and there is really nothing to worry about. I have them too.

[Sharpstick68]

Also I did contact MSI and let them know what was going on, and they told me I can send it in to them, and it would cost $45 dollars to replace the cpu socket, which I think is amazing. All of this though just makes me never want to ever build a computer myself after what all has happened. Yea I know how to install RAM, a video card, some hard drives..but obviously, I do not know how to remove a aio water cooler block.

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

On 12/01/2025 at 08:06, Sharpstick68 said:

Also I did contact MSI and let them know what was going on, and they told me I can send it in to them, and it would cost $45 dollars to replace the cpu socket, which I think is amazing. All of this though just makes me never want to ever build a computer myself after what all has happened. Yea I know how to install RAM, a video card, some hard drives..but obviously, I do not know how to remove a aio water cooler block.

As long as you learn from it

[Sharpstick68]

Just wanted to give an update on what's going on

I started my RMA with Intel on Jan 08, 2025..took them 3 days to get my CPU, validated it same day they received it, and also sent out my replacement that day which is arriving today (Jan 17, 2025) so cudos to Intel. MSI should be receiving my motherboard today and hopefully I get that back soon after they inspect and hopefully repair the 2 bent pins that I told them about, which they said would cost me $45 dollars to replace the cpu socket. I thought about starting to look for a DDR5 motherboard since I'm finding alot of places don't have them any more and people that do are third-party/scalpers over-pricing them due to availability or being phased out, who knows.

One last thing I forgot, when I was disconnecting my aio cooler, a cable accidentally snapped off, it was like so light-weight and snapped so easy, it said TKG 2510 on it and it was like a 3-hole cable..I don't know if that is necessary for the AIO to work, do I need to get a whole new cooler?

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

On 17/01/2025 at 08:56, Sharpstick68 said:

One last thing I forgot, when I was disconnecting my aio cooler, a cable accidentally snapped off, it was like so light-weight and snapped so easy, it said TKG 2510 on it and it was like a 3-hole cable..I don't know if that is necessary for the AIO to work, do I need to get a whole new cooler?

That might be power for the pump..

[+Warwagon MVC]

On 09/01/2025 at 00:42, Sharpstick68 said:

Ok, I have already removed the cpu which it was my first time ever doing so in my entire life, I've always been nervous about damaging the cpu in the proccess

On newer CPUs, where the pins have been relocated from the processor to the motherboard, you have to be more cautious of the socket on the motherboard than the processor. The processor will be fine.

Obviously, in the reverse, where the processor has the pins, you have to be more cautious of the processor.

[Sharpstick68]

On 17/01/2025 at 10:34, Mindovermaster said:

That might be power for the pump..

yea that is what I am trying to figure out, if it's for the pump, the case fans or what..and if I need a new cooler or not

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

On 17/01/2025 at 10:38, Sharpstick68 said:

yea that is what I am trying to figure out, if it's for the pump, the case fans or what..and if I need a new cooler or not

Well, where does this cable come from? That normally tells you what it is for. If it connected up to the AIO header, then it probably is the pump. But if it goes to a fan, that's your answer.

[Sharpstick68]

It came from the pump on the cooler I believe

[ShadeOfBlue]

The radiator/pump unit is connected via a 24-pin cable to the control unit ("Commander CORE").

The control unit gets power via a SATA power connector.

The fans all plug into the control unit via standard 4-pin fan connectors.

To keep the motherboard from complaining about a lack of CPU fan, the control unit has a 3-pin connector that goes to the motherboard with a single tachometer (fan RPM) wire. This is the most delicate cable since it is just one wire. You can see it in the installation video here.

If it's the tach wire that broke, then the motherboard may beep angrily at you, thinking there is no CPU fan. There might be an option to disable this in the BIOS/UEFI, or you could connect a different fan to the CPU fan header on the motherboard (like one of the chassis fans) to keep it happy. However, if the Corsair cooler ever fails or becomes disconnected, then you won't get a warning beep to let you know. That's not ideal, but it's not the end of the world either. Modern CPUs do have internal thermal protection, and will power off if they overheat.

Alternatively, someone with the proper skills may be able to repair the wire.

[Sharpstick68]

On 17/01/2025 at 18:26, ShadeOfBlue said:

The radiator/pump unit is connected via a 24-pin cable to the control unit ("Commander CORE").

The control unit gets power via a SATA power connector.

The fans all plug into the control unit via standard 4-pin fan connectors.

To keep the motherboard from complaining about a lack of CPU fan, the control unit has a 3-pin connector that goes to the motherboard with a single tachometer (fan RPM) wire. This is the most delicate cable since it is just one wire. You can see it in the installation video here.

If it's the tach wire that broke, then the motherboard may beep angrily at you, thinking there is no CPU fan. There might be an option to disable this in the BIOS/UEFI, or you could connect a different fan to the CPU fan header on the motherboard (like one of the chassis fans) to keep it happy. However, if the Corsair cooler ever fails or becomes disconnected, then you won't get a warning beep to let you know. That's not ideal, but it's not the end of the world either. Modern CPUs do have internal thermal protection, and will power off if they overheat.

Alternatively, someone with the proper skills may be able to repair the wire.

 

So is it necessary to RMA the cooler to Corsair then or no? I honestly don't even like the RGB now that I've experienced it and I honestly would rather have good quality Notuca case fans instead

[ShadeOfBlue]

I don't know what RMA options you have for physical damage with Corsair. But assuming it is the tach wire that is broken, it should not affect the performance of the cooler. It only provides fan speed sensing to the motherboard.

Easiest thing is to plug one of the case fans (not one of the Corsair cooler fans) into the CPU fan connector on the motherboard. You can also go into the BIOS/UEFI and change the fan speed setting (otherwise it will be regulating the fan speed based on the CPU temperature).

If you really want to, you can replace any of the fans with suitable Noctua ones.

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

On 17/01/2025 at 17:26, ShadeOfBlue said:

The control unit gets power via a SATA power connector.

Actually, that's not true anymore. ?In the old days, yes, they did use that. Nowadays not so much.

[ShadeOfBlue]

On 17/01/2025 at 22:04, Mindovermaster said:

Actually, that's not true anymore. ?In the old days, yes, they did use that. Nowadays not so much.

This is a description of this user's specific hardware.

Small units can get away with being powered from a typical fan or pump header. Larger units such as OP's, running a pump and up to 6 fans plus LEDs, require a little more oomph.