Heatsink Problem

[Neffro]

I'm building my first system which is:

Asus A7V333-X motherboard
AMD 1700+ (Heatsink and Fan came with it)(Retail kit)
eVGA.com e-GeForce4 MX 440 SE AGP card
Crucial 2700 256 RAM

The first time I tried powering it up...the fan to the heatsink starting spinning (not fast, very slow), then it stopped spinning altogether, then I smelled something very hot. I immediately turned the power off. I let it set for a while, then powered it up again...no smell at all and the fan didn't even try to spin. I unplugged it immediately and took the heatsink off to look at the CPU and see if it was fried. It looked fine...no burnt marks, no bent pins or anything. I'm pretty sure I had the heatsink on correctly. There was only one way it would fit anyway. The LED on the motherboard would remain lit when I plugged in the PC and the drives would start spinning when powering up, just no fan action and that horrible burning smell. Does this sound like a bad fan or did I do something horribly wrong and burn something out?

 

[BuckeyeComputers]

you might get lucky it just being a fan... some of the new MB will not fire up if the fan is not working, but i will not rule out that you have fried either the MB or CPU or both

 

[paparazi]

Well lets list what it could be shall we:
Burn out fan?
Burnt out processor?
Burnt out or part shorted motherboad?
Lets take one at a time:
Burnt out fan (it should smell burnt out!) it may not spin freely? to test plug into another motherboard (just plug it into a case fan header.
Burn't out processor, well look underneath (pin side)and you may see some scorching. If it proves to be the CPU then usually the heatsink has been fitted 180degrees out (yes it can fit both ways) recess in the base of the heatsink must locate over the socket "A" writing on the CPU socket. You can tell if the heatsink was fitted wrongly by two things:
1) the footprint (contact point) should be roughly centre of the raised part of the base (not including the recess area) and you should see a clear inprint pattern of the raised core (this would indicate proper square contact between core and heatsink base)
2) An incorrectly fitted heatsink will produce an offset mark (just one line) on the base of the heatsink, with no clear core imprint on the base.
Note* it is vital that thermal paste is used for roper heat transfer.
Lastly burnt out motherboard: usually caused by incorrect fittment of motherboard stand off posts. These can be of various designs but must only be fitted at the proper motherboard mounting points, these are the bare rings of solder, there are usually between 6 and 10 mounting points, the most common mistake is to have one too many of these posts causing a short somewhere underneath the board.
Martin

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