The Details

SALES REP: Darwin Garcia

TECH/BUILDER: Justin Sheppard

STORE: Watauga

CUSTOMER NEED: Help with the rig he built with components purchased elsewhere. Building a PC can be a tricky, but rewarding, thing. However, sometimes, things can and do go wrong. Sometimes help is needed.

CHALLENGES: Initial diagnostics revealed pasted-up CPU Sockets and a blown power supply.

COST: Tech time and a new power supply.

WHAT'S IN THE BOX?

The Build

• AMD 100-100000593WOF Ryzen 5 7600X CPU (cleaned and reseated)
• XFX AMD Radeon 7700XT GPU
• Gigabyte B650 Gaming X AX V2 Motherboard
• G-Skill Trident Z Neo RAM 32GB
• Klevv 2TB m.2 SSD
• Artic Liquid Freezer III 360 ARGB AIO water cooler
• COREREACTORII850G-BKCUS XPG Core Reactor ii 850w 80+ Gold 3.0 Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
• Antec C8 Constellation Series Black Full-Tower E-ATX PC Case

Why is thermal paste in a CPU socket a bad thing?

Depending upon the amount and the type of paste, there is the potential for poor contact between the CPU and motherboard, poor heat transfer, short circuits (if the paste is conductive), system instability or even full system failure. 

Best case is that there isn't enough paste to cause an issue. Sometimes a careful cleaning is enough to fix the problem. Worst case? You get to upgrade your CPU!