Ok, this might SOUND stupid, but it sounded good at the time...

[Atreis]

I don't know why I got the bright idea of putting some thermal paste on my CPU die even though the Thermaltake Volcano II I have already had it's on interface material. My question/s? Well, is that a really bad thing to do?? Could that potentially be the reason why I can't get my system to post?

[Door Knob]

Well thats not a half bad idea. Your computer should post even if you didn't have any cooling on it. It would fry quick but it would post. What you should really do is remove the thermal pad or whatever it was you said that was on the heatsink. Then lap it. Then apply the thermal compound and put it back on. If you could get some artic silver that will help but the important part is to get the stuff that came pre-applied to the heatsink off and replace it.

[proze]

it's not a good thing to do, but shouldn't and couldn't have killed your cpu instantly. if your system isn't posting, then you did something else funky. give us more specs and maybe we can help.

[Atreis]

FIC AZ11 motherboard, AMD T-bird 1.1GHz w/ Thermaltake Volcano II HSF, 32mb Geforce2 GTS vid card, SoundBlaster Live Platinum, 256mb PC133 SDRAM (single DIMM), Sony 12x/10x/32x CD-RW, Toshiba 16x DVD-ROM, 3.5" generic floppy, InWin IW-Q500N-ATX full tower w/ Power Man 300W PSU (came with tower), and ViewSonic Optiquest 19" monitor. I don't think I left anything out...

Currently, I have no drives connected to the motherboard or PSU because I just simply want it to post. The only things that are connected are the things for the front panel block connector, the CPU/HSF, the PSU connector, and the vid card. I can't even get my LEDs to light most of the time. There's also a small LED attached to my DIMM to indicate connection, but it doesn't light up even if it's in as far as it'll possible go.

As far as I know, the AZ11 is supposed to be capable of using the 1.1GHz, so I don't think it's that. I've tried setting FSB, clearing CMOS, booting with no drives...everything I know to do has yet to work...still no post.

[Phil]

you definately need to take that thermal pad off, some kind of cleaning alchohol and a scowerer (brillo pad or what ever you call them not the metal kind) and a bit of elbow grease will take off even a baked on thermal pad, then you want a thin layer of the thermal compund on the cpu die only and put the heatsink back on carefully (you don't want a cracked core)