Major startup issue

Hey guys, I have yet again another issue that I'm clueless on how to solve.. My Grandparents computer that has been a dust home for years has finally started having issues. (over 7 yrs) The computer would go into sleep mode every 10 minutes, my guess was from overheating. After cleaning the huge amount of dust balls hiding throughout the case there was little choice, but to remove the heatsink to clean and attempt to re-apply thermal paste. Of course..the CPU was stuck onto the heatsink..practically glued. I did everything carefully to try and remove it with no luck. After giving up, I screwed and hooked up the components as they were before removing. Now it will start up briefly before the CPU fan stops spinning, making very odd sounds with the power still remaining on. I'm serious about the dust accumulation being bad, the heatsink was covered in a blanket of it. I included a brief video of this, excuse my slurring as my tongue was recently pierced.
You may need to turn the volume up and warning on something falling in the background 1:02

There is no memory installed it looks like. System won't stay on without memory installed. If there is, its hard to tell.

It stays running and only shuts off when holding down the power button.
From the front angle it looks like they not installed, but if I turn the camera there are two memory sticks.

Have you tried removing and reinserting the memory? The problem with these oem machines, most of them don't have a system speaker attached to hear bios beep codes.

I just removed the sticks and placed them back in with no luck..the weird thing is the sound is the Rom starting up, almost like its trying to play something. After the CPU fan stops spinning a weird high pitch sound (like a balloon releasing air) comes from the power supply box. The computer remains on, I'm not sure if I didn't set the pins down right into the CPU even though I carefully made sure everything was straight and in position.

I recorded the sound best as possible the squeek comes at 0:17, please disregard the clutter and my foot.. XD

Sorry I can't watch the vids. I'm on my phone.

But standards stepts to troubleshoot are:

Try booting with only 1 RAM stick in every slot, try booting without HDD, make sure everything is fully seated in each slot and every connection is made properly (this should be the first one), read you components manuals to make sue you used the correct slots for everything, make sure your PSU is good (basically the only way is to use a good PSU to test), build the PC outside the case to make sure there are not shorts, and lastly, because it's pretty rare, make sure no CPU pins are bended or damaged, although you said you couldn't remove it, this could be a tricky one, unless you can call Superman and borrow his X-Ray vision for a while. You can't, can you...?

Edit: A couple more:

Try using the iGPU from the CPU if there is one available, and check your mother board for liquid damage or other kinds of damage, reset your CMOS by removing and reteating the CMOS battery, try another CMOS battery.

Thank you so much for the brief laugh and great detailed walkthrough, there were a few pins bent that I carefully tried making sure were straight..but as stated..no Xray unfortunately. Thanks so much again!

DragonzRoost said:

Thank you so much for the brief laugh and great detailed walkthrough, there were a few pins bent that I carefully tried making sure were straight..but as stated..no Xray unfortunately. Thanks so much again!

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You mean bent pins on the CPU? Were you able to remove it? If you can´t remove the cooler you have to spin it back and forward a couple times and will come right off (like clockwise and anti clockwise a bunch of times until it comes off), just pulling upwards will make it very hard and almost impossible to remove.

If the pins on the cpu were bent and you accidentally pulled the cpu out of the socket when removing heatsink, you probably have damaged the motherboard and cpu.

That pretty much ended up being the issue. The computer had to be replaced because the CPU was practically glued to the heatsink from not changing the original factory thermal paste for over 10 years. There was little way of safely setting back down without bending pins, of course pulling it hard to release it from the slot didn't help at all.. Thanks again for the awesome help! ^^

DragonzRoost said:

That pretty much ended up being the issue. The computer had to be replaced because the CPU was practically glued to the heatsink from not changing the original factory thermal paste for over 10 years. There was little way of safely setting back down without bending pins, of course pulling it hard to release it from the slot didn't help at all.. Thanks again for the awesome help! ^^

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I've had this problem myself. If you just move it in semi circles clock-wise and counter clock-wise instead of trying to lift it, it comes right off.

Deadpool said:

I've had this problem myself. If you just move it in semi circles clock-wise and counter clock-wise instead of trying to lift it, it comes right off.

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We call this twisting.

Douse the cpu / heat sink in isopropyl alcohol and it will come off. Bent cpu pins or a stuck heat sink are not a reason to replace the computer.