I just put in my heatsink and RAM for the computer im building and started it up and it went into BIOS for about 20 seconds then shut off.....after going into PC health to monitor the computer specs i noticed that my Athlon 64 would start out at the norm but very quickly burn up to the shut down point of 100 degrees celcius or there abouts. my heatsink is installed and the fan on it works so why would it do this??Heat sink not on correctly (backward?) or no thermal paste. If you are using thermal paste and the heat sink is APPLIED, you may have too much.

Please recheck and advise.alright i took off the heat sink and all that came with the heat sink was the retension rack (which i had ONE on the mobo already) and this doublestick tape crap that goes to a bottom plate underneath the heatsink that dosnt fit my processor, its for the AMD Opteron. So what i did was i cut out about 1 inch X 1 inch of the tape and stuck it on there and obviously that wasnt worth a *censored*, however it is "High conductivity Shin-Etsu thermal tape material" so maybe i put too much?? by the way thanks alot for the help....you guys are great!Quote

doublestick tape crap that goes to a bottom plate underneath the heatsink that dosnt fit my processor, its for the AMD Opteron.