I was putting together a computer out of some spare parts today, and when I finally finished hooking everything together, I turned it on, and nothing. All the fans start spinning, but that's it. No beeps, no video, CPU (AMD XP 1700+) doesn't get warm after 10-15 minutes, hard drive doesn't spin up, nothing. The light underneath the HD lights up as it should, video card fan spins, etc.
I tried running it barebones.. just mobo, cpu/heatsink/fan, ram, keyboard.. still no beeps.
As a last resort, I thought hey.. maybe I need to reseat the CPU. When I pulled it up, there were 10 little very light brown (or off-white) markings on the thermal paste. Those markings were from the 10 little chips on the CPU as pictured below (not sure what they are called):
And this is sort of what the thermal paste looked like (notice the darker markings):
I don't know what would have caused it to fry.. that's why I'm a little confused. The cpu/mobo were working just fine for a long time. About 6 months ago, I ordered new parts and stored the old ones away in the closet (still connected). All I did today was reconnected them to a different case. All of the parts I used today are the same as were in use together 6 months ago.
Is there anything else that would cause the computer do this?
Any ideas?
Thanks