Customer arrived from the UK, but they found that their PC won’t start (and it was working perfectly before it was shipped).

They were waiting for the insurance company to do something about it, but after a few weeks, they got tired of waiting, and called me out.

The PC would seem to power up, lights would come on, but no beep, no bios, and no output to the monitor.

I start removing components (HDD, floppy, CDROMS, PCI cards), but the problem is still there.

OK, lets try reseating and swapping the RAM: no change.

Try a different AGP video card: no change

Hmmm, the only thing left is the CPU or the motherboard… This could end up being time-consuming…

The only thing left for me to try is to check the CPU.

I remove the fan/headsink… and of course, the CPU is “glued” to the heatsink, so it comes out as well. But the whole lot comes out very easily… usually it take some force to get the cpu out of its socket without undoing the ZIF lever.

I carefully “unglue” the cpu from the heatsink, check that the cpu pins are straight, and place the cpu back in its socket.

I apply a tiny amount of heat transfer paste, reattach the heatsink/fan, fire up the PC, and now it works!

I wonder if its possible for a CPU to pop out of its socket, while it has the pressure of the heatsink clamp on it…

The only other possibility, is that during a prior service, the cpu wasn’t inserted correctly.

Either way, its somewhat suspicious.