I Broke My Inspiron 1720?

Hey guys!

A few days ago, I noticed that my temperatures were a little to high, so I decided to crack open my laptop and clean it out + replace the thermal paste.

So I took it apart, no problems (although when I took the palm rest off something broke I made sure it wasn't my hardware-- probably some Dell warranty thing).

Took my GPU (8600M GT) + Heatsink / CPU (T8300) + Heatsink out. Cleaned off the CPU and Heatsink with 91% isopropyl alcohol. (Although the heatsink had a pad for another part of my laptop, not sure what that is...). Applied some Arctic Silveer 5 (little bit on the black reflective protruding thing). Put the heatsink on, screwed it in according to the numbers. Put it all together the same way I took it off (I think) and now it doesn't even turn on!

Sometimes it turns on, POST is very very slow. Then after booting into Windows it will randomly (generally 30 seconds after booting into Windows) freeze (Hard drive LED shows no activity). I'll forcibly turn it off by holding the Power button and try to turn it on again to no avail.

If I plug in my AC adapter and try to turn on my computer a few things happen:

1) Power + Bluetooth LED will turn on (this is normal)
2) After 1-2 seconds, both LEDs will go off and then:
3) Battery Charging LED will come on.
4) Then the Battery LED turns off.

Fan doesn't come on, nothing happens.

I tried reapplying paste again (maybe I did it wrong?), taking the RAM out then reinserting. I tried it without the hard drives in, without the WLAN card in.

The only thing I haven't tried is pulling the CMOS battery out. (I think it is by the DIMM2 RAM Slot?)

Sorry dudes but I'm lost! Any help would be amazing!
=(

EDIT:

Followed Dell's "No POST or Power Troubleshooting" ( http://support.dell.com/support/top...d=50A7B3ED9D31C426E040AE0AB7E16456&doclang=en) It told me to press Fn + Power and look at the LEDs. The result was all three LEDs (Num + Caps + Scroll) going off. Then it told me to contact Technical support... grr.

EDIT #2:

Continued to follow the Dell guide, I removed Bluetooth, USB, RAM, pretty much everything including my video card. Then I did Fn + Power and Scroll Lock light was solid, while Num and Caps blinked.

EDIT #3:

After rummaging around forever, I finally found the LED error codes and their meanings!
http://support.euro.dell.com/suppor...ery=&s=gen&ServiceTag=&SystemID=&toggle=false

 

What'd you do with that thermal pad?

 

I'm guessing the thermal pad was on the northbridge.

Anyway, try taking out the CMOS battery for 2 mins.
It should reset the BIOS. That may fix the problem.

Also re-seat everything. Take your time when you take it apart and put it together.

 

Exactly. So if he got rid of it, that's bad news...

Though I don't know if the NB would warm up fast enough w/o the pad such as to prevent the machine from booting at all.

 

Did you use conductive paste like AS5?

Next time try some non condutive paste, to be safer.

 

Wow! Thanks for all the responses!

The thermal pad is still there, and I guess yes that it was on the North Bridge.
I used AS5, but now I feel as if the error is coming from putting in the CPU wrong? I did take it out to play with it (idiot move...) Maybe I tightened the socket too hard?

After I reapplied (the second time) the paste I just get system board error (through LED code)...

Thanks for your input so far guys!

And I will take out the CMOS battery.

Thanks!

EDIT:

I think the correct question is: What prevents a
system from POSTing? I know I don't have broken hardware because sometimes it boots!

EDIT #2:

I reseated everything and once again the system POSTs! Still need to do something the speed of which it POSTs though....

 

YES! IT WORKS!

My problem was when I tightened my CPU, I didn't do a perfect job!
The advice to reseat everything is a great idea!

Thank you so much!