Ok, well my system specs are as follows, ECS K7S5A Motherboard Athlon XP 1800+ 256 DDR 2100 Radeon 7200 300W PS alright, well I have no post... I took out the cpu one day cuz it was running a little hot and decided to add some new artic silver to it. well once I did that, i plugged it back in and it didnt post. nothing nada, no signal to the monitor no nothing. I unplugged everything, unmounted mobo, tryed it all..So I was desperate and had my friend test my 1800 in his asus board. It didnt do anything just like my board. I know its the cpu but im afraid to buy a new one and have it put in and then fry it out again cuz of an unknown mobo error. I think i did have my 1800+ overclocked to 1900+. If so how do I clear that before the new chip? And I am also thinking of the 2000+ or 2100+ but I dont wanna spend the big dollars to replace it then watch it flash lights agian? any help please?

What you may have done was accidentally put the heatsink/fan on backwards and/or forced it on by placing downward pressure on it while trying to engage the clip onto the cpu socket. This would have cracked the cpu core, turning it into junk. Modern cpus are notorious delicate beasts. Another thing is that you never touch the pins on the bottom of the cpu and ground yourself out before touching the cpu. Get yourself a new cpu, clean off the compound on the bottom of the heatsink/fan, put the arctic silver on the core ONLY (just a dab with a Qtip or toothpick), then mount things onto the mobo VERY carefully. You should be okay then. Charles

If there was nothing wrong with your setup before you tinkered with it, my guess would be that you didn't properly reinstall your HSF...therefore your CPU overheated & died. I kinda doubt that there's anything wrong with your mobo, but I suppose it's a possibility. Do you have another CPU you can try on it before you buy a new one? And what temp was it that you considered "a little hot"? Right now, the XP 2000+ has the best price/performance ratio (about $95 at pricewatch)...but that could change quickly with the release of the 2600+.