My pc worked great until...I removed my cpu to apply better thermal grease (arctic silver 3), stuck it back in and strapped the heatsink back on. Won't boot to anything. Fans attached to motherboard turn on. It cant be a thermal problem... Did i possibly kill it with static electricity? I was pretty careful to hold it by the edges. HELP! I'm offering 5 bucks via paypal to anyone that can show get me up and running again.(buying a new cpu doesnt count ;) )

Do you get any beeps from the system speaker? If you do the chances are the CPU isn't fried, if you don't..........CPU is probably dead.

Just to say static charges can jump so just hold9ing it by the sides doesn't guarentee anything. You probably should have grounded yourself with a rubber mat or held onto the mettal inside your case to ground out or somehting.

Anyhow you say you get nothing huh, screen is black and no sound then your CPU is fried

When you apply Artic Silver or any other thermo-paste only put a small portion on the die or under the HS because if you put to much that gona go all over the cpu & short the cpu cuz artic silver can conduct electricity & your cpu got small electronics pieces on it , don't put nothing on it only the little square in the middile of the cpu (DIE) if you got some Artic silver on the cpu you can clean it with some Rubbin Alcohol 70% or 90% & Q-tips then apply artic silver again only litle bit & start-up your computer again & hope it's still work.
Good luck!

I suggest that you take the hsf off and take a good look at the core. You may have crushed or cracked the core if you messed up during the reinstallation of the hsf.

Anyway, grounding yourself on rubber doesn't do anything since it is more electrically resistive than conductive. It is better to ground yourself on the case (on the actual metal and not the paint). The point is to make it so that you and the parts of the computer would have the same electrical potential. The electrons discharge when there is an electrical potential difference. Thats why when you're wearing an antistatic band, you would generally connect it to the case itself.

Oh yea, also try clearing the cmos. See if you can just try to boot out outside the case with just the cpu, motherboard, memory, video, and power supply on some antistatic material.