Hi, I was just tinkering in my computer. I turned it on, but the screen doesn't work.... What could be the problem? Is it the video card? I moved it around....But I also took of the mother-board to take off the dust.....did I mess everything up!?!?! (The monitor has power, but it doesn't display anything

sorry, I'm actually not sure what I took out...Which isn't good.....It had a large metal thing that was (somewhat) hot and a fan attached to it, on the back it had a chip with lots of pointy metal (small) pins.

The "metal thing that was (somewhat) hot and a fan attached to it" is the HeatSink w/Fan (aka HSF). The "chip with lots of pointy metal (small) pins" is the Processor or Central Processing Unit (aka CPU). What it sounds like you did was attempt to remove the HSF & when you did, you ripped out the CPU along with it. The CPU *should* have stayed in the socket when you removed the HSF. Did you separate the CPU from the heatsink? Did you check the CPU for any bent or broken pins?

pins did not break, they bent...I fixed them The CPU was attached to the heatsink,...I'm gonna guess that, that's not good? Should I take it back out and separate them? I read somewhere that it could be the ram, because I did move one 256 MB card, I'm not to sure if it's in the right spot... WHAT SHOULD I DO!! D:

Okay, sorry for the double post, but I took the CPU off the HSF and it was full of black soot (I cleaned it) and checked the pins and 1 of them broke *failure* What does that mean?

"checked the pins and 1 of them broke *failure*" "What does that mean?" Game over. At the very least, you need a new CPU. You obviously don't know what you're doing, so take it to someone who does. BTW, are you sure the "black soot" wasn't thermal compound? There's supposed to be a thin layer of a greasy or wax-like material between the top of the CPU & bottom of the heatsink.

By ripping the cpu off the motherboard did you think this would fix you video issue. Ask a question before destroying your computer next time. You will need to put thermal paste on your next cpu and please ask how as you dont just smear it all over the cpu. Your broken cpu may still post, but I see many BSOD`s in your future...