Watt's Thoughts - Fixing a Motherboard (with protection)

My new Asus motherboard quit working.  I went to the Asus website for help.  I was a little confused by Step 2, and I wasn't quite sure how that would work.

1. Please clear CMOS.

2. Please take out your memory cards and video card, try to clean their golden connectors with a rubber, then reseat them back.

3. Please take the CPU cooler out, add some thermal paste to the CPU surface, then reseat the cooler back and keep the cooler tightly installed.

4. Please keep the necessary components(CPU, one memory) onboard for a test.
Finally, we would recommend you to replace a BIOS battery to have a test.

I think they meant to use the rubber eraser on pencil to clean the contacts (I've done that often in past and was taught it by a senior mainframe engineer in the 80's.) I hope that's what they meant. However, that is not what they said to do.

I did solve my problem of no keyboard or display finally on another page that instructed me to unplug power, depress power switch on the computer for 10 seconds, and then plug the cable back in and turn on. Asus said it resets power supply. I had never heard that before, but it worked. I had learned a new trick (so I guess I'm not a quite old dog).

Still not sure about that Step 2, though.

- Dwight Watt
from "Watt's Thoughts," available at dwight-watt.home.att.net

Day 27 of the WJMA Podwatch.