New CPU Cooler/Heatsink Causing Startup Loop.
after having some issues with high temps on my ancient stock Intel cooler, I decided to purchase a new one, after installing it my PC would no longer boot past windows login screen before automatically powering off and restarting. I can however get into the bios, the CPU temps remain stable at around 33 degrees Celcius. motherboard at 29 C.
Things i have tried/observations -
First and foremost after searching up this issue I tried loosening the heatsink screws (as per recommended) also the ones at the back of the motherboard and other screws.
reapplying thermal paste/cleaning thermal paste thoroughly with IPA, reinstalling the entire thing from scratch.
Taking out the CPU and reseated it, cleaning around the sockets with q-tip dipped in IPA, no pins appear to be bent/damaged.
disconnecting the graphics card
switching SSD location to different area/cable in case.
Resetting CMOS, from taking out the battery, to bridging the pins with screwdriver or hitting the cmos button reset on the back of my computer.
Suspecting that this could be a corrupt OS issue I tried various repair attempts via a bootable windows 10 USB, advanced startup repair said it couldn't do anything so i tried suggested commands like sfc /scannow, chkdsk, etc etc. the common ones that you see on many forums.
moving the CPU Cooler Fan to different socket/s. disconnecting case fans to see if they could be doing anything.
unplugging most things from my mother board and plugging them back in again, dusting the PC etc etc etc etc.
reinstalling the cooler again but using the different plastic screw holders (i started with the recommended ones but i was getting really desperate at this point)
the list goes on, something interesting I noticed is that when i disengaged the heatsink from the CPU and booted up the PC windows could run and I could log in, now of course I didn't keep the computer on for long because my CPU was running at 99 degrees but its something that puzzled me, other posts where ive read about this people have issues with even getting into their BIOS and having that run stable. physically speaking the computer appears to be fine but I can't for the life of me work out why this heatsink is (potentially) causing these startup loops. perhaps the heatsink being engaged is causing some kinda of short on the motherboard maybe or i possibly zapped the motherboard with static electricity?
are faulty heatsinks/cpu coolers even a thing? if anyone has any ideas I would greatly appreciate it, ive tried to be as detailed as possible in this post but let me know if you need anymore information.
SPECS - I'll try to provide as much as i can but since i can't get into the PC for dxdiag i have a limited list (reading only from bios)
OS - Windows 10 Home
Motherboard - MSI Z97 Gaming 9 AC
GPU - Nvidia Geforce GTX 970 - MSI
CPU - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790k @ 4.00ghz
*NEW heatsink/cooler - Deepcool AK400 Zero Dark CPU Cooler
RAM - 2x hyperX16gb - * i think DDR3 *- (don't know exact model sorry )
SSD - Samsung EVO 870 QVO 1tb. (Windows 10 OS running on this)
HDD - 2tb (not sure of brand)