AMD Athlon XP Barton heat sink removal

I got a computer that was moved and the screen went black often. Eventually the screen is just black on bootup, the fan runs. Suspect the cpu may need to be reseated.

It has Asus NForce board and AMD 2500 Barton processor. I need help with removing the heatsink. There is a green latch with 2 slots in it. Anyone have removed these before?

 

Usually the heatsinks have a handle on one end of the clip, and the other end 'grabs' the CPU socket without a handle. I suspect the green thing is the handle. It may not be big enough to actually grab with your fingers, but it is still considered the handle. Anyway, lay the PC on its side. Use a flat head screwdriver with a fairly small (not too small) head, and stick it into one of the slots in the green thing. Now push down as if you were trying to stick the screwdriver into the table. As you push down, start angling the head of the screwdriver away from the heatsink/CPU socket. The idea is to get the metal to 'unlatch' itself from the CPU socket. Sometimes you need a 2nd screwdriver to kind of pry the metal away from the CPU socket as you push down and away with the first screwdriver. Confused? Sorry... this is kind of hard to describe without pictures...

The problem may not be the CPU. Before messing with it, check all the other cards and connections: reseat the RAM and video card; check the power and data cables to the motherboard and to all the drives. Personally, I mess with the CPU last as it is very seldom the cause of an erratic PC....

 

Thanks for the great advice. The green tab had to be the latch and I still can't figure out how to release it. But I changed the power supply and now it boots up.