If the side of the core got chipped or otherwise damaged when you were installing the heat sink, that could cause this kind of problem. It's pretty easy to do with flip-chip designs. Not sure about the physics behind it all, but chipping the edge off of the silicon can have all kinds of strange effects on a system's stability, including random reboots, weird power surges (the CPU draws a lot of power, so if it decides to suddenly short out for a moment, power fluctuates like crazy in the system). My advice would be to verify your theory by purchasing a processor somewhere like Frys where you can return it if it wasn't the problem. Try it out in your system and see how it works. Best case: it works fine and your problem is solved. Worse case: problems persist, you take the new processor back, and try swapping the motherboard.
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