Quote:
if looking at the top, you find a light blackend or brownish smudge
I keep thinking that the chip may very well be toast. Before I removed the board or attempted any type of thought process on this, I noticed the chip had a decent bit of dust on it as did the bottom of the heatsink so I'd say it's a fair wager that the heatsink had been off of the chip for some time. Also, after cleaning the dust off of the chip, I noticed there's quite a bit of stuff that didn't come off (might be from the thermal compound residue) and the surrounding area around the chip doesn't look too hot (looks somewhat charred but I can't quite make it out clearly).