Swapped CPU's on my 2017 21.5 inch iMac, won't boot

I have a 2017 21.5 inch 4k iMac and I've recently swapped the cpu from the stock i5 7400 to an i7 7700. I swapped the ram from 8gb to 32gb aswell. I have an issue where the new i7 CPU won't boot into the OS. it gets about half way through the % bar upon boot and restarts. All I get is the classic 'there was an issue booting so your computer restarted' message after it reboots.... so helpful 👍

The i7 will boot into recovery mode, I can log into wifi from there, I can change boot drive, currently I'm in internet recovery mode to see what it does. I can't get it to boot into safe mode, it restarts the second the % bar comes on screen. I'm a little confused, if anyone knows what may be the issue I'd be glad to hear.

When I was putting the i7 CPU in it slid out of place while I was tightening it while it wasn't set properly. I didn't hear anything but I noticed it. Pins on mobo are fine, old cpu still worked after that. Idk if the i7 worked before that, if I trashed the cpu I would expect nothing on the mac to work. The Pins on the cpu look fine too. There's no visible damage, and it didn't crunch.

This seems like an OS issue. I'm running the current mac os, not sure the exact version. Might be 1 minor update outdated as of June 4/2024. I can pop the old cpu in and check if that's necessary.

submitted by /u/RainingCumfetti
[link] [comments]