Alienware Area 51, No Start

I have an Alienware Area 51 which was received in August 2010 and is out of warranty.  Currently it is used mostly for folding, it recently failed where the fans went to 100% and keyboard and mouse were non-responsive, so it could only be turned off by either unplugging it or holding the power button down for quite sometime.  When trying to restart  the power button would light up when pushed, fans would go to 100% but it would not post (no Alienware Logo screen).  I have seen this posted in the forums several times before but have never found an explanation for the cause or on how to fix it, or at least anything that I could find.  I thought I would post what I did to get the computer working again.  I have used this procedure twice now when this has happened and both times it has worked. 

Initially I thought the video card failed as I was folding with both the video card and CPU.  I also could not get the monitors to flash or show signs of displaying anything.  However, putting the video card in another computer showed the video card was not the problem.  After the computer would sit for a couple of days there were times when turning it on the fans would go to 100% briefly, then the computer would restart, the screen would flash the HDMI port in the upper corner but still no post and fans would again lock at 100%, until the power button was held down to shut the computer off. 

What worked for me was disassembling the computer by, removing the ram (I tried rebooting with each of individual sticks of ram which did not work), CPU cooler which meant disconnecting the cabling to the board attached to the cooling assembly, and the CPU.  I cleaned the CPU and CPU cooler removing the old thermal paste and installing new thermo paste.  I put everything back together and the computer booted normally except for telling me it did not like the overclock and that it was being reset.  Pressing enter the computer rebooted and posted and started normally.  I have twice used this procedure to get the computer to work again.  I am speculating it does not like the rigors of folding 24/7, but I still do not understand what step in the process I am using is fixing the issue but I would guess it could be removing the CPU. 

Perhaps this will help someone else who experiences a no start.