CPU or motherboard failure?

[davidpbrown]

Is it more common for CPU's to fail than motherboards?

My Asus A8V motherboard is suggesting my FX53(~AMD4000) is "CPU overclocking" and "CPU fail". I've reapplied thermal compound and reset CMOS but there's no change and it still won't boot. Is there a simple way to test which is failed, as I'm not even getting to POST?

It's been working fine for two and half+ years, although when it was built there were times I'd get the overclock error and then reboot it ok. I wonder if it's possible for software to break hardware, I recently switched to linux and might it not manage the CPU temprature appropriately??

Could it be a misdiagnosed RAM problem?

??

 

[shadowrunner]

It could be anything, try swapping out sticks of memory (i.e. if you have 2 for dual channel, try just one stick).

If you've had the CPU overclocked and overheating, then yes it might have died, but CPU's tend to be more reliable than motherboards, so I'd be more inclined to suspect the board. As said though, it's hard to tell wthout actually trying the components, so maybe if you have any mates that have compatible hardware, you could try the CPU with them?