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Dead CPU?

deshepherd

deshepherd

deshepherd

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Joined
15 Sep 2005
Posts
869
Came home tonight to find the PC my children play on (plus we use to check email etc) was dead ... turns on but while all fans spin up no display and no beeps from speaker. My wife said she turned it on earlier in the day and got the normal mboard boot screen but it then went blank and have ahd no display since.

Initial thought was gfx card (and "elderly" 3850) ahd died but trying it in another PC found it works (sad ... I wouldn't have minded having to replace that).

So this probably means its cpu or mboard .... any way (other than swapping CPU which I'd like to avoid) to eliminate on or the other?

N.b. when I opened the PC up I found that the intake fan (and the gfx cooler) were clogged with dust which may have affected internal temps (though as cpu was a lowish spec athlon x2 which was not oc-ed its not like I was trying to cook it).
 
It's very rare that a cpu dies. It is most likely either your PSU or motherboard. I suggest cleaning up the dust. What PSU do you have? Also do you have any other pc in which you could try the PSU and see if it powers it up.

You mentioned fans spinning so psu may still be ok although it may not be pulling enough power. But most likely with no beeps it is usually the motherboard.
 
Yeah I would test it with another PSU, stuff can still spin up even if the PSU is dead, quite annoying really.
 
Get hold of a can of compressed air and give it a thorough going over, blow into the PSU also, might force any dust stuck inside out... (even if it's not a fix I'd recommend it anyway for the rest of the parts).
 
Thanks for the inputs ... I'll have a go with the PSU from another PC ... the PSU is a Corsair VX-450 which when I got it seemed to have a good reputation (and I'd assumed would be much more durable than the "<another retailer> value specials" that I'd had before!).
 
deshepherd said:
Thanks for the inputs ... I'll have a go with the PSU from another PC
Click to expand...

Pulled PSU out of other PC and connected up mboard and gfx power, pressed the on switch and got the mboard boot splash screen ... so it looks like a dead PSU (hmm, so much for my idea I was investing in a quality branded PSU a couple of years ago!)

I know I'm in the wrong forum but any recommendations on a cheapish PSU - the OcUK crusade one look suitable - would probably get 650W and put that in my main PC and move the 500W OCZ one from there down to this 2nd PC
 
deshepherd said:
(hmm, so much for my idea I was investing in a quality branded PSU a couple of years ago!)
Click to expand...

Interesting. I bought a Corsair TX650w a few months ago to have it blow up on me the other week, yet the 3 year old 500w 'no brand' PSU I was using before the Corsair is still capable of running the machine :D
 
Sorry to resurrect this again (plus its now definitely not a CPU issue so its the wrong forum) but over the weekend was preparing to make an RMA request to Corsair and to make sure I'd covered all the things to check first I reset the CMOS on the mboard, powered up the PC .... and it booted.

So positive news is the problem seems to be fixed ... but I'm now confused as to why. Situations is

1) PC refused to boot/POST with the Corsair PSU
2) when I plugged in another PSU it did
3) Plugging Corsair back in again it still did nothing
4) when I then reset CMOS it booted (?I think I reset CMOS - jumper actually only mentions resetting RTC but I could find no other jumper that would reset CMOS).

Anyone hazard a guess as to what happened - I could believe there could be a problem it the CMOS/RAM got scrambled - but that doesn't explain why it worked with a different PSU without clearing the CMOS/RAM
 
deshepherd said:
Pulled PSU out of other PC and connected up mboard and gfx power, pressed the on switch and got the mboard boot splash screen ... so it looks like a dead PSU (hmm, so much for my idea I was investing in a quality branded PSU a couple of years ago!)

I know I'm in the wrong forum but any recommendations on a cheapish PSU - the OcUK crusade one look suitable - would probably get 650W and put that in my main PC and move the 500W OCZ one from there down to this 2nd PC
Click to expand...

Never mind.
 
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