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What would happened if you pulled the processor out while pc was on?

What if a device was used that would instantly isolate the pins from the board? Yes a theoretical device. This should stop shorting of any kind. but how would the machine react, just instant black screen? Just freeze showing the last thing on screen that you were looking at preisolator?
 
Could this not be attempted using the old Pentium 2/3, AMD Athlon chips that slot into the motherboard like an expansion card?

Edit: The Slot 1 / Slot A type
 
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I've done this with a Pentium 4 1.7 Northwood mobile in a desktop board clocked down and highly undervolted for kicks. Windows froze and monitor went into standby mode but fans etc.. were still running. No sparks or anything, though i doubt that cpu would be pulling any significant amperage.
 
Justintime said:
...though i doubt that cpu would be pulling any significant amperage.
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You might be surprised :)

GCSE electronics will tell you P = IV, where I is current and V is voltage, so for ease of thinking, let's take a 125W AMD cpu and overclock it a smidge on 1.4V: I'd imagine that 140W power draw is not a million miles out from reality at this point.

So:
I = P / V
I = 140 / 1.4
I = 100 amps.

"But I'm running on a 5A fuse!" I hear you cry! Well yes, but at 240V. So, 140 / 240 = 0.58 amps supplied from the plug for the CPU. Completely reasonable :)

There's a nice calculator over here: http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-ohm.htm where you can twiddle things a bit :)


(Of course, I may be wrong. I'm no electrical engineer, and if I'm talking ******** hopefully someone will correct me and prevent inadvertent warping of future generations :D )
 
eddiew said:
(Of course, I may be wrong. I'm no electrical engineer, and if I'm talking ******** hopefully someone will correct me and prevent inadvertent warping of future generations :D )
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No, I think your calculations are correct. However, I'd just point out that the current draw from the mains supply may be slightly higher, due to inefficiency of the PSU.

I still find it slightly incredible that a modern CPU can draw 100amps. That's a lot of current, even if it is shared between several million transistors.
 
Scougar said:
Burning maybe... shock unlikely. (And fatal? doubt it). It takes A LOT of energy to bridge a gap.
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Fatal, not likely, as I understand it its amps that kills, not voltage, so 100amps at 12v is a lot more dangerous than 0.5amps at 240v.

Still unlikely purely because of the current actually getting into you, but if it did, it would be a lot of amps.
 
it would be a freak accident if the electricity in a PC was fatal (PSU exception)

CPUs will use aprox 100 amps @ 1.2 volt. Amps are what kills but i think the distance the amps can travel is very small with DC electricity and 1.2 volts.
You may get a 100 amp shock to your finger but by the time it reaches your heart (which is what kills) there will probably be no amps left.... (touching your Car Battery which is about 50 Amps minimum and this has no effect...)
If it was AC electricity it would be a totally different story!!
 
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For the people asking me to do it, i asked what would happen and i didn't say i would try it :)

I have an i5 build here, if i get a free pc with similar specs, ill do it with my current rig :) its oced at 4.2ghz :) ill record it and put it on youtube, ill zoom right into the processor so you can see it being removed.

The way i would remove the CPU is to make it stick to the heat sink. Ill have to remove the heat sink, then undo the cpu clamp thing, leave that open then put the heat sink back on. Then i would apply firm pressure on the heat sink, then i would run a benchmark and in the middle of it ill pull the heat sink and hope the cpu sticks to it and doesn't fall out ! But ill only do that if i was getting a free pc with same spec :)


-edit-

i have and old p4 system, no psu though, dont want to use a good one in case i end up blowing it up! Might give it a go if i pick up a cheap supply of ebay or something :)
 
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DC electricity requires about 10,000 volts to arc a centimetre, so no significant arcing is going to occur at 1.4 odd volts. Also, good advice when dealing with electricity if you don't have gloves is only use one hand. That way the power will either pass through a couple of fingers or down the side of your body to ground. If you use two hands and bridge something the current can travel straight across your chest, and your heart happens to sit there. But nothing deadly is going to come out of a CPU socket.
 
OLDPHART said:
How do peeps think of these ideas. :eek:
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well i started this topic because i was discussing it with a friend, we argued and argued. We began talking about it after looking for a 5.25 device which allows people to hot swap hard drives Then it changed to hot swapping hardware like graphics etc and we tried with an old card. It didnt go to well, killed the card somehow. I think it was a nvidia 7900gt Then we wondered if a cpu would be hot swap-able. We didnt want to try as we both agreed it would give us a shock, but wouldn't know how much. Then i posted it on OCUK asking what the effects where :)
 
For those asking why? The correct question to ask is - Why not? And for those saying about getting a shock, just insulate yourself from earth and problem solved. If I had a HSF lying around I would be tempted to try it on my old athlon just to see what actually does happen, but I don't so I can't.
 
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