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

OK, I tried it earlier with my old AMD kit. I did make a crappy film on my phone but to be honest there's not much to see.

The board only supports IDE and I have no IDE HDDs or optical drives so I couldn't boot into an OS to test. From the BIOS all that happens is the temp starts to rise as you take off the heatsink and then as you remove the CPU it hangs. Fans still spin, lights stay on but nothing happens until you kill the power. CPU and mobo worked fine afterwards.
 
Geckovich said:
OK, I tried it earlier with my old AMD kit. I did make a crappy film on my phone but to be honest there's not much to see.

The board only supports IDE and I have no IDE HDDs or optical drives so I couldn't boot into an OS to test. From the BIOS all that happens is the temp starts to rise as you take off the heatsink and then as you remove the CPU it hangs. Fans still spin, lights stay on but nothing happens until you kill the power. CPU and mobo worked fine afterwards.
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And you were not sucked into the matrix? i am soooo disapointed
Dam those films for laying to us!
 
jonny512379 said:
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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This is a common misunderstanding of the situation regarding electric shocks. It is true that it is the current (amps) that will generally give you a shock or kill you. This does not mean that a 50 amp power source will be fatal (or even give you a shock).

Your body has resistance, it is no a brilliant conductor of electricity like a length of copper wire is. For you to feel a shock, you need a certain amount of current to flow. Current = voltage divided by resistance. So, for a certain resistance, you need a certain amount of voltage to be applied. At the kind of voltages supplied by a PC power supply or a car battery (12 volts or less), a very small current will flow through your body, even though those power sources can supply many amps. You will not feel a thing if you touch the + & - terminals on a car battery or the output from your PC PSU. At mains voltage, around 230v AC, enough current can flow through your body to give you a shock, or even kill you. The amount of current that can flow through you body depends on the resistance between the two points of contact with the electricity supply. This varies, depending on how wet or dry your skin is, the strength of contact with the power source, and the distance between the two points of contact. Fatality depends several factors, the points of contact, the amount of current flowing, the current path through the body and factors based on an individual's physiology . As someone else mentioned, the highest risk is usually when the shock passes through the heart, so death is more likely if you touch a power source with your right and left hands, as the current will flow through your chest. I believe that the critical current for survival is around 0.1 amps, but I would think that a smaller current could be fatal.
 
It's quite amusing reading the speculations as to what would happen with you lot talking about fatal shocks and electricity arcs coming from the socket! It's only 12v and the maximum you are going to get is about 140W, most are much less. If it did shock him, it would sting quite a bit, but I see no reason why it would even reach him. Even with these mythical 6" arcs they will only go to the most conductive thing which would be the CPU or solder joints on the motherboard, not your hand!
 
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