Are these symptoms of a dead cpu?

[darrenford]

I came home from work last night and my computer would not boot. I have a p3-700 with a soyo-7vca MB. At power-on, the bios correctly reports a p3-700, but locks at the "checking memory" step.

Reading the diagnostic LEDs tells me that the MB is stuck trying to initialize the L2 cache. I am not certain that the LEDs mean that's where it stopped, or if that was the last successful step. Sometimes it doesn't even get to the L2 step, but quickly flashes through the LEDs in sequence and stops with none lit.

I have swapped out the RAM, video, and removed everything else. Unfortunately, I cannot swap out the cpu. I do not have another p3, or a motherboard that will accept a p3.

Any ideas?

 

[CStroman]

With a dead CPU, you won't even get as far as memory checking. Go into your BIOS, and check to see if "Halt on errors" is enabled.

 

[darrenford]

Thanks.

I haven't had any luck getting into the setup screen. The transition from power-off to the point where it locks up is almost instantaneous. I'll try some more.

 

[Wind]

Do a clear CMOS & try fire-up again.

 

[darrenford]

Thanks everyone for the tips.

I did manage to get into the bios setup before it froze and reset. (Held down the key while turning the power on did the trick). I am now working again. Something is still flaky because it takes forever to get to the win2k startup screen, and then a _very_ long time to actually boot.

 

[ku]

I suggest you check your RAM. Well.. at least we now know it's not your CPU.