Burned out PSU! Is my chip fried???

[placebo139]

Can a motherboard function and turn on with a burned CPU?

I recently burned out my cheap generic 320W PSU (went ahead and bought a Antec 400W in place of it) and I'm now concerned that my chip may be damaged. I connected my computer to my roommate's PSU and everything turned on fine (although I didn't connect the machine to the monitor).

But as long as the mobo powers up the chip should be fine right? I would try this again, but removing the PSU from my roommate's computer and putting it into mine is such a hassle...

If anyone could give me some sort of piece of mind... that'd be great.

 

[PhaZe]

You should of hooked up the monitor when you put your friend's psu while you were at it. It may boot up but it might not of posted. I don't think you will be able to reach the bios if the cpu is fried. Can you tell us how your old PSU burned out?

 

[amdskip]

If you have the system speaker hooked up, there should be beeps coming from it if there is no cpu detected. It would probably go ahead and act like it was starting up even if the cpu was burned out.

 

[placebo139]

Originally posted by: PhaZe
You should of hooked up the monitor when you put your friend's psu while you were at it. It may boot up but it might not of posted. I don't think you will be able to reach the bios if the cpu is fried. Can you tell us how your old PSU burned out?

I guess it was due to a lack of ventilation... I had the thing under my desk. And the computer was operating fine one morning when all of a sudden it just turned off. There was no audible pop or anything.

 

[placebo139]

Originally posted by: amdskip
If you have the system speaker hooked up, there should be beeps coming from it if there is no cpu detected. It would probably go ahead and act like it was starting up even if the cpu was burned out.

I didn't hear a beep... is that a bad sign?

 

[altonb1]

Originally posted by: placebo139

Originally posted by: amdskip If you have the system speaker hooked up, there should be beeps coming from it if there is no cpu detected. It would probably go ahead and act like it was starting up even if the cpu was burned out.

I didn't hear a beep... is that a bad sign?

Could be. It depends on your system. My PC has a very faint POST beep that if you aren't basically right next to the unit with absolute quiet, you'll never hear it. (It doesn't help that the speaker is on the bottom of the tower case, basically sending the sound out of the tiny speaker into flat metal which is then sitting on carpet) Anyway, I think your best bet is to hook up a display. If you can't do this easily, let the system boot completely and see if the hard drive has activity. The OS loading will cause HD activity, and if the HD is getting activity, you can be safe it is booting. if it botts, you should be okay. It everything just powers on but you don't see any activity, the lack of an audible beep could be a bad thing.

 

[placebo139]

*phew*

thank goodness... one of my friends had an extra PSU to lend me while mine was coming in the mail.

luckily everything turned on just fine. I was so worried for a while. Thanks guys.