Dual PIII 550mhz...dead?

[ottothecow]

I have a computer running dual PIII 550mhz chips. It was in working condition when the CPUs were installed but about a week ago or so I swapped the heatsinks on the chips and put them back in. I dont recall if I turned it on at that time or not since it's not connected to anything but today I put a new harddrive in it and was going to start it up.

The computer powers on but I get no video. What I eventually notice is that the secondary CPU is not fully seated in its slot (from the angle, I couldnt tell if it was actually in the slot at all or just pressing up against it). When I reseat it, the computer continues to fail to boot with the processors installed in any order.

I tried sticking in a pair of 733mhz chips and it was able to pop the monitor out of powersave mode (it cant run 133mhz bus so it has never posted with those chips, only with the 550s). But going back to the old chips still leads to a dead system. I tried removing the SATA controller card and reseating the RAM in a different socket to no avail.

Does it sound like I have a fried chip? Would it be the chip that was only partially seated or the chip that was fully seated (but without proper termination in the second socket)? Or did it get hit with static when I was swapping the heatsinks (I am pretty damn sure I didnt kill the core or anything, and I used arctic silver 5)?

 

[Brock123]

might be a dead mb

 

[ottothecow]

I think the motherboard is good (it behaves how it always has with the other CPUs) but I could be wrong

Does anyone know if I can check certain pins with a multimeter to see if the CPU is fried?

 

[Cooler]

that is an old cpu did you try it on another mobo?

 

[ottothecow]

I dont have another mobo to try it with here but they both worked before I swapped heatsinks and forgot to reseat them.

 

[ottothecow]

In the event that I need to buy another one, which number is the stepping? is it the "S1" or is it another number hidden somewhere on the chip?

 

[ottothecow]

bump

 

[ottothecow]

anyone know if you can test for a dead CPU with a multimeter?

 

[Cooler]

Originally posted by: ottothecow
anyone know if you can test for a dead CPU with a multimeter?

you should be able to find cheap mobo from that time thats best way to test if it is the chip.

 

[stevty2889]

Have you tried each of the 550's 1 at a time? A dual CPU P3 board can run with just 1 cpu, so that would be an easy way to test.

 

[ottothecow]

The dual board needs a termination card to be set in the secondary slot which I do not currently have in my posession. This is actually one of the things that worries me about the chip as I tried running it without one of the chips in its socket (thus no cpu OR termination card) and I dont know if that could burn it out or not--I certainly hope that that is not possible and that it was static when I swaped the heatsinks.

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: ottothecow
The dual board needs a termination card to be set in the secondary slot which I do not currently have in my posession. This is actually one of the things that worries me about the chip as I tried running it without one of the chips in its socket (thus no cpu OR termination card) and I dont know if that could burn it out or not--I certainly hope that that is not possible and that it was static when I swaped the heatsinks.

Hmm, must be something specific to your board then, my dual cpu pentium 3 motherboard didn't require a termination card of any sort, and ran fine with a single cpu.

 

[ottothecow]

Originally posted by: Brock123
might be a dead mb

I think you may be closer to right. I hooked up the speaker again and discovered that it was making a beep code of 4 long beeps which I cannont decipher (I have a thread going in the mobo forum to figure out what 1-1-1-1 means since I cant find it online anywhere).