How can you tell if a CPU is dead?

[Syps]

I may have fried my processor while trying to set up my new computer, but im not sure. I plugged it in and smoke went everywhere. The smoke seems so have come from a wire on the power supply that melted and took my floppy drive along with it. I chopped off the melted connector and chucked the floppy, and everything seems to work, but I had to return the motherboard that was in it, and the only board I can check is on my a7v which supports up to 1.2 ghz processors and mine's a 1.4. I put in the 1.4 and the fans spun and everything, but it wouldn't post, except with a 650 duron i had on hand.

My question is, is there any way to tell for SURE if my processor is dead besides trying it on a different motherboard because i think it may just be a problem with my a7v not working with it.

 

[hoihtah]

as far as i can tell...
(perhaps someone can prove me wrong on this)
but your mobo has "Socket A for AMD® Thunderbird? / Duron? 550MHz ~ 1GHz+ CPU"

it states 1ghz+
i'm going to assume that your 1.4 is an athlon and is 266 mhz fsb.
if so... then your multiplier on your cpu should be set to 10.5

your mobo is a 200 mhz fsb board.
meaning naturally, it'll run your cpu at 1050, rather than at 1400.

so i don't think it's the limitations of your mobo that's hindering your cpu from booting.
try clearing the cmos

does it boot at all?
boot to bios?

are there any physical indication of burn out?

i hope that helps.