I fried my CPU?

[paperfist]

Hi all,

I have an ITX computer I use for work (runs 24/7) and this morning it was shut down. I figured it did a Windows update, but when I went to power it on I could smell something burning. Before I could power it down it did so on its own.

I'm having trouble figuring out what is bad though. I figured it was the Allied power supply they used in the case, but it doesn't really smell and it powered up another setup just fine.

I don't see any burn marks on the MB and the processor looks fine. The processor doesn't really smell, it seems like it's the socket that smells.

So how do I pinpoint what part is toast? I don't have another board to try the processor in.

Thanks!

 

[Duvie]

Unfortunately you pinpoint it like you are....part by part on another board....

You may have just fried the mobo, but unfortunately when those things go they have the tendency to take a lot of things out with it. I have seen mobos go out and fry the video card, cpu, ram, etc.....

I have seen cpus damaged and you usually get a black screen with a cursor blinking....not sure if that is the norm anymore...I haven't seen a damaged cpu in like 8 years.....

Do you have beep tones for the motherboard or led light?

Unhook all items from the system except one stick of ram, cpu, and the video card. Unhook all nonessentials like HDDs, Roms, and any other pcu cards.

Do you get spin up of fans? Since you said the the power supply worked elseweher I think that would point to a fried motherboard...

 

[paperfist]

Unfortunately you pinpoint it like you are....part by part on another board....

You may have just fried the mobo, but unfortunately when those things go they have the tendency to take a lot of things out with it. I have seen mobos go out and fry the video card, cpu, ram, etc.....

I have seen cpus damaged and you usually get a black screen with a cursor blinking....not sure if that is the norm anymore...I haven't seen a damaged cpu in like 8 years.....

Do you have beep tones for the motherboard or led light?

Unhook all items from the system except one stick of ram, cpu, and the video card. Unhook all nonessentials like HDDs, Roms, and any other pcu cards.

Do you get spin up of fans? Since you said the the power supply worked elseweher I think that would point to a fried motherboard...

That's what I'm afraid of, that whatever fried took out half the system.

No beeps or blinking LEDs. I tired using another PSU on this system with everything unhooked minus the RAM & CPU and it powers up with the CPU fan spinning, but it wouldn't take the monitor out of sleep mode.

It's one of those Zotac all in one MBs with onboard video, WLAN, sound, etc.

 

[Duvie]

Do you have an extra vid card lying around? Try that....

Could the smell be coming from the northbridge chipset at all? If you toast the NB then you would have lost video altogether.

This is where it can get expensive...gambling on what part is toast and possibly wasting money buying replacement parts and then find out ..."thats not it!!!"

Good thing is a board to run a Q6600 are a dime a dozen and you should be able to get for cheap....However you wont be able to test the cpu until then and it can be fried as well.

This is when you have friends with similar system can really help out to test parts....MarkFW900 is mine and he has about any platform I could need to test on right now....

 

[paperfist]

Do you have an extra vid card lying around? Try that....

Could the smell be coming from the northbridge chipset at all? If you toast the NB then you would have lost video altogether.

This is where it can get expensive...gambling on what part is toast and possibly wasting money buying replacement parts and then find out ..."thats not it!!!"

Good thing is a board to run a Q6600 are a dime a dozen and you should be able to get for cheap....However you wont be able to test the cpu until then and it can be fried as well.

This is when you have friends with similar system can really help out to test parts....MarkFW900 is mine and he has about any platform I could need to test on right now....

I checked the processor again and it really smells like the HSF has got that burn smell, more specifically the AS7 goop smells. I haven't checked the northbridge yet, but I will.

Yeah I have a few spare GPUs, I'll try those out.

It's actually an AMD setup, X2 5050e Brisbane & Zotac GF8200-C-E which is the expensive part.

I could use a friend like that now, would make testing a breeze!

Thanks for your help

 

[Jen]

have you tried clearing the CMOS ?


hugs

Jen

 

[paperfist]

have you tried clearing the CMOS ?


hugs

Jen

hmm that's old school Great idea, lemme see if they have one of those pins on the board, thanks

 

[aigomorla]

Unfortunately you pinpoint it like you are....part by part on another board....

+1 to this.

Its painful..

But

1. Try out old ram in new board.
2. Try out cpu in new board.

 

[paperfist]

Well got my hands on another AM2 MB. Put the processor in there and it POSTs fine. Tried the CPU with each of the 2 sticks of RAM and it POSTs fine.

Very interesting that it's the CPU/Socket that smells like it's burnt yet clearly the MB is toast. I wonder what happened

Anyway, thanks for all your help! And I hope Zotac isn't a PITA to deal with...

 

[DrMrLordX]

Sounds like socket burn. It has happened to plenty of early/cheap LGA1156 boards, though I've never heard of it happening to an AM2 board.