Is my CPU a serial motherboard killer?

[DocX]

Here's a puzzle for you guys who like solving problems. For the answer to the riddle, you'll get one big, bright and shiny thank you from a very appreciative guy.

Okay guys... I had my original setup that worked for about a year. Then one day, weird errors started happening and finally my power supply made a loud pop and gave up the ghost. I thought it was a bad power supply. Replaced. It died within a week. Nothing else worked even after a new power supply (which I just used to test briefly in fear of losing another beloved PS). I tested my CPU and RAM on another computer. Worked fine. Tried their CPU and RAM in my old motherboard, didn't work. I set out to buy a new motherboard. Everything was happy until my HD crashed. Luckily, it was under warranty and WD replaced it. [Unluckily, I lost a whole collection of digital pic's of those ever so personal family moments.] After that, everything's working fine--great even. Then I leave the house and come back an hour later and screen's black. Can't reset. Have to hold in power button for 5 sec's. Try to turn it back on and the fans will turn but no POSTing. Tried my processor and RAM on another computer again and it worked fine. Tried their processor and RAM on my mb and nothing happened. So I grab me another mb and now it won't boot. I think maybe the video card's bad, but I can't try my older AGP card out on new motherboard (new one on me, but there's a notch in the AGP slot that's not there on the old card). I try old video card in suspect motherboard and put CPU and RAM in as well. With nothing else hooked up, by the way, when I try just CPU, RAM and vid card. I'm lazy so I don't put the heat sink on the CPU because, admittedly, they're annoying to pop on and off. I've done it before just to see if the setup will POST. I look at my monitor to see if the screen's going to come on. . . .*sniff sniff* White smoke coming out of my processor or from the bubbling thermal compound, I'm not sure which or both, maybe. CPU blackened around processor and on other side of silicon wafer. A CPU shouldn't heat up that quick when it's not been used for anyting but testing for POST, right? Haven't been able to test it out yet in another computer but I'm afraid that that white smoke coming out was it giving up the ghost. I'm left to determine exactly what is the problem. Could it have been the CPU the whole time? Maybe the video card? Certainly not the motherboards, power supplies, RAM or hard drives. Has anyone dealt with any situation like this???? My setups are listed below. I could DEFINITELY use your help before I go off spending hundreds trying to figure it out, ruining things on the way.

*Original
Gigabyte 7VRXP Then a...
SOYO KT333 Dragon Ultra Platinum mb <--One that CPU fried on
512MB DDR PC2700
Athlon XP 2100+
400 watt ps
MSI GeForce4 Ti 4600
WD 100GB & 40GB 7200 SE
Panasonic DVD
TDK CD-RW 40x12x48

*Motherboard trying now but couldn't get pre-fried CPU to work on: Biostar M7NCD

Please help!

-DocX

 

[Shad0hawK]

one common thing many people overlook is thier power company.

where i live the power in many places has a very sharp fluctuation, and without a line conditioner it can be deadly to a PSU. at our shop we have had some customers with the VERY similar issues, namely going through PSU like there is no tomorrow and sometimes resulting in toasted hardware as well. investing in a UPS that has a line conditioner will solve this problem(BTW not all UPS's have line conditioning capabilities.)

sometimes when a PSU goves up the ghost it sends a power surge throughout the whole system. than is not good for the other hardware

i HIGHLY reccomend using the heatsink on the CPU at ALL times. i do not know what cpu you have, but an AMD XP processer can reach 400+ degrees F in about 3 seconds(yes, just posting) with no heatsink on it. that will kill it...fast.

motherboards with thermal protection sometimes save the CPU, but not always. NEVER fire up a cpu with no heatsink on! even a thermally protected one! if clipping and unclipping is that terrible, you can not clip it but press gently down or use some sort of weight for pessure.

 

[JediJeb]

Well I'm no expert but the first problems sound alot like really bad line power coming into the house giving surges frying things.

But, I do imagine the cpu is dead now, you should never ever run a processor like an AMD Athlon without a heatsink of some kind. They will get super hot in just a few seconds and when it is running the checks at POST that is loading it up quite a bit in those first few seconds. If it was new enough to have the thermal diode and the MOBO has the thermal protection circuitry on it then maybe it would shut down quick enough without a heatsink, but I'm not brave enough to risk it.

 

[DocX]

I've been using this current power supply for at least 5 months now with no problems from it ever since I got rid of the Soyo motherboard. I'm not ruling it out, obviously, but my gut tells me that power fluctuations/spikes are not the problem.

And, of course, the CPU frying cannot be an added symptom since I did run it w/o the heatsink. It's just I'd run it before like that with no prob. The problem I find with it frying and torching itself is that it hadn't even posted yet. Nothing had happened in the way of posting or even the video card BIOS kicking in. No monitor--no nothing.

Any other suggestions beside a possible power spike?

-DocX