processor testing safety...

[Atheus]

So I have a possibly-bad E6600 which I need to test. If there is a flaw in the CPU from the power surge, is it possible for it to short enough power to damage the memory controller or some part of the motherboard? What about the memory itself? Is there anything else I need to be aware of?

 

[myocardia]

Almost anything is possible, but damaging a motherboard with a CPU is extremely unlikely, though still possible.

 

[Cutthroat]

I think it is highly unlikely anything bad would happen. I would try it.

 

[BadRobot]

Be careful though because its really hard to get that magic smoke back into the capacitors once you've let it out.

 

[nyker96]

I have had a system die on me last year and after replacing the parts found it was both CPU and m.b. that went bad. So it is possible. I believe what happened was the m.b. went down and somehow it gone bad in the voltage department and consequently fried the cpu. So that was my exp. with this.

 

[kotrtim]

Did you overclock, its very difficult to get yourself a bad CPU, I suppose Intel tested every CPU before selling them?

 

[Cogman]

Originally posted by: kotrtim
Did you overclock, its very difficult to get yourself a bad CPU, I suppose Intel tested every CPU before selling them?

Yes, they test each CPU, thats how they know which one is a 3.0GHZ and which is a 2.0GHZ it is a process called binning where they put the CPU at a given voltage and run basically a stability test, the neuter the thing if it doesn't preform well enough, test it again and sell it cheep.