cpu fried, second opinion

ronpaul

ronpaul

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I was running an i7 920 @ 3.6Ghz on air, last night I smelled what I thought was electrical burning and my first thought was a short. A minute later the system crashes and refuses to reboot, the smell is pretty strong at this point. I didn't have time to get a reading on my temperature gauges but I assumed it must have been the CPU.

When I try to POST now the system sputters for a second: all fans startup and die, motherboard lights flicker. I've taken out every component and removed power from the: GPU, RAM modules, HDDs, fans, and tried again to POST. Same behavior. So, in your opinion is this a burned out CPU? Though the motherboard seems to be all right, how can I be sure that replacing the CPU won't result in burning that one out due to a faulty mobo (e.g. how can I check if the mobo's toast too)?

Or is there anything else I might try assuming the parts are fine and it was just a short?
 
Look for any burn marks. Check capacitors and transistors. Capacitors are the cylinders with the cross on the top. Did you remove the heatsink and check the CPU chip itself?
 
Clarko said:
Look for any burn marks. Check capacitors and transistors. Capacitors are the cylinders with the cross on the top. Did you remove the heatsink and check the CPU chip itself?
Click to expand...

I did actually. Honestly the chip and the seating looked fine, I'm finding a couple bent capacitors but no burn marks. I'm going to try hotwiring the PSU to make sure it didn't short.
 
I wouldn't jump the psu with it hooked up to the mobo or you might really fry something. Usually when a motherboard goes, it just dies..end of story. Pretty much same for the CPU. They'll usually just be degraded so bad they won't be stable, or they won't work at all.

Don't take a chance on killing your chip or board, try to jump the psu with it out of the machine and not connected to anything.
 
When you say fans, you also mean case fans? Cuz if its affecting the case fans, then it's gotta be the PSU then.
 
DUCE said:
When you say fans, you also mean case fans? Cuz if its affecting the case fans, then it's gotta be the PSU then.
Click to expand...

Yes. If the case fans also stop, its the PSU. Are your case fans plugged into your PSU?
 
What kind of PSU do you have? I'd guess:

1. PSU died
2. MB fried
3. PSU died and fried MB with it
 
yeah, I jumped the PSU totally disconnected and it didn't kick on and it also smelled like electrical burning. I just got back from an electronics store, going to try out a new antec corsair PSU. Thanks guys!
 
Good luck - oftentimes when I've had PSUs die, they've taken other components out with them - hope for the best :D.
 
fortunately the PSU had the decency to die alone, system is up and seems to be stable albeit the CPU is a little hot, probably needs new thermal compound. Thanks again guys
 
That's good to hear, Ron. And yeah probably when you took the heatsink off to inspect the CPU kinda either dried up some of the compound or its not seated even. Nothing a lil more thermal paste will fix.

Btw: what kinda PSU did you get this time around and what was the old one?
 
DUCE said:
That's good to hear, Ron. And yeah probably when you took the heatsink off to inspect the CPU kinda either dried up some of the compound or its not seated even. Nothing a lil more thermal paste will fix.

Btw: what kinda PSU did you get this time around and what was the old one?
Click to expand...

the old one was an OCZ 2700SXS good for 700W

The new one is a corsair tx650W
 
Ah nice...I got a Corsair 750tx and I love it. The modular PSUs are awesome. Ya won't go wrong with that.
 
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