How to determin if an AMD 1 GHz Athelon chip is defective.

[FireFighter]

Hi everyone,

Does anyone know how to tell if an AMD 1 GHz Athelon socket-A chip is defective? I just put a systme togehter. It worked but then I wanted to put some thermal grease between the fan and the CPU. Not my system doen't boot up. I suspect it's the CPU, but don't know how to confirm this.

[proze]

do you know anyone with a socket a motherboard you could test the chip in? it's safer than testing their cpu in your motherboard, but you could try that as well if you're confident you're not going to kill theirs too!

have a look at the chip... you might have cracked it when putting the hsf on. be very, very careful when placing the hsf and clipping it down. amd processor cores are pretty fragile and can die quite easily from being crushed.

hope you come right!

[TT120]

If you dont have access to another socket MoBo, you could take the chip to a computer store and for a few bucks they can test it for you.

[Thermodynamic]

FireFighter (Apr 30, 2001 04:25 p.m.):
Hi everyone,

Does anyone know how to tell if an AMD 1 GHz Athelon socket-A chip is defective? I just put a systme togehter. It worked but then I wanted to put some thermal grease between the fan and the CPU. Not my system doen't boot up. I suspect it's the CPU, but don't know how to confirm this.

Well, I had a similar predicament back in January when my Athie 1ghz + MSI Mobo arrived. The system wouldn't finish the POST half the time, and generally the system would hang even in plain-old DOS! I had stripped down to a bare bones system (ONLY Mobo, video, test IDE hard drive - no sound, scsi, or network) and still had problems. No luck. :(

I swapped video card and even bought a new HD (I was due for a new HD, anyway.) No luck. :(

Bought a new power supply, 300 Watt - the old p.s. was 300w and only 2 better rule it out... No luck. :( Kept the p/s just in case I'd need it in the future.

I went out and bought PC133 RAM to replace the PC100 RAM. No luck, so I returned the memory. :( I had read a lot about memory timings with the Athlon but had been told elsewhere my PC100 RAM should be fine... And that PC100 RAM is in my existing Athlon system, which will soon be replaced with PC133 RAM so I can o/c it properly. During my testings I've made sure all settings are in a "fail safe" configuration; something which isn't optimized or overstressing.

I went out and bought a new mobo (a basic no-feature Tyan thingie from Best Buy for twice the price of the comparable MSI, Asus, etc via mail-order) and tried it. Same problem. :( Returned the board... At this point I knew it was the CPU. I had swapped everything else out.

I sent back the CPU, and 3 weeks later I got a new one. I'd put it into my new Asus mobo (just purchased from the same vendor as well) and it worked 100% groovily. So I'm a happy camper. Pity about the time (From mid-January to mid-March, most of which was dealing with different vendors - at the time I had a MSI mobo from a different vendor, which I had ultimately returned believing it was defective. Most people say that if a CPU is defective, it won't do anything when the power starts. Not true. Still works for the best as I prefer the Asus A7V133 over the MSI K7T. :) )

Fate sent me a bad CPU and made it look as if the problem was elsewhere. The CPU did POST more than half the time but would lock up shortly after. By the time I could 100% conclusively determine it was the CPU and get a replacement from the vendor who sold it to me, the KT133A boards started coming out in droves. So I got the Asus A7V133...

Incidentially, I did look at the core - I saw no sign of it being crushed or chipped.

If you don't have friends who dabble or whatever else, then go out to a local store (Best Buy or somewhere with a proper return policy), spend the money, test, then return the component. It's a habit I don't do unless ABSOLUTELY necessary, but sometimes the random elements of chance do align themselves in a non-benign way.

Good luck!

Incidentially, I thought AMD made the Duron... There's only one type of "Durex" I know of... :) :) :)

[FireFighter]

Thanks to everyone for your help. I'll try your suggestions. Hopefully my chip is ok. =)

[SickBoy]

Wow, thermo. That's quite a story. So how long did that episode last, from the first time your setup wouldn't post, until you figured out it was the CPU? I woulda pulled all my hair out if it was me. I admire your patience.

SickBoy