Fried Athlon

[tiny_tot]

My Athlon 900 system just fried, It will POST sometimes, usually only on a cold boot, and it gets the farthest when the CPU is allowed to cool down. It makes an attempt to get to windows, but comes up saying it can't find any RAM. I've replaced the RAM, and even verified that the installed RAM is fine. Would a defective CPU boot like this at all? Is it possible the motherboard is also damaged somehow? I would just replace the CPU, but if I need a new motherboard, I'll upgrade the whole system.

[Nec]

I once had a similar problem with a PII system.. system hang on boot, or wouldnt boot at all. What had happened was the mainboards battery had run flat and the BIOS went screwy...if thats the term for it. Setting a reset jumper on the mainboard allowed the bios to be reset back to default and the system came back. Good luck.
Nec.

[azhari]

I can't imagine how you would check to make sure your ram is installed fine with a fried cpu. I doubt the cpu is fried, so NEC is probably right.

Another thing you may want to check is to make sure nothing has come loose (chips, cables, etc.) Loose connections usually create problems as heat build up.

[AstronMike]

Not really a fried one, but for some reason my sisters Athlon 950 I built would run at like 63*!!! Cant figure that out, Ive built enough systems and know better with Socket A HSF/thermal paste installs. Found out the darned fan was going out on the sink!!

Funny, it ran like 4 days like this without a single lockup. Have it shut down till I get another Vantec copper HSF, even if its loud.