can this happen?

does anyone know if installing a dead Athlon XP CPU can kill the motherboard when powered up?

I doubt it but possibly, the mobo is supposed to be able to protect itself from that kind of thing as far as I know, why do you ask?

duh, i smack myself in the head, the only way a bad cpu could hurt a mobo is if something was shorted inside then it might hurt the mobo. Many ppl have crushed their cpu cores, turned the comps on, discovered what they did, and the mobo still worked afterwards

well its a long story.

I ordered all the components to build my new comp. They came over the course of say two weeks, which nullified half of the sales warranties . So, I go to assemble it, everything is going fine, and I power up. The fan on the northbridge spins up, all the drives spin up, etc. but no display. I get a beep code which I found out later means absolutely nothing (actually it was one of three possible things, but that doesnt help...). So, I power off and try again, and same thing. I go back to it later that day and then power up and nothing happens. The northbridge fan jumps then stops, nothing spins, so I think '!@#!@'. Anyways, I suspect CPU, but the store says mobo. I send mobo to be tested and they say its OK. I get it back and it still doesnt work. I then email Iwill. Iwill says it is the board. So I just sent the board back and they received it yesterday morning. I heard somewhere along the way that a dead cpu can take the mobo along with it, and I just wanted to know if that could actually happen, because if I got a new, working mobo back from Iwill, I would die if it was the cpu the whole time and it killed the board again.

I don't think it can do any harm to the mobo.

It can. There's always a possiblity that you could kill the mobo or any type of hardware like that. My friend had a dead Athlon XP 1700+ chip which was burned (You saw the burn mark at the back and it took out the resistors on the back of the XP), he ended up killing several mobos. It doesn't frequently happen but keep in mind it does happen. That's why I recommend you bringing it to a local store to test it. They don't use top of the line stuff to test it, and they don't care about such a big loss since they just RMA it back to the company not losing one single cent.

Yodums

thanks for the help guys, ill see what I can do to get my system up and running asap

does this look fried to you?

ok im about to head to the store to have the cpu tested... but im going to go ahead and ask - does this cpu show any visual evidence of being toasted/fried/dead?

http://bluefyre4.tripod.com/cpu1.jpg http://bluefyre4.tripod.com/cpu2.jpg

if the links dont work, copy the URL to the browser and it will work

first one

First of all, that may not be dead at all. Arctic Silver is capacitive and from the looks of it, it maybe shortening something. What I recommend you to do is get a bottle of isopropyl, and a clock and clean Arctic Silver around the chip, and there is a possibility it will work. We can't see anything on the core, is there like burn marks on there? Check the back too where resistors are see if there is a burn mark there.

I'm willing to bet AS is shortening something and it'll boot if you clean it off.

Yodums

Anything that is burned/dead/shorted out can possibly kill another component, although it is uncommon. The possibility is there though.

I think Yodums may be right: first thing to do is completely clean off the cpu with the purest isopropyl alcohol you can get (I use 91%) using lint free cloth. Coffee filters work well for a final finish wipe, btw.

Then re-apply the AS, and be careful to keep it all on top of the core.

I can see no damage, but that is not a guarantee: I fried a chip at 2.1v vcore and had a TINY spot of gunk as the only visible indication.

well, thanks again guys. i cleaned off the cpu and took it to be tested at the local store - they say its dead. so, off to buy another xp!

looks like the bottom right hand of the chip is smashed to me. but it is hard to say with the thermal grease on there. It may damage you motherboard but it is unlikly. To be honest it could be either, but take a close look at those core corners.