Is my CPU Fried?

Is my CPU Fried? ***Update***

I have had my computer for about 5 years with no problems. However, the other day I was watching a DVD. All of the sudden the movie started to get very pixelated. About 10 seconds later, the computer restarted all by itself.

It seemed to boot fine. However, right when it got into the Windows XP Pro splash screen, it rebooted again. This same thing happened 2 more times until I tried to boot into safe mode. I actually got to the desktop in safe mode before it auto rebooted again.

Then I tried to repair the Windows XP Pro installation, hoping that was the problem. I restarted the computer and set the boot priority to CD and inserted the XP CD. However, it will not even recognize the CD and/or boot from it. It thinks about the CD for about a 1 min., then gives an error message that says,"CD Boot: Couldn't find NTLDR," then it skips the CD boot and tries to boot Windows normally. The auto restart cycle starts all over again.

I have two memory sticks. I tried using each one by itself ,1 at a time, and that didn't change anything.


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UPDATE #1

I just un-overclocked my 3 year stable CPU overclock. That didn't solve anything.

I just got done playing around with the RAM again. I have 2 sticks of 512MB each. I just tried a bunch of combinations in different slots. It seems that 1 stick in particular has gone bad and will not work by itself or with the other stick in any of the motherboard slots.

With my CPU overclock back to stock speeds and then removing that one "bad" stick of RAM, I can boot into Windows again.

Also, I tried switching out an old DVD ROM drive to fix the boot problem. Neither drives will boot from the Windows XP Pro CD. However, both drives still recognize CDs/DVDs when I am in Windows. They seem to function correctly in all other aspects except when booting up.

So what are the chances that in one fell swoop one stick of RAM went bad, my 3 year stable overclock failed, and I can no longer boot from CD?
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UPDATE #2

My computer seemed to work fine (other than not being able to boot from CD) for a few days.

Now all sound has stopped functioning for no apparent reason. I went to the Device Manager in Windows and my Creative Labs sound card is no longer showing. It has a question mark and is now labeled an "Unknown device." I tried to reinstall the driver for it. That didn't work. It basically said no supported audio device detected.

Everything else is still functioning except being able to boot up from a CD. That issue occurred with 2 separate DVD drives.

Very first thing i'd do is look at the CPU heatsink and see if it's packed full of dust, and clean it out if it is.
It sounds like an overheating CPU more then anything else.

It's possible, but I'd think it unlikely without some evidence indicating it like a failed CPU fan or dislodged heat sink.

If you don't have any additional hardware to use for troubleshooting it can be very hard to rule out CPU / Motherboard / PSU in a situation like that.

Bobnova said:

Very first thing i'd do is look at the CPU heatsink and see if it's packed full of dust, and clean it out if it is.
It sounds like an overheating CPU more then anything else.

Click to expand...

I pulled the cover off and sure enough, the CPU heatsink had a noticeable amount of dust on it (probably been ~8 months since I cleaned last). It wasn't completely smothered, but it was on there.

I used compressed air and got most of it out. However, it is doing he same thing with the auto reboot once Windows loads and still won't read the XP install CD during boot up.

It's usually the PSU in these situations. Are you able to monitor temps & voltages in BIOS?

use that air on your GFX card as well .
If you have another PC download and burn memtest

How are the other sinks on your board?
Case fans and vent holes?
PSU fan and vent?
GPU fan? (as Console noted)

My son-in-law had a rig acting a lot like that and it turned out his PSU vent was so clogged with dust it was badly over-heating. (So much for the "smoking is bad for your PC argument" - no one smokes in their house.) Cleaning the PSU didn't help but a new PSU did, apparently heat killed the old one ...

Just an update. When the computer wouldn't boot from the Windows XP CD, the error code it said was:

"CD Boot: Couldn't find NTLDR"

I'll also try doing a more thorough cleaning of everything in the case.

One more question, will this constant auto reboot damage my hard drive?

NTLDR should be on the CD. That means for whatever reason the computer wasn't reading things right off the CD.


Rebooting a computer should not impact the HDD. Cold boot cycling might be an issue but not warm booting ...

Possibly two separate issues here. First, regarding the NTLDR missing, I've actually seen the CD-ROM drive itself cause this. Don't know why, but switching that out has fixed the issue for me in the past (it's not a common error message when booting from CD, FYI).

Secondly, it does sound like your CPU is overheating or possibly the PSU (power supply unit) isn't functioning as it should. If you have another system around, swap out the PSU first and see if it fixes the issue. There's a remote possibility that your RAM could be causing similar symptoms, but that would be the final variable once all other options are exhausted I think.

You may be experiencing bad conductivity between your CPU and heatsink, meaning that the thermal paste has lost effectiveness and possibly even hardened itself, almost like gluing the CPU to the heatsink. I've seen this happen many times before with older systems that are overheating. The fix is to take the CPU/heatsink/fan off the motherboard, separate the heatsink from the CPU, thoroughly clean both surfaces with thermal paste cleaner, and re-apply new thermal paste when re-installing the components.

Personal validation for this information: Lead IT administrator for 40 servers, 500+ workstations, and one big *** VPN network.

Are any of your capacitors on the motherboard bad? If you have overheating going on the heat could potentially damage capacitors making them leak or bulge, causing the computer to be unstable. Bad caps could make the computer not run at all, or they can run for a little while and reboot/power off for no reason. Same goes for bad caps in power supply.

*Google images of bad caps*

Hope this helps diagnose your problem.

Thanks for all the help and advice guys! I wanted to post a quick update. I overclocked the CPU 3 years ago. It was a rock solid overclock and had no issues for that whole time. I had almost forgot I did that. Anyway, I backed the CPU back down to stock speeds. This allowed me to boot back into Windows XP again. I just got done running a small FFT test with Prime 95. I let it run for 7 hours with no problems before I stopped it.

I think I'm going to run memtest all night and then see what happens in the morning. After that I will turn it off and visually check capacitors and then clean/reseat the CPU heatsink/fan with some old Artic Silver paste that I have in the closet.

Then I'll try to reboot from the DVD Rom and see if it can ID the Windows XP Installation CD. I hope the CD error message was somehow linked to the CPU.

Sounds like the CPU is juuuust starting to fail a little bit. It should run fine at stock for quite some time though.

Did you increase the vCore when you were ocing it? If so, then it's probably just starting to wear out now... that gives two options: give it more vCore, or just run it at stock lol

Or the board's power system is starting to go south and can't deliver clean power at those levels anymore. Motherboard chips and components are just as subject to wear over time as CPU's - maybe even more so ...

QuietIce said:

Or the board's power system is starting to go south and can't deliver clean power at those levels anymore. Motherboard chips and components are just as subject to wear over time as CPU's - maybe even more so ...

Click to expand...

Something is definitely screwy with the DVD Drive. I just finished backing up all my important files by burning them to DVD. However, I still can't boot from the Windows XP CD.

When I set boot priority to CD, insert the Windows XP installation CD, then reboot, it won't boot from CD. After all this trouble started, it used to have the error message, "CD Boot: Couldn't find NTLDR." After I returned the CPU to stock speeds (which seemed to fix everything else), that error message went away. Now when I restart and get to the operating system boot part, it just sits there and thinks about booting from the CDROM for about 30 seconds. Then it skips the CD boot, without any error message, and starts booting off the hard drive as normal.

I just find it suspicious that the DVD drive would start to exhibit problems at the same time my CPU starts acting up. Were these issues independent of each other?

Maybe it is power related after all. I have an 520W OCZ Modstream that is about 3-4 years old as well. Is there a way to check power without buying a whole new PSU?

A long time ago I actually had a weird issue with my dvd drive. I had just finished building a computer, everything was ready to go, I powered it on and during the windows install, there was a random reboot. Then a BSOD.

Since all my parts were new and never tested with it took me forever to figure out what the problem was, I swapped out everything and retried everything. Finally I swapped the DVD drive and it worked perfectly. One of the most frustrating experiences ever, but I learned a very important lesson on dvd drives.

Try swapping out the dvd drive to see if you get any more problems.

UPDATE

I just un-overclocked my 3 year stable CPU overclock. That didn't solve anything.

I just got done playing around with the RAM again. I have 2 sticks of 512MB each. I just tried a bunch of combinations in different slots. It seems that 1 stick in particular has gone bad and will not work by itself or with the other stick in any of the motherboard slots.

With my CPU overclock back to stock speeds and then removing that one "bad" stick of RAM, I can boot into Windows again.

Also, I tried switching out an old DVD ROM drive to fix the boot problem. Neither drives will boot from the Windows XP Pro CD. However, both drives still recognize CDs/DVDs when I am in Windows. They seem to function correctly in all other aspects except when booting up.

So what are the chances that in one fell swoop one stick of RAM went bad, my 3 year stable overclock failed, and I can no longer boot from CD?

Five years you say? Have you ever replaced the CMOS battery? I had one go south once and there was some very odd behavior - not like yours, but similar. You might try pulling the battery for a day. That'll reset the CMOS but if the battery isn't cold during that time it should build up a little more potential. If it's on the edge that should bring it back for a short time. Considering everything else you've been trying it's worth a shot ...

UPDATE #2

My computer seemed to work fine (other than not being able to boot from CD) for a few days.

Now all sound has stopped functioning for no apparent reason. I went to the Device Manager in Windows and my Creative Labs sound card is no longer showing. It has a question mark and is now labeled an "Unknown device." I tried to reinstall the driver for it. That didn't work. It basically said no supported audio device detected.

Everything else is still functioning except being able to boot up from a CD. That issue occurred with 2 separate DVD drives.