Best CPU under $250?

[Soulcatcher668]

My motherboard caught on fire spontaneously. Now it powers on but it won't boot up.

Lol... that will do it.

If it were me..... I would pick up a used board on ebay or somewhere. You can probably get one for 80 bucks or so. It would be nice to know if the other parts are damaged. Do you have some way to test RAM PSU etc?

 

[HeatM1ser2k4]

What kind of games? Not all games are the same. Most games I play could be played on a 200mhz cpu from 1997.

The games you play might benefit more from a faster gpu then a faster cpu.


As for the mobo catching on fire, are you sure nothing else was damaged?

I don't really need and upgraded GPU for the games I play. At least I don't think so. I played League of Legends, Hearthstone and Sid Meier's Civilization. Right now I'm running an AMD r290. I also don't know if anything else was damaged. I'll be buying a motherboard in about a week and hopefully the processor wasn't damaged. The fire happened about a half inch from where the processor is located on the motherboard. From what I saw it look like the square black things that say r68 on them were what caught on fire... That's one of the reasons why I was looking for suggestions on the best processor under $250, just in case the processor was damaged and I have to replace it.

https://imgur.com/a/WWmSaZT

Lol... that will do it.

If it were me..... I would pick up a used board on ebay or somewhere. You can probably get one for 80 bucks or so. It would be nice to know if the other parts are damaged. Do you have some way to test RAM PSU etc?

I know the PSU works because when I hit the power button the motherboard gets power and all the fans start spinning, but the computer won't boot and there's no display on my monitor. One thing that I thought was odd that is that the fan plugged into the CPU fan header doesn't power on but if you plug that fan into any other fan headers it will spin

 

[Bill Dimwit]

Good chance the CPU is toast. The r68 is a solid state choke witch is part of the CPU VRM, if they go catch on fire its likely from a short or something major. I'd remove the CPU and check the gold pads on it. Sound like the fan header is burnt out too. The CPU VRM may have failed witch could take the CPU with it.

I'd take the system apart and post some good photos of the CPU and motherboard. Someone might catch something you missed and help you from tossing money down the drain. If I were you Id find a system you can test the parts in. Or just buy the cheapest board you can find.

 

[(G{in}[AK)TION]]

would you give out the specifications of your computer please?

 

[HeatM1ser2k4]

Intel i7-2600k
Asus P8P67 ME motherboard
Samsung Evo 840 1TB SSD
AMD R9 290 GPU
G.Skill Sniper series 1866mhz DDR3 (2x4GB)
Corsair CX750 750 watt PSU

https://imgur.com/JvUaI1z

https://imgur.com/mcBHMQC

In the center of the CPU towards the upper right hand corner you can see that the processor is missing three small little chips... I knocked those off years ago and it never affected the processor. The rest of the gold contacts look fine to me... I can see a spot on the motherboard where it's burnt, and it wasn't those r68 solid state chokes.... but do any of you see something different?

 

[Mr.Scott]

I see at least 1 burned pad on that CPU.

Based on your first pic and the burn marks all the way around the cooler mounting hole, I'd guess the short was self inflicted. Like the cooler was tightened down extra hard or crooked, allowing the bracket to touch components.

Just guessing, but with deductive reasoning.

 

[HeatM1ser2k4]

I see at least 1 burned pad on that CPU.

Based on your first pic and the burn marks all the way around the cooler mounting hole, I'd guess the short was self inflicted. Like the cooler was tightened down extra hard or crooked, allowing the bracket to touch components.

Just guessing, but with deductive reasoning.

Would that render the cpu useless?

 

[Mr.Scott]

Can't tell without trying it.

 

[EarthDog]

Please host the pictures here. This way, they won't magically go away after they aren't clicked on.

I also see a toasted pad on the CPU... not sure what happened on that chip (though its clear it is NOT on the R68 choke), but it go fried somehow.

 

[wingman99]

If you do try the CPU clean the burn mark first.

 

[HeatM1ser2k4]

If you do try the CPU clean the burn mark first.

What's the best way to clean it, and with what?

 

[wingman99]

Squeeze lemon juice into a bowl and mix with salt and rub the pad with a q tip using the solution, when done clean with isopropyl alcohol using a coffee filter.

 

[EarthDog]

Never done that before... isopropyl and coffee filter/q-tip worked fine for me.

 

[Bill Dimwit]

Both work fine.
I'm not sure what that pad that is for, but it dose not look too bad. I seen back pads on 1366 CPU's. But it does not look goo ether.

Looking at the motherboard, it got real hot. Hot enough to melt the solder and lift the leg of the mosfet. To me it looks like something sorted out or overloaded the mosfet. I'd be willing to bet the CPU was damaged in some way.

 

[storm-chaser]

I see dark matter on the MOSFETs closer to the CMOS battery. Is that just residue from the short (which looks to be centered below the mosfets) or do you see evidence of shorting from the MOSFETs themselves? Can't really tell from that photo. You will have to test the CPU in another 1155 board to see if it survived the meltdown.

 

[maxfly]

i would pay money to see a vid of that cooking itself bzzzzt! i agree with Scott it looks like the edge of the washer was touching the fet and finally caused a short. great friggin picture of the mb OP! not so much the cpu tho

 

[HeatM1ser2k4]

So the motherboard came the other day and it wouldn't boot up so I'm about to buy an i5-3570 as a replacement CPU. It seemed like the best option under $50 for me and was as close to my old CPU for that price.

 

[wingman99]

So the motherboard came the other day and it wouldn't boot up so I'm about to buy an i5-3570 as a replacement CPU. It seemed like the best option under $50 for me and was as close to my old CPU for that price.

It will be about 30% less performance than a i7.

 

[HeatM1ser2k4]

It will be about 30% less performance than a i7.

From the benchmarks I looked at it looked like it was only going to be about 10% slower, and a lot of the single thread benchmarks the I5 won

 

[EarthDog]

In multi-threaded benchmarks, its going to be around that 30% value, give or take a bit depending on the benchmark and IPC improvements. The 3570K should win in single threaded performance as it is Ivy bridge, a newer CPU than Sandybridge that has faster IPC.