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what are the signs of a dying cpu?

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brickout

Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2005
Location
Bozeman
My system starting randomly hanging today. I have changed nothing very recently and run it conservatively overall. A few days ago, I oc'ed it by ~250 MHz to 2.45 GHz and upped the voltage to 1.6v to push further. It didn't post, so I defaulted everything. Now I am at stock voltages and stock speeds, but my system started randomly hanging. It gets unresponsive (happens most often when web browsing) and sometimes scrambles the monitor screen until it becomes responsive again. It's hasn't rebooted yet, so I don't suspect the PSU. Plus, it's only a month old. Well, so is everything in my new system...

Things I've tried: defaulting all clocks and voltages, trying my memory 1 stick at a time in different slots, flash bios, reinstall mobo drivers, check all connections, disconnect all extra stuff (my cd drives, extra fans, etc) to lighten the load on my psu...I haven't tried reinstalling Windoze yet, but don't suspect it since the whole system hangs.


Anyway, I'm wondering what kinds of things happen when the cpu starts to die? Is it a sudden or gradual thing?
Does anyone know of an easy way to tell whether it's cpu, mobo, or psu related? I'm pulling my friggin' hair out here!

Thanks for any responses...
 
i run my 3400 754 at 2.6 ghz and I havent had any problems yet , been running strong for 3 months too.
 
The only components you haven't swapped out yet is the PSU...try to swap it out and see if it helps.

CPU either dies or show no problems as this.
 
FSBxtreme said:
CPU either dies or show no problems as this.

Yeah, that's what I thought...

Oh well, guess I need to get my hands on a new PSU.
:mad:

Well, I hope it IS the psu...much rather replace that than my cpu/mobo.
 
Sounds more like your install to me. When you overclocked it heavily if you were able to begin to start windows or even get to a desktop the first time the instability could have fried a system driver or system file. That may be the case.

I doubt it's your PSU. PSU's either work or they dont really. If you push a PSU to hard it will start to fault out and \restart the system but not leave it hang. PSU's will push the power through until it just physically cant anymore. So like I said, they either work or don't.

A processor can slowly die. It will usually have problems like your's but more often then not to a more extreme extent, ei: system wont load at all, becomes overall very unstable where you cant do anything but look at a desktop, etc... I doubt its your processor.

Unless you have anything of real great importance I would try reformatting first and do a complete new install. If that doesnt work then start testing components again. Try the ram first as that might also be a cuplrit. It could have nothing to do with the OC but happenend by coincedence when you did it.
 
Yeah, I know a 250MHz oc and 1.6v is way safe...I have good cooling, too. My temps are pretty good.
The funny thing about all of this is that I've managed to run some Sisoft Sandra benchmarks..I can run all the tests, and all the scores look good.
I can run HL2 and FarCry without and artefacts or obvious problems.
It's mostly in browsing, and happens all the time with Firefox (which, of course, I've reinstalled...)

I had already been thinking about a new PSU since mine doesn't have a great amp rating to the 12v rail...I'll reinstall windoze tonight and see what happens.
 
IrQ said:
I doubt it's your PSU. PSU's either work or they dont really. If you push a PSU to hard it will start to fault out and \restart the system but not leave it hang. PSU's will push the power through until it just physically cant anymore. So like I said, they either work or don't.

hmm, i dont know about this as i just had a PSU fail on me.. It was showing signs of crapping out for a few days until one day it fried itself and i RMAed it.... atleast thats my experiance
 
You CPU is totally fine. I will say its either your mobo or your vid card. You may wanna first downclock your vid card back to stock and make sure your system dont hang. If it still does, its definitely your mobo.
 
what else do you have connected on your psu, if the specs you gave out was the only thing you have connected your psu shouldn't die as quick if its brand new. unless it was already broken when you bought it.... plus you say you only have problems when you do web browsing, then probably its not your oc... if all and every benchmark does good, and your stable at prime 95 and still your firefox hangs, try installing, internet explorer just to check, if that works and its fine, maybe its just fire fox?
 
before you go out and buy a new PSU, I seriously think it is a software issue. If it was the PSU, high load tasks like gaming etc would crap out first not web browsing. Have you checked to see if there is any spyware/virus issue also try to backup files and fresh install XP. I think it is a software issue not a PSU problem.
 
It's not just a Fireferret issue, it happens with IE too, and happens sometimes when I'm just browsing my hard drive or other random stuff...
I tried reinstalling Windoze, and my system wouldn't even boot.

Good news is that I am posting from a fresh install (on another harddrive) and have been hang-free for about 30 minutes now...I added a second harddrive and hooked all my other components back up, which, in my mind, says that the PSU is fine. I don't have much hooked up anyway.

So far, no freezes, artefacts, or anything else strange. Still don't understand why Windows would do that...It was fine this morning at 8 AM, came back at 10 and that's when the crud hit the fan. Never underestimate Microsopht's ability to cause chaos...

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I'm about to format and reinstall on my home drive. Wish me luck!
 
hey its good that its working now, you know that happened to me back then when i had my barton 2500 everything worked, but 15 min in to it windows crapped on me, it was a bad hardrive though so yah.....
 
Yeah I had a similar experience. I was building my sys and was planning to use the same HDD as my old sys for a while. Well guess what BIOS saw it and everything but farthen that was a no go. So I ended upbuying a new hard drive. And a few months ago I said yeah I could use another 100 gbs so Ipulled it out just to try and what do ya know, even all my old files were still intac. I reformated it anyways and now its extra storage. I wanted to do RAID but I doubt that would help me enugh to justify reformat nd backing up then it probably wouldint help at all. I might sell these 2 HDD and buy a SATA or 2 and raid em :sn:
 
A power supply problem won't always cause a reboot. Power supply failure symptoms can just be crashes when running games or benchmarks.

Something to look for to see if the power supply is a possible suspect is to check the voltages with MBM 5 or another utility that monitors the voltages.

Warning, don't use any version of Sandra to check the voltages, because Sandra has been known to display wrong voltage values! Just a heads up.
 
Woot!

Successfully posting after a clean install...Windoze crapped out.
It caused quite a headache, but that's better than putting a dent in my wallet.
Thanks again for all the suggestions. Luckily it was a simple thing to fix.
 
fine its working.. happy you! You should look in your system event log once in a while, seek for ntfs errors or other entries. Just to be on the save side, in case of a Harddisk failure or so which shows very similar symptoms.
 
RJARRRPCGP said:
A power supply problem won't always cause a reboot. Power supply failure symptoms can just be crashes when running games or benchmarks.

Something to look for to see if the power supply is a possible suspect is to check the voltages with MBM 5 or another utility that monitors the voltages.

From personal experience I've found motherboard monitor and programs like speedfan dont always tell the acurate voltage depending on the otherboard of course. The best way to find out is with a mulitmeter.
 
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