Computer woes

[TNT]

I woke up this morning to find that my computer had shut down overnight. Never a good sign. When I turned it on, the fan on the heat sink was spinning very slow... I'm guessing it failed and the chip overheated and shut the entire unit down.

I replaced the heat sink and fan, but the computer still won't do much of anything... the power supply turns on, and it seems able to find the printer and optical drives... but it won't find either the video card or the onboard video chip, so I can't really tell the extent of the damage.

Is it likely the CPU was damaged? If it was, did it take the motherboard along with it? How about the other peripherals?

I'm not in any mood to buy a new computer... besides, I have some decent components in this one (over the last year, I've replaced the hard drives, video card, power supply, and optical drives with good quality stuff).

Meanwhile, I'm able to get back on the internet with an ancient Packard Bell... 233mhz Pentium MMX, 40mb of memory... and whatever other parts I had laying around. It's okay for now, but I don't think I'd want to keep using it any longer than I have to.

[RichS]

I'd say yeah, the CPU's dead. If the processor just overheated and died, that's probably the only thing you'll have to replace.

[digilight]

In my experiences CPU's are a lot studier then other components. I would first try unplugging the Printer (assuming its USB) and the optical drives. Leave just the hard drive and video card plugged in and see where that gets you. It could be that the power supply got damaged and isn't putting out enough current to power everything now.

[LostMyMind]

first thing I would check is the power supply, the fan could have been just fine and your power supply was only putting out sub-voltage.

[TNT]

Thanks for the advice...

Turns out it was definitely a problem with the fan on the heatsink. Have tried a lot of things, but the computer is still non-responsive. I'd try replacing the processor, but probably because it's four years old, the price to replace it is considerably more than I want to spend on a computer that was outdated when I bought it.

So, I guess I have to break down and buy a new computer... darn the luck...:lol:

[squall]

What kind of processor is it? Actually, if the processor dates back four years they should be pretty cheap by now. You might even be able to buy a more top of the line processor for pretty cheap if your motherboard uses older cpus. Even a top of the line cpu from back then is getting pretty dirt cheap now, especially if you bargain shop OEM packaged ones online. You might consider a new power supply or upgrade power supply, maybe replace heat sink and fan for good measure. Do you have a P4 or celeron, or possibly athlonxp? I can find good deals on that stuff.

[lordlundar]

In my experiences CPU's are a lot studier then other components.

You've never seen Patrick Norton on the ScreenSavers did you? He's known as "Mr. CPU-Killer":lol:

[RichS]

You've never seen Patrick Norton on the ScreenSavers did you? He's known as "Mr. CPU-Killer":lol:

I miss that show...so glad ZD's got him on DL.TV (http://www.dl.tv).

A bit on-topic, but still a little off - Might as well share my CPU-frying experience. A few years ago, I had built a system based on the AMD Athlon 'Thunderbird' 1.3 GHz. processor. It was running a bit hot, so I was putting on a more capable heatsink and fan.

Only thing is, I put it on backwards. :ashamed:

Soon as I turned it on, :wave: processor.

Lucky I have an understanding wife - she let me get a 1.4 GHz. to replace it, and I made sure to quadruple-check the install this time.

[TNT]

Just to close out the story, I had some techs from work check out my computer...

The bad news is that it's pretty much a total loss... the CPU melted down and took the motherboard with it... along with memory... blah, blah, blah.

The good news is that my new computer is supposed to arrive Wednesday morning.