Advanced PC Problem

The monitor is not necessarily getting a signal. When the PC is off, but the cord is connected, the monitor goes to sleep.
When you disconnect the video cable, the monitor senses the change, wakes up and then determines that there is no signal.My first suspect is the CPU.
1 year without a fan, and system errors. The only question was when would the CPU finally fail.

If the CPU checks okay, it could still be heat damage. The CPU socket, voltage regulators, even the chip-set.

Depending on how the CPU failed, it could take other parts out with it.

Chas

You never did say what kind of processor it was or how old the machine is. Old pentium p75/90 someimes only came with a heat sink but best bet would still be new processor with heat sink and fan. May be better off upgrading if an atx case to something much faster.

When the CPU overheats it's not only the cpu that gets ruined. Sometimes the mother board and or other components.
Try using a different cpu in it (Of course with viable fans working) and see if the system boots. if not then your motherboard is shoot as well as the cpu.

It's trial and error to try and troubleshoot problems at the hardware level without a POST card. TheChas is the man for hardware level stuff and I'll give on suggestion. Visually inspect each component for scorch, discoloration marks, leaky capacitors. Then if you have known good items that match those in the computer in question, start replacing each component with a known good one. If you've replaced the processor, memory, video, Hdd will all good known parts and still have a problem, chancesare it's the mainboard.

I agree with all above and add info.
Most of the MMX technology cpu's did not have fans. I have many 233mghz without fans and they atill are FINE. Cleaning upkeep is more of a problem or missing mouse covers.
Know that an overheated cpu does and will damage the MB very fast and for sure.
A power supply fan is very necessary in old units as they were designed for air flow cooling for the entire unit.
No one mentioned the power supply may be going bad and that is the only thing I would further check before the unit became cannon fodder. Especially if this is an older unit.
If this is an older unit it would not explain the error messages on any OS due to lack of any fan or heat problem.
I would install Mother Board Monitor and use it. A new MB bios has all that info in the bios.
Hope this helps.

**Comment Added Tueday, June 10, 2003 5:00 PST**
Alright,

I was informed by another tech I have worked with for several years to remove the CMOS Battery and wait for a hour, which I did and after an hour it finally showed me the bois information which I have listed below:

Phoenix Bios 4.0 Release 6.0.e

CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) Processor 850
640K System Ram Passed
255 M Extended Ram Passed
System BIOS Shadowed
Video BIOS Shadowed
UMB Upper limit segment address: E94F
Mouse initialized
Fixed Disk 0: Maxtor 94098U8
ATAPI CD-ROM: LG CD-RW ced-8083b
ATAPI CD-ROM: Pioneer DVD-ROM ATAPI Model1 DVD-114 0124

When I push F1 to enter setup it just freezes and says Entering setup, but never enters setup. Also I have the CMOS Batterydisconnected, as it is the only way I can even get to this information. If I plug it in, it will give me the info, however when it restarts it just does nothing.

I am saying the system board itself, would this be correct?

If this is a socket A system, I have seen a number of systems that have problems when you allow the BIOS to automatically set the CPU speed.
I now ALWAYS set socket A FSB and CPU speeds manually.

If a socket A, I would start with a new CPU first. They run VERY hot, and really need a fan all the time.

Even if it is a slot A system, I would try a new CPU before the main board.

If it does turn out to be the main-board, I would suggest that the customer invest in a new system instead.

First, you may have problems installing anything other than a HP motherboard. Once you check the cost, you will see why I suggested a new system.

Second, should the owner ever wish to use the restore CD, it will usually error out if the motherboard is not a genuine HP.

Chas

TheChas has it on the nose. That processor is literally "hot". Should never have been installed
without a heatsink fan.
My advice would be to do as Chas says.
I will add that the cpu may be okay if you are still getting any post at all. I doubt if I would ever trust the cpu or MB again. Good to dink with or set up for "kids".
It is a shame on some one for that to leave any shop without the cpu heatsink fan installed.
cannon fodder me thinks.
However in my shop I would check the cpu in a good MB with a GOOD heatsink fan [yes AMD heatsinks are huge] and use it myself. Same with the MB. If all checked out it would only go "kid"
for games.

Whoever said that the AMD 850 doesn't generate much heat is incorrect. I have a AMD 750 that requires 3 fans to cool it in a 80 degree room and it had problems with 2 fans in 70 degrees. The CPU eventually took the Mainboard out. Good luck.

I have a slot amd 800 for almost 5 years now on an asus k7m mboard. it has dual fan heatsink and now i made it as my redhat 9 fileserver with promise ide-raid 1!! This is where i am writing this response right now. i could say that this amd system is one of my most stable systems so far it just runs forever. i have a new p4 2.4 on gigabyte and it already rebooted without warning just within 3 months! Another one piii 1.2 celeron is almost stable but i had problems in APIC implementation.

Your system just got too much punishment resolving it wouldn't justify cost and time. MB or CPU or RAM what would you do? Your BIOS/CMOS info is just about 25% of the whole thing. Believe me your system will never be stable no matter what you do with it.

This question was closed by the author