How can a Processor just go missing from a system?

fireboy1

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Sep 28, 2013
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I am currently working on my mother in laws computer and she is running a neanderthal system. OP is windows XP processor is to bad Intel Pentium 4 at 3.0 Ghz. Here is what I am faced with, the system froze up completely showing me a black screen with a blue line down the right side. I shut it down by holding in the power button and rebooted. This message popped up: "The system has detected that the system memory has decreased." That is it nothing else. I do a diagnostics check using HP diagnostics software on the system and find a yellow check mark next to "Motherboard Resources". In the details among the class guid and driver info is this message "The device is not connected to the system". I check the processor and find that 2 of the 4 processors have the same error message "Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.0GHz - The device is not connected to the system".
How is this possible when absolutely nothing has ever touched the processor ?
I know you will need more info but I don't know exactly what kind of info you will need, so please let me know what you need and I will do my best to get for you. One other thing, Please bear with me as I am a firefighter and may not be able to respond as quickly as I would like to. Thank you for your help and suggestions with this problem of mine.

 

walshy1009

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Nov 10, 2013
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Hello fireboy1

Exactly how old is the system?
 

fireboy1

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Sep 28, 2013
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This system is about 15 years old and I have decided that it is just to old to try and fix and have advised that they just replace the entire system all together. However I am curious as to how 2 cpu's can just be missing. I am assuming that they have just quit working or broke. Is that possible for half of the cpu core to shut down and not affect the other 2 cores?