I'm the "Did I mess up?" guy..

Why don't you just take your system to a professional and let them diagnose your problem?

<pre>   <font color=purple>I express to you a hex value 84 with my ten binary 'digits'.   </font color=purple></pre><p>@ 185K -> 200,000 miles or bust!

hmm.. not being able to pinpoint the problem is a pain, but it does sound like your motherboard.

Check the motherboard for any Capacitors that look different to the others (slightly bulged, or leaking) The difference might be very slight...

As far as a new board goes, if you do get one then you can't do much better than an Abit NF7-S V2.0. do <b>not</b> get that confused with the NF7-<b>S2</b> or NF7-<b>S2G</b>. These two are extremely crap for overclocking, as they don't support multiplier adjustments. That is why a friend now has a 1200Mhz XP-M 2400+ :frown:

---
Winnie 3200+ @ ~2.5Ghz, ~1.41V
1Gb @ 209Mhz, 2T, 3-5-5-10
Asus 6800GT 128Mb

I agree with both Slvr and Chip. First check to see how much the diagnostic would be by the pro - make sure that they know what they are doing if you decide to take it there...

If the diagnostic is going to be more than $50, then the diagnostic may not be worth the money considering an <A HREF="http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?Product..." target="_new">Abit NF7-S V2.0</A> costs $82.75 (free 2nd day shipping)at ZZF. It would suck to spend a lot on diagnostics to find you have a bad mobo and then have to spend more for another mobo...  

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<font color=red>You're a boil on the arse of progress - don't make me squeeze you!</font color=red>

True.

But it would also suck to buy a new mobo only to find out that it's not the mobo, but maybe the power supply, maybe the video card, maybe a bad cable, maybe the monitor, maybe the power line that the PC is plugged into, maybe a component is damaging other components and replacing the wrong parts will only resulting more damaged parts, etcetera ad infinitum.

Troubleshooting is playing the game of probability in a world of countless more possabilities. Often the solution is the most obvious. Sometimes however it isn't.

But then, that's the joy of advice. No one can say exactly what to do. We can only give our best opinions.  

<pre>   <font color=purple>I express to you a hex value 84 with my ten binary 'digits'.   </font color=purple></pre><p>@ 185K -> 200,000 miles or bust!

One good thing aout getting the Abit is that it will be under warrantee. If the prob is the mobo, then he has a great board for his system. If the prob is something else, then he's eliminated one more thing and gotten a great board in the process...But like my dad always said: "If dog sh1t rabbit."

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<font color=red>You're a boil on the arse of progress - don't make me squeeze you!</font color=red>

Your chip is most likely dead. You cant expect it to survive 10 attempts to start, without a hsf. If you insist on trying it on a new mobo, you may well kill that mobo as well. Here is a link <A HREF="http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/Downloadab..." target="_new">http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/Downloadab...;/A>
If you read through it, you will find a way to test if your chip will fry another mobo. Take the time, or loose a new board.

Okay, now a little on switching power supplies.
They switch off, if they sense a short.
Before you go off the deep end, and start replacing parts willy- nilly, if your chip is not shorted try this.
Take the mobo, and put it on an insulated surface. A plastic cutting board is good, or a large enough piece of wood. Now hook up the power from your psu. Put a jumper across the two pins where the power switch usually connects. Turn the power supply on, count to 3 and pull the jumper off. Is the psu fan spinning? If so , your mobo has no short. Leave it running for a full minute. Shut it down, and add a stick of ram, and put the jumper back on. Try again, counting to 3 after you turn the psu on, before pulling the jumper off. Leave it running for about a minute, again. Still good? Add the cpu and hsf, and put the jumper back on. Try to start agian, pulling the jumper off at the count of three. Shut down, and add the graphics card, and put the jumper back on. Start the psu, pulling the jumper once again at the count of 3. Still runs for a minute? Try doing one thing at a time, starting with keyboard, then mouse, then floppy, then hdd, etc. Good luck.

I took my old XP2400 cpu into work today and tested it- my resistance readings were >25 ohms. So, according to the AMD instructions on testing for shorts (the link is 2 posts above from endyen), my old cpu is not fried. I will test my new XP-M cpu tomorrow, but fully expect that it will be OK. I guess this makes it more likely that my mobo is kaput- or perhaps I just trashed the bios. I will try endyen's suggestions from the last post. I can get the Abit NF7-S v2.0 for around $65 shipped, which I probably should jump on if the mobo is the issue.

That's a great price for that board - got a clicky?

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<font color=red>You're a boil on the arse of progress - don't make me squeeze you!</font color=red>

I think you dont get the test. It will not tell you if the chip is good. It will only tell you if it will fry your mobo. You chip might still be fried, it isn't a dead short. I have seen a number of people who killed a chip, and mobo, but loaded another chip into the mobo, so it got killed, then decided to load the original chip into a new mobo, and destroyed that board as well. Just trying to help you avoid that scenario.

The link for the Abit is
http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Sc...

EDIT: looks like the above link is for the NF7 v2.0, which I apparently confused with the NF7-S v.2.0.
I found the NF7-S v 2.0 for $69 shipped here:
http://www.panatechnology.com/shop/product_info.php?cPa...
I have never heard of Pana Technology, so I cannot vouch for them.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Jonlandy on 04/11/05 11:57 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

<A HREF="http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Sc..." target="_new"> I love clickies </A>

<font color=green> Woohoo!! I am officially an <b> Addict </b>!! </font color=green>
<i> <font color=red> One new Firefox fan </font color=red> </i>
<pre> Always remember to keep testicles away from live wiring </pre><p>

If this test doesn't really tell me that my cpu is/isn't fried, than how CAN I tell? If I go ahead and get the Abit board, my old cpu still might not be functional (but it would not short out the mobo)? Does the same hold true for the mobo itself- namely, I can test it as you suggest, but even if it is not shorted, it could still be fried (but not shorted)? I hope I don't sound angry, because I'm certainly not- I'm actually very grateful that people are willing to give their time and advice to people they don't know- but I am getting a little frustrated at my own lack of knowledge.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Jonlandy on 04/11/05 11:31 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

It is handy to have known good parts to test with. That is especially true with the A7N8X board, sometimes it pays possum. Just try the minimal boot test, and keep your fingers crossed.

Had a little time late last night, so I went to work on the system. After only 2 re-starts, I had the issue- memory slot #3 is dead!! Whenever I had ram in there, the system just hung and stopped booting. As sniper had said, when I simplified matters and installed just one stick into socket #1, the system went right into the bios, and warned me that the defaults had been changed, and that the CMOS had been reset to factory defaults (at least now I know that I did THAT right!). Long story short, I have the system running with both sticks of ram in slots 1 and 2- unfortunately- since slot 3 is dead- I cannot get the memory to run in dual-channel mode, which is of course one of the main reasons to have one of these mobos and ddr ram!! Dual-channel can only be achieved with two sticks of memory in slots 1 and 3, or slots 2 and 3. I know also that somehow I damaged slot 3 myself, because it worked fine before I started this cpu upgrade. I'm trying now to decide if I should still invest in the Abit board to take advantage of dual-channel mode. Anyhow-
now I can move on to my original reason for the cpu upgrade- overclocking! I am sure that this will lead to more postings here as I encounter all the various issues that o/c'ing seems to lead to. I just wanted to provide some happy closure to my problems, and take another opportunity to thank everyone for their help and suggestions, and for the extra push of encouragement- it made ALL the difference to me!! Many thanks again.

The dual channel "advantage" on nforce2 is about 3-5%... or even less. Unless you think it really worth it and you have money to throw away, then yes, you can change your board.

My advice, would be to keep that system for a while, learning more about OC, cooler, RAM,... and all the goodies that goes with it. then later, move to AMD64 and experiment with OC from there.

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