How did I kill my CPU?

[lbailey949]

Well, my system just stoped booting yesterday. I've only had my AthlonXP 2000 unlocked for about a week, and it ran fine in that time, but yesterday the systems stoped working, and wouldn't boot. I slowly removed each piece of hadware and put them in another machine, and everything tested fine, accept for the CPU. I reversed the unlocking process, not to hard to do with acetone, but it still won't boot.

Is it possible to reverse the unlocking process fully?

Removing the conductive material was easy, but I'm not certain about the superglue. I don't think the superglue should have any effect if it's still filling the slots, right?

I'm puzzled with this one, I can't see why it would just stop working? No heat or overclocking isues at all, infact it wasn't even overclocked at the time.

When cleaning the CPU, I noticed some of the Artic Silver was in the slots between the bridge. The aceton thined it when got to close to the die, when I was cleaning off the conductive material. This was after the initial problem, but I dont think that should be a problem either, right?

I guess this give me an excuse to buy a XP 2100, but I sure would like to know what happeded to this one?

Best Regards,
Lonnie Bailey

 

[baldurga]

Well, I'm not an expert but ...

a) Do you usually use Motherboard monitor or similar to check temps? Even if you don't overclock, it is posible during your unlocking process you mess something, producing the temps go high. Did you check the temps?

b) maybe some artic silver or the conductive produce some short-circuit (is this word correct in english? I mean, does it exist?). Anyway, after a week this would produce to fry a small area, but enough to make your CPU worst nothing.

c) I think taking the superglue out won't make any difference, but because you already lost the CPU, a try is worth.

Better luck with your new CPU!

DIY: read, buy, test, learn, reward yourself!

 

[lbailey949]

---------------------------
a) Do you usually use Motherboard monitor or similar to check temps? Even if you don't overclock, it is posible during your unlocking process you mess something, producing the temps go high. Did you check the temps?
---------------------------

As I said, there were no heat or voltage issues. The temps and voltage were monitored continually, and they were all well below spec according to several monitoring programs. I even tested the temps physically myself.

---------------------------
b) maybe some artic silver or the conductive produce some short-circuit (is this word correct in english? I mean, does it exist?). Anyway, after a week this would produce to fry a small area, but enough to make your CPU worst nothing.
---------------------------

There was no artic silver issue until after the fact, when I was cleaning off the conductive material that was connecting the L1 bridges. There is also no sign of any visible damadge to the cpu under a madnifying glass.I do agree that it seems like a short curcuit of some sort, but the cause is confusing me.

---------------------------
c) I think taking the superglue out won't make any difference, but because you already lost the CPU, a try is worth.
---------------------------

I've removed the superglue, and it didn't change anything. The acetone slowly desolved it when I was removing the artic silver that was in the slots.

---------------------------
Better luck with your new CPU!
---------------------------

There is no reason to unlock the next one, with the Soyo Dragon motherboard you can't get much more out of them by unlocking them. That's pretty much what I learned with this one. Maybe if I get different make motherboard, I'll unlock it, but not with this one. It's not worth it.

Thanks for the input, and I will check the cpu under a microscope today, to see if it is a short circuit. I wish I had a multi meter to check it.

Best Regards,
Lonnie Bailey

 

[lbailey949]

OK, so I put the CPU under the microscope, and didn't see any real problems. There was a scratch leading from one of the superglued slots to one of the other non supergluded slots below. I dont see how that scratch could have got there, and it did have some left over artic silver compound in the scratch, so I cleaned it out. This would have happened after I cleaned the CPU to see what was wrong with it, so it couldn't have caused the problem. I also don't think it would have been making any sort of connection between the two slots. The die side was pretty clean, other than a little erosion on the edges of the die from taking the HSF on and off so many times. On the pin side I noticed a few of the pins were out of alignment, but I'm not sure if this happened before or after the fact. I may have done it setting it up for the microscope. Anyways I straightened them back to their correct position. The CPU looked OK to me, accept for the few minor aligned pins, and a little aged die, it looked perfect. I've seen much worse run fine for years. After some additional inspection and repairs I put the CPU back in the machine and powered it up. In a few seconds I heard a tiny snap or crack and smelt the infamouse burnt resin smell that dead CPU's have. I guess it wasn't completely dead yet. I'm still not sure what the cause was, but at least I know it's officially dead now. I think if I unlock my next CPU, I'll do it under the microscope, instead of a magnifying glass. The microscope gives me pecision that I just couldnt get with a magnifying glass.

God I hate that smell!

Best Regards,
Lonnie Bailey

 

[HonestJhon]

that sucks!

sorry to hear you lost that fine piece of silicon!
oh well, i guess you can learn from this mistake eh?
but still, i dont understand what could have caused this problem in the first place...
the erosion you talk about can cause problems...as you arent even supposed to chip off anything from the core..
think about all the stuff that they cram into that tiny core...
take off a small piece and you might be taking off a piece that is important!
but yeah, if you wont get much out of it, dont bother risking the cpu...
good luck!

-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-

 

[lbailey949]

------------------------------
that sucks!
------------------------------

Tell me about it, it was only a four months old.

------------------------------
sorry to hear you lost that fine piece of silicon!
oh well, i guess you can learn from this mistake eh?
------------------------------

Nothing to learn this time, since there is no way of knowing what went wrong.I've overclocked, or modified many, I've just never seen this particular problem. Usually you know when something goes wrong, or it's pretty easy to tell by smell or sight.

------------------------------
but still, i dont understand what could have caused this problem in the first place...
the erosion you talk about can cause problems...as you arent even supposed to chip off anything from the core..
think about all the stuff that they cram into that tiny core...
take off a small piece and you might be taking off a piece that is important!
------------------------------

Well, the erosion is more noticable under a microscope, not really noticable to the eye, so I don't think it really hurt anything.

------------------------------
but yeah, if you wont get much out of it, dont bother risking the cpu...
good luck!
------------------------------

Thanks, I'll use this chip to see how accurate I can get with a microscope. It's amazing how much better I can see with the microscope vs. the magnifying glass. I have to also consider a new HSF since the one I test with is a little rough on the core. The real heat sink is a copper water block which is very core/mobo friendly.

Well, I guess I'll order that 2100+ tonight. I see it can be had for as low as 181.00 on pricewatch, so that's not to bad.

Best Regards,
Lonnie Bailey

 

[baldurga]

Hey! Maybe I'm late, or maybe you are not interested in, but Tbred will appear 10th of June. That's a week, and probably this will push the prices down (good for your pockets), or even it can be interesting to buy it because it's build on 0.13 process, produce less heat and all these things.

Just wanna tell you. Probably you already know and you already balance this option.

See you ;-)

DIY: read, buy, test, learn, reward yourself!

 

[lbailey949]

Actually, I forgot, so thanks for reminding me. I think I'll wait and see what happens!

Best Regards,
Lonnie Bailey

 

[lbailey949]

Actually, I forgot, so thanks for reminding me. I think I'll wait and see what happens!

Best Regards,
Lonnie Bailey

 

[HonestJhon]

any idea how much the tbred is going to cost?
anything like the athlonxps were when they were released?


-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-

 

[labdog]

you didnt kill your cpu, just some shortcuts.
clean the conductive material & retry the unlock.


<i>if <b>you know</b> <font color=white>you don't know</font color=white>, the way could be more easy ...

 

[HonestJhon]

"After some additional inspection and repairs I put the CPU back in the machine and powered it up. In a few seconds I heard a tiny snap or crack and smelt the infamouse burnt resin smell that dead CPU's have."

umm...yes he did kill it...dont think that cleaning it off will bring it back from a nice toasty burn....
you should read all the posts...not just the first one.

-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-

 

[Lonemagi]

Ahh, fellow CPU frier, what are you going to do with it now?

Thinkin bout getting mine bronzed, my first OC'ed cpu.... It should be remembered.

Once I thought, then I <A HREF="http://www.warroom.com" target="_new">learned</A>

 

[cakecake]

I don't know... you ever notice how computer chips tend to have this semi-hypnotizing effect of making you want to eat them? Silicon chips? Silicon potato chips?

Censorship makes us so much more creative.

 

[Lonemagi]

Well, it is burnt, so I dont know if you want to eat that one....

Once I thought, then I <A HREF="http://www.warroom.com" target="_new">learned</A>

 

[thefaresteast]

i did PLENTY of overclocking and i put 5 of them to death in the experiment. 2 of them dead cause i placed the heatsink on without clipping on the socket. it bootup fine until they hang at the windows login screen. 3 of them died a few days later in the proceed of turning off and on. i did plenty of OCing other AMD CPU mostly XP and i realized that those using the hugh 100% copper heatsink with 5400rpm fan, works fine and responed quicker. they are still working right now. If you were to stop the feeding of high voltage and overclocking, the temp. hovers at around 31ºC - 33ºC. those dead CPU was using AL heaksink.