What on earth is happening to my CPU?

[symbi0nt]

My good old Athlon 2800 [complete with nForce2 m.board and radeon 9600 might I add. State of the art stuff for its day!] today decided to make some beepy noises then turn itself off. Confused, but expecting the worst I waited half an hour for things to cool own, then turned everything back on.

So I press the ON button, fans start turning, monitor flickers on - then a high pitch beep, followed by a low pitch beep, followed by a high pitch beep, etc etc. Kind of like a telephone dialling tone. Blank screen.

Guess this means my CPU is fried eh? Just want someone else to tell me what they think.

..at least I couldn't ask for much better timing?

 

[SidVicious]

Look up the beep codes in your motherboard manual or the vendor's website, complete system specs (especially the mobo, memory, cooling system, TIM and PSU) would help.

 

[Scarchunk]

I'm not sure what your sequence of beeps mean on your particular MB, but I would imagine that the manual or website could tell you. If your fans are spinning and your power and hard drive lights are lit but no picture, the first place I would suspect is your video card. You could either swap it out or plug your monitor into the integrated video(if MB supports it) to narrow down your problem.

 

[symbi0nt]

Apparantly a continuous siren beeping means either the heatsink isn't in place or it's an overheating problem.

Motherboard is an Abit NF7-S btw.

Refitting the heatsink has allowed me to get a little further into the startup of the computer, a few more seconds and i'd be at the screen where you can press delete for BIOS.

I noticed the thermal paste looks a little worn, so i'm going to replace that. Then i'll replace the heatsink if that doesn't work. Then the CPU.
Pretty sure it's not the GPU since I can get a picture [however short lived].

 

[symbi0nt]

After refitting the heatsink another time, and pushing some old thermal paste around [ew] into the right places, I can now get to BIOS.

"CPU is unworkable or has been changed. Please recheck cpu soft menu."

If I hit delete and go check the temp. of my CPU, it sits at around 50-55 degrees celcius.


Guess that means my cpu is dead. Bless. >.<

 

[Scarchunk]

Any time you reseat your heatsink your going to need to replace the thermal paste. If you have taken off your heatsink and then reseated it with the old paste caked on you're going to have overheating problems. You mention that your able to get a picture briefly. Is this your video card bios or your manufacturers logo?

 

[symbi0nt]

No the temp. is at around 50-55C now.[Could be better i guess..]
It sits at the boot process, just stating that the cpu is unworkable or has been changed.

 

[symbi0nt]

okay so I noticed it thought my cpu was running at 1250mhz.. strange i thought, since my Athlon 2800 barton core runs at 2083mhz.

Seems it reset to the default FSB of 100.
Multiplier on the old athlon 2800's is 12.5

100x12.5=1250mhz
So I shifted the FSB in soft menu up to 166.

Now it gets past BIOs, starts booting up, then the overheat siren sounds and it shuts down.

Maybe the CPU isn't dead.. maybe it's now just the heatsink/thermal paste.

 

[symbi0nt]

hmm here's something wierd.


I was sitting looking at my CPU temp in BIOS, it read 43 celcius.
All of a sudden - overheat siren and it shuts down. wtf?

 

[Scarchunk]

I guess you posted your temps while I was typing and I didn't see the post. Anyways the error message your getting can mean a number of things, but I would start with your bios settings. First try getting into bios and resetting to factory defaults or "optimized settings" depending on how your bios lists it. It probably won't fix your problem but it's worth a try. The next thing I would try is resetting the CMOS on your MB. There is probably a jumper somewhere on your board that you can reset. If that doesn't work you might have a bad CMOS battery. Try replacing the small flat battery on your motherboard. It's possible that your cpu just up and died, but I would try these suggestions if you're really wanting to get it up and running again. Regardless of your current temps I would still recommend replacing that thermal paste.

 

[symbi0nt]

I take the cmos jumper out and turn the comp on, no beeps, no shutdowns. Whereas with the jumper in it beeps to startup, tries to load, then shuts down and siren goes off.

Waiting about 20 mins with the jumper out now. At least I think that's how to reset cmos.

Not sure what else the problem could be tbh.. CPU seems fine, it -can- boot. Heatsink seems fine, since it cut out when I was looking at the temp. display read 43c.

 

[Scarchunk]

I would replace the CMOS battery on your MB.

 

[symbi0nt]

You sure? There seems to be definate changes with the battery in. The board definately responds to it in that it displays lights with the battery in and starts to boot.

 

[Scarchunk]

I would try it out for sure. I'm assuming that the light your talking about is your MB light that shows that the board is getting power. If your resetting your jumpers and taking out the battery I would be sure and shut off the PSU so you shouldn't be seeing a light while messing with these settings.

 

[SidVicious]

Had an NF7-S myself, great board !

You're obviously suffering from thermal issues, get some isopropanol (~100% isopropyl alcohol) and give the heatsink and CPU a thorough cleansing using a lint free cloth then use a can of compressed air to get rid of the crud that built up between the HSF fins and around the fan.

Any thermal interface will help but I strongly suggest that you get your hands on Arctic Silver, that's one of the best out there.

BTW, read through your manual, that's not the proper way to clear the CMOS, you need to turn off the PSU, unplug it from the wall outlet, pop the battery out then move the jumper from the parking position to the other two pins. You then wait a bit, move the jumper back to the parking position, put the battery back in, plug the PSU back into the outlet then turn it back on.

 

[symbi0nt]

"Had"? How long ago did you upgrade yours?... heh


Pretty sure it's the heatsink now, I user defined the FSB, clock and voltage to match the default barton 2800 specs instead of the default, and it -almost- booted windos. Got to the blue bar moving across the screen.

CPU temp rises rapidly from 45-55 upon startup, so i'm guessing that's causing the sirens.

I'll take it outside and try booting up at 4am, since it's a very hot day today [English government has issued heatwave warnings!] it might just do it and confirm that it's the heatsink.

I'll return once i've tried cleaning/thermal paste, thanks guys.

 

[SidVicious]

Right on, I upgraded to my current 'rig back in December '05, I had a Mobile Barton 2500+ at 2.6GHz on watercooling thanks to the flexibility and high tolerance of the NF7-S :lol:

Both the CPU and mobo are currently retired but still kicking, I gave them to my father so he could upgrade his gaming 'rig, I obviously dropped the OC down a notch to 2.2GHz since he does'nt have a watercooling system.

 

[m25]

I think that your heatsink is the problem; turn the PC on with the case cover off and see if it is spinning too slowly; it may work but so slow that immediately overheats the CPU, the thermal paste can not gice such drastic problems.

 

[Corasik]

Why not just increase the temperature warning level, it should be an option in bios which sets what temperature the overheat warning goes off.

I believe AMD's are designed to be 'safe' all the way up to 75-90 degrees (depending on model code) There is no way the overheat should be going off in the mid 50's

You may also find in the bios settings to control the cpu fan speed. In this hot temperature its probably best to disable any function which reduces fan speeds, and just accept the system being a little noiser.

Also worth checking the fan spins freely. With the system powered off, gently turn the fan with your fingers, there should be almost no resistance. If the fan feels stiff it may not be spinning at full speed. Bios probably has fan speed indicators as well.

 

[symbi0nt]

Temperature warning level is set to 90c
I watched it go off at 43c last night :?

 

[symbi0nt]

Gave the heatsink and fan a good old clean with an isopropanyl substitute [window cleaner!] and resat it. Got to BIOS, turned the temp. emergency shutdown off and watched it hover at 60 degree c for about 5 minutes.

Can now get to the login screen of windows, after I enter my login and hit enter it either a) resets, or b) logs into windows, shows my desktop, then after about 5-10 seconds I get a blue screen of death.

How bizarre.. at least it's not the cpu anymore? :?


edit..
Oh, and I just noticed it works fine in safe mode now.
What a strange series of problems.. -sigh-
I guess it's no longer for the CPU forum eh?

 

[m25]

Gave the heatsink and fan a good old clean with an isopropanyl substitute [window cleaner!] and resat it. Got to BIOS, turned the temp. emergency shutdown off and watched it hover at 60 degree c for about 5 minutes.

Can now get to the login screen of windows, after I enter my login and hit enter it either a) resets, or b) logs into windows, shows my desktop, then after about 5-10 seconds I get a blue screen of death.

How bizarre.. at least it's not the cpu anymore? :?


edit..
Oh, and I just noticed it works fine in safe mode now.
What a strange series of problems.. -sigh-
I guess it's no longer for the CPU forum eh?

Did you apply thermal paste after cleaning them??? Keep in mind that the temperature sensors could also report wrong values...
And then the fan; did you check it. Your bios should also report the fan RPM , what's the reading there?

 

[symbi0nt]

Nope, no new thermal paste.
Fan RPM is about 5900.
Temp. 'reads' around 55c.

 

[m25]

Nope, no new thermal paste.
Fan RPM is about 5900.
Temp. 'reads' around 55c.

Reopen and put new thermal paste, it will lower your temps by 5-15°C and hopefully solve your problem. You can't pretend to run a modern CPU without it.
Once I left my old celeron 333 without it after cleaning and from 45 the temps rose to 54°C. It's onlt 333MHz, now immagine what happens to your Athlon @ full load!!!

 

[The_Abyss]

You simply must apply some new thermal paste. You'd have been better off not cleaning it without. You are now risking permanent damage to your CPU / motherboard.