Tom's Hardware > Forum > Motherboards & Memory > Chipsets & Bios > Are my dumb bios setting making my pc into a processor's toaster?

Are my dumb bios setting making my pc into a processor's toaster?

Forum Motherboards & Memory : Chipsets & Bios - Are my dumb bios setting making my pc into a processor's toaster?

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Well, this whole sad history begins last saturday where I was using my pc when he suddenly turned off down (I don't remember precisely what happened, but I guess it was this). Then when I tried to turn it on again, it didn't work. I believe the reason for this was the overheating, since I have the habit of throwing a lot of clothes and towels over him, since I can't stand the noise that it produces (yes, this is dumb, I know), but I am not sure why it didn't started off normaly.

Anyway, after seeing that it wasn't going to work, I opened the case and started to reconnect all the cables, cleaning the memory modules and of the graphics acelerator's connector. Then I tried to start my pc and worked normally. Wonderful.

Of course this wasn't enough, I had to screw it up somehow. Then I had the brilliant idea of overclocking the cpu, fsb, memories as far as I could (I wouldn't keep the clothes and the towels, I still didn't reach THAT level of stupity btw.). Then I just went to the BIOS, adjusted every memory setting that I could find to it's minimal values, even the ones I had no idea what they mean, for both memory modules(I have two). Then I went to the cpu settings. There wasn't clock values to choose from, very different from my former P3 motherboard, just two values, one being from the fsb, and the other, well, I don't know.........

The reason I started to play with the bios this way, is because with my old p3 motherboard, when I setted some fsb value that stopped my pc from work, all I had to do was to shut it down pulling off the power source's main cable and everything came back to the default settings. But I guess not all motherboards\bios operate the same way.....

Anyway I changed it from the default 100Mhz\anything (I guess, I don't remember precisely) to 133mhz\anything (I guess......). Then I saved the new settings in the cmos memory and restarted. No image came to screen. Tried again and nothing. Then I opened the case and smelled something burned. I didn't know what was, and could only test the memory modules, since they are the only components that I have two. Nothing again.

Then I send the pc to technical assistance so that they could figure out what burned. It was the cpu (at least). The guy tested with a cpu from his and it burned.. After that happened I thought if It is possible that I setted the fsb bus to a value incompatible my cpu (and with his) and that this is the reason behind making my pc into a processor's toaster? Or it could be another setting that I changed (I only remember making changes to this fsb/anything setting and in the memory modules settings) Or it could be other thing, like overheating due to the clothes, towels? Overheating Ithink not, since the pc restarted normally after I reconnected everything, but who knows?

The motherboard is a K7SEM, the cpu a Duron 950.

So what you guys think? I read somewhere that the K7SEM always set the fsb automatically for the cpu, so if I changed this setting in the bios, I could have forced the cpu to work with a fsb that it didn't support and this ended burning it? I screwed only the processors, or may I have also annihilated the motherboard?
Do you think it's wise, or at least worth the shot to try another cpu, clearing the cmos memory to it's deault values through the jumper? Have any idea if it is the fsb bus setting or another thing?

Thanks in advanced.

Any ideas?

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