is my cpu failing

[lordhutt]

Been having a few issues on one of my pc's.

It all started when I used hibernation for the first time....
I come back to the pc the next morning and it will not start.

Hit the power button and the fans start, the led's on the mobo light up ....all for about 4 seconds and then cut out. 5 second pause and it retries....repeatedly.
Eventually it just dies and does nothing.

I call gigabyte about the motherboard....we conclude its bad. I send it to them, they found a problem with it, fixed it and send it back.

Try again....same thing....till it dies then I smell the wonderful smell of burning electronics.
My power supply is fried and probably the cause of my mobo's dying.

So they send me another mobo, I acquired a brand new power supply and working ram from another pc.

Same thing...except it finally posts and boots after about 5 attempts.

So now I thinking possibly the video card could have some issues from the old psu.
Tried different video cards....same thing.
The psu I borrowed was only 400 watts so I was thinking maybe its just not big enough...
went and got a 650watt which is plenty for the setup.

Still doing the same thing....

I don't really see any other possible causes except for the cpu?
Is there any way to test a cpu without special equipment?

Once it's on it seems like its fine and stays on (after I remembered to disable hibernation)....but I shut it down last night and same thing this morning....about 4-5 boot attempts before it got rolling....

[lowellriggsiam]

It's more likely your motherboard is failing.

[ocgw]

Sounds like your pwr button sticks on sometimes

honest to God, stranger things have happened

I have this psu and mobo that seperately work fine, but put them together and the main connector doesn't fit right on the motherboard and exhibits those very same symptoms

make sure your psu main connector is fully seated

If you reseat the main connector and itn starts right up that will tell you something

ocgw

peace

[Noahtuck]

It's more likely your motherboard is failing.

He already replaced the mobo 8)

Sounds like your pwr button sticks on sometimes

Yep, seen that a few times.
But his reference to

then I smell the wonderful smell of burning electronics

makes you wonder if something going bad did not take out other parts.

I had the same problem not long ago that i posted here about almost exactly the same thing.

Everything was brand spanking new, i replaced the PSU, then the mobo, and it ended up being a bad brand new CPU.
Got a whole couple of hours out of it before it went buh bye

[lordhutt]

Like Noahtuck said...the mobo has been replaced...TWICE!

@ocgw, I thought about the power button. Pulled the wires from the mobo and jumped the connections with a screwdriver...booted the same way. So that eliminates that problem.

Basically what I am thinking is that the PSU was going bad, which fried the mobo....
Now weather it did any damage or not to the CPU is the question?
But the fact that when it finally boots up it runs fine so that is what is confusing me.
I am posting this from the pc that is giving me the problems.

[johns0]

Did you try removing all components except for a video card(try a different one if it still acts up) and keyboard and try booting up?

[lordhutt]

Yep, tried it with minimal components...video, keyboard, and ram.

2 different video cards.

Just rebooted....took about 6 attempts before it went through....

Once again, when it finally gets running everything seems to be perfect....

<EDIT>I decided to go into the bios and reset to default settings.
3 successful startups in a row.
See how it goes through tomorrow.

Normally I rarely shut down my pc but I will do it as often as possible to see it keeps booting properly.

[johns0]

I would say its a gigabyte mb problem cause i had the same thing happen,switched to asus and never a problem booting up.

[lordhutt]

I would say its a gigabyte mb problem cause i had the same thing happen,switched to asus and never a problem booting up.

I've used asus before as well although my last 2 builds were gigabyte....both about 2 years old and this is the first sign of trouble.
If I knew for a fact that is was the mobo I would not hesitate to order an asus board...but considering that this is going on through 3 mobo's makes me not think that is the problem...I mean what are the odds that I would have the same problem with 3 boards?

By the way, swing and a miss on my last post. Pc off for about an hour...took about 3 boot attempts to logon and make this post.

I could take the gb mobo out of my other pc to try but really dread taking all of that apart....

[johns0]

The other thing that it could be is the cpu or maybe the the socket where its plugged in,try bringing the computer to a different room and plug it in there and see what happens.

[lordhutt]

Well, the cpu is what I have been leaning towards...I'm certain the electric is fine...it's all newer (one of the things I do for a living

Gonna make a few calls tomorrow...see if I can locate a cpu that I can test with.

[budz]

I had issues with a gigabyte mobo a few months ago....the mobo was new and I sent it back to gigabyte only to find out there were some pins in the socket that were bent. They replaced it and so far no problems. I did have the problem of the pc not booting up or it would shut down for no reason. The cpu I used worked fine in another gigabyte mobo.

The mobo that they replaced you with was it brand new or a refurbished one? I hate the fact that they give out refurbished mobo's that are under warranty.

[lordhutt]

They did not mention but I am assuming its refurbished...I agree it's BS that they do that.
I just sent you my problem board...I don't want someone elses problem board even if it has been fixed...I think that is a pretty common practice in the electronics world though.

I really don't want to pull my mobo from my other pc but I can always switch out the cpus easy enough. Maybe I will try that tomorrow if I can't find one to borrow from someone.