Is the CPU fried?

[jon15n]

Hi all,

I have been around computers for quite some time, and have recently become involved with constructing them.

About a month ago, a Dell I had owned (purchased 10/01), broke. Basically, the small plastic piece used to press the power button broke and I was unable to power up unless I took off the front case. I hadn't realized this, and Dell told me I would have to purchase a new front chassis. That was kind of upsetting, so I ended up just going out to buy a new computer because I had come to the conclusion that that one was too slow.

At any rate, the old Dell had a sudden confrontation with the ground after falling down a few stairs, on accident of course. Hoping that it was still usable, I began to fiddle with it. When I went to turn it on, nothing really happened besides the fans turning on. I then proceeded to switch the power switch (on the back of the power supply box) and nothing happened. Does that mean I fried the CPU by increasing the voltage or something? I think it switched to "230", and it was previously on "115". Anyway, I switched it back and forth quite a few times.

Come to find out, I was positive that the RAM was totally damaged, in addition to the motherboard (but I'm not 100% sure of that--would a hard hit crack it or is it pretty durable?).

The CPU I had was a Pentium 4 1.6GHz socket 478. I recently bought a new motherboard and tower. The motherboard I bought was a socket 423- I forgot that I needed the 478, so I ended up buying a 423-478 converter daughter board off of eBay. I assembled this new tower, plugged everything in carefully and I went to turn it on, it powered up, the HD was working, the CD drive was working, both fans were on, but the monitor did not turn on. The RAM I put in was PC133- the newest SDRAM DIMMs only accept up to PC133, right? I assumed this motherboard accepted PC133. SO, do you think it could be the CPU?
Do you think the converter thing may be at fault or do you think it is the CPU? Is there any way I can test the CPU?

Thanks for reading, speak with you soon.
-Jon

 

[trebor]

Actually, you need the cpu working for the psu to come on. I think. That is what I was told by a tech the first time I built a tower. I shorted out that cpu on install. When i turned it on, the fans, cdroms, nothing came on. I would check your vid card, is it out of the old one or is it new?

 

[jon15n]

The motherboard did not come with a monitor output, so I swapped out a geforce mx440 AGP (64MB) card from the comp I'm on now- and this geforce does work.
I am using the psu that came out of my old Dell- I'm assuming it was damaged or anything. I did notice that the powersupply directly connects to the motherboard in only 1 plug- the 20-slot plug.

 

[trebor]

Ok,next question, what kind of mob are you useing so i can look up specs.

 

[jon15n]

I have a pc400 systemboard, m920 series (p4 mainboard)

 

[jon15n]

Got it cheap off of eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3438148871&category=44942&rd=1

 

[spfd]

no you don't
ive encounterd computers where the cpu u was ghey but PSU still turned on

Actually, you need the cpu working for the psu to come on. I think. That is what I was told by a tech the first time I built a tower. I shorted out that cpu on install. When i turned it on, the fans, cdroms, nothing came on. I would check your vid card, is it out of the old one or is it new?

 

[trebor]

www.memtest86.com , ok try this link to check you ram. in another computer of course. Also, as far as I have been able to tell, the pc400 sysem board is not compatible with winxp. You might be able to reflash your bios and fix this. If you have never reflashed bios before. I suggest taking to someone who can and pay the 30.00 for it o be done.

 

[jon15n]

I haven't even booted this up yet- you do realize this is a brand new build, right?
The BIOS should already be installed. I've got all the jumpers in the right places, everything plugged in- what could be wrong here? The RAM is good.
Are the latest SDRAM DIMM slots all PC133- I thought that was as high MHz as SDRAM went..???????

 

[trebor]

Right, was just thinking that you already had winxp installed sorry. Yes that ram should be fine that comp. The specs say it can handle both that and ddr.

I think I know, if this is a slightly older mobo, They did come with the bios set to display with pci rather than agp. Of course the only way you can change this is if you have a pci vid card you can put in real quick, change the bios to display with an agp adapter instead on a pci.

I had this happen to me on a comp I built before.