My friend in his never ending wisdom decided to flick something on his PSU and it blew up (literaly). The problem is we dont know if it fried the MoBo or the CPU or both. Is there any danger in putting the possibly dead CPU in a working motherboard? They were both the same model of computer (same motherboard and CPU etc) so there wouldent be any compatabilty issues. Thanks, Kais246
My friend in his never ending wisdom decided to flick something on his PSU and it blew up (literaly).
It was a 110/220V switch wasn't it?
Is there any danger in putting the possibly dead CPU in a working motherboard?
I'd say the worst that could happen is that the system simply won't POST or boot if the CPU is damaged. If it seems to be working, i would run it through a Prime95 stress test just to be sure. Also, the ram could have been damaged as well, so test all the ram sticks.
Do you have another PSU to test with? I would swap out the PSU if you can and see what happens first.
The 115/230 switch =P Yeah i have tried the computer with a working PSU and it wont start, strangly enough the LED's on his keyboard light quickly if you unplug and replug the power cord. This could lead you to beleave that the Motherboard has power going through it?
Sadly having power going through it doesn't mean it's working. I believe the little things like the power going to the keyboard socket are far less likely to be damaged on the basis that there's so little power going through them. In other words something like that might still work but everything important in the motherboard which carries more power is probably shot to hell.
So is there a way to test the CPU and Motherboard without jepradising anything?
Test the CPU in a compatible machine, stress test it to make sure because it may work even if it's damaged but then give out on you as soon as you actually try and do anything.
Test the RAM in another machine stick by stick, memtest is good for that.
Test the motherboard with a new/different PSU. If you the CPU and RAM you've tested above work then use those. If not then try the original ones from the machine you tested the CPU and RAM with.
I've only once encountered a situation where a dead component (it was a motherboard) would damage otherwise healthy hardware. In this particular case, one of the DIMM slots was shorting any memory placed in the slot and cooking the ICs as a result.
Otherwise, swapping suspected dead components into otherwise known-good systems is the standard testing method.
You should be fine.
Ok thanks.
My friend wants some more confermations that it wont harm the CPU before he tries anyhthing so you all sure the CPU will be safe?
Someone that is dumb enough to flick the PSU voltage switch wants confirmation from us? Great...
The most likely way you'll cause damage is like the example C gave, where the motherboard is trashed. In other words the most dangerous thing to do is to test working CPU/RAM in the motherboard that after that is almost certainly damaged.
If you test the CPU and RAM in a working motherboard, it's the motherboard which is carrying the power etc so if the CPU and RAM are dead it won't do anything to the board, they just won't work properly.
Basically if the CPU and RAM work in another system then you know the mobo is dead and therefore don't need to take the (tiny) risk of testing the mobo. Of course if the CPU or RAM don't work it could be that the motherboard is fried as well, or it could be that by some miracle the motherboard is fine.