Another tower up in smoke (help)

[Ctrl]

Yesterday my computer died. It was sad. Pressing the power button yields no result except my exasperation. When the power supply is turned on ,that is the little switch in the back, the light on my mobo turns on, but thats all I got goin so far. I've unplugged the power supply, removed that special little jumpper, even went as far as to pop out the battery, but nothing doing. I've Reseated my ram and alternated them, trying just one and then the other to see if it would boot. Also reseated my CPU. No apparent scorch marks on anything. A few things to note: I have had problems with dust in the past getting into my graphics card, and even though this is obviously not a graphics issue, the dust might have damaged other components. Also i have been recently experencing heat issues. My CPU temp was running around 48 C idle and i watched it climb to 58 C under load causing some weird behavior. I had put some new thermal grease between the CPU and the heat sink, but occationally under load it (something in my tower) would start beeping at me. I had a new heatsink on order, but it didnt make it in time it seems. I'm thinkin either mobo, CPU, or my Power supply although after reading up on my mobo (ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD) it might even be a chipset issue as i've heard the fan for the chipset is lacking. Anyone have any ideas?

[DMB2000uk]

Sounds maybe a dead CPU? Got any other hardware that you can use to test it in?

Dan

[FZ1]

I'd guess it's the mobo (this includes the chipset). CPU's are actually pretty hardy so unless you were hitting some major high temps (did you have the BIOS set to shut off at a temp threshold?) it prolly didn't die.

[Ctrl]

I was thinking the same, although i was hopeing maybe to get a definitive answer as to if it is the motherboard, CPU or somthing else (even as to what is itsn't just to help narrow things down). I have no way to test it either...but i have heard something about being able to run a secondary bios program that would be able to let me know if it was the motherbaord (ie the secondary bios function doesnt work at all) or be able to run a diagnostic prog. My detail on what it and how this secondary bios program works are a bit fuzzy however. Anyone know anything about it? -Bios setting were mostly default so i am assumeing it turned itself off. i dont know for sure because i wasnt at my computer when it shut down

[FZ1]

I'm not familiar with any secondary BIOS prog but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The only way to know for sure is to test your CPU in another rig (which I know you can't do). If you turn it on and it doesn't even attempt to boot, odds are it's the mobo. With a bad CPU it will start to boot and then hang in POST usually beeping at you (depending on your mobo/BIOS).