Legit Reviews

Hi all, I'm in a bind here and I really need some help.

I bought a PNY Geforce GTX 285, Phenom II 920, Asus M3N72-D mobo, an Earthwatts 650w PSU, and a case from Fry's. Since putting it all together I have fried a total of 3 CPU's!!! The first was my old Phenom 9550, so I thought it was probably just the cpu going bad, replaced it with the 920, everything worked great for 3 weeks and then ka-boom. I took it up to a local repair shop to have a diagnostic ran on it, they said they couldn't find anything wrong(i.e. power supply seemed okay, board not touching the case, etc.) but that it was most likely the mobo and recommended I replace it . I did just that earlier this weekend, put the whole thing back together and just this morning it pops again. Now I know it's not the board and not the CPU, It has to be either something wrong with the PSU, the vid card, or the case, but this process of elimination is getting expensive.

Anyone have any ideas??? Please...

update: All 3 CPU's have gone while playing games(Vid card maybe).

I would try a different power supply before anything else..Ive never even heard of that brand either

I should have been a little more clear, it's an Antec Earthwatt.

damn i need to read more lol..my apologies..I'd still try another power supply tho in case..if possible use a power supply tester($10-$20 at Fry's if you don't have one) and see if the power supply is realyl at fault. the other options are try another video card or case.

Could also be faulty voltage regulators on the board or bent pins in the CPU socket... Who built the PC? If it's a shop I'd be taking it back and telling them to look into it. You said you replaced the board though... That leans to the PSU then since it's the only thing you haven't replaced or checked... I'd be hooking up a volt meter to that ASAP before you blow up any more CPUs.

Thanks for the replies you guys. I've checked out the PSU and it checks out, so that seems to be unlikely. I handed it over to the assholes at Fry's to see if they can't figure out whats going on. I'll keep you posted.

Fry's should be good. I don't know how they are now, but when I let the one in town have my rig 6 years ago(my very very first rig), they did me a favor and helped me out. I only had enough to either pay for the diagnostic, or to just get ram and hope. They were cool enough to wave the diag fee and found it was a ram issue. and I got my ram ..even the dude who helped me is somehow still there ..Regardless, good luck and let us know

I would test a different PSU.

Got the call from Fry's. The bad news is they said that they had ran 3dMark on it and numerous other benchmarks and found nothing, leaving me no concrete explanation and figuring that it must be either the graphics card or the psu. The good news, overwhelmingly so, is that the manager was freakin awesome and gave me no trouble whatsoever when I petitioned him to exchange both and the CPU. So, the problem almost certainly has to be solved, since I have now switched out everything less the hard drive and ram. Seriously, two thumbs up to Fry's, the guy was extremely helpful and I'm generally pretty jaded towards Fry's in general.

Very nice. Their sales people are made of solid suck, but when you go towards that repair shop, it's a whole different world. I'm glad they went the extra mile for ya dude. They did for me and they're still doing it.Good to see these days. Keep us posted on the new stuff

A case from Fry's? hehe Fry is the name of the case... although that has nothing to do with "frying" your CPU.

Evasion wrote:A case from Fry's? hehe Fry is the name of the case... although that has nothing to do with "frying" your CPU.

Not very nice to poke fun at the problem

It almost certainly was either the motherboard or the power supply. Both are good brands, but once in a while something gets past Quality Assurance.
Glad you're getting things sorted out Marcus, and don't forget to post back here after everything checks out OK

stopthekilling77 wrote:

Evasion wrote:A case from Fry's? hehe Fry is the name of the case... although that has nothing to do with "frying" your CPU.

Not very nice to poke fun at the problem

It almost certainly was either the motherboard or the power supply. Both are good brands, but once in a while something gets past Quality Assurance.
Glad you're getting things sorted out Marcus, and don't forget to post back here after everything checks out OK

It was the power supply, I'm sure of it.