i'd be inclined to blame the MOBO. i've had them completely die on me many times without a single warning. one of my test machines used a dell mobo that literally worked perfectly fine one minute then was completely dead at its next boot.

ok, so other than pulling one out of another PC I don't have a CPU or a MOBO to test.
due to my lack of experience, I'm not really wanting to replace the CPU with a test one for fear of makein ghte problem worse.

Is there some way, other than replacing the CPU, to tell if the mobo is still good or not?

Quote (MMFSdjw @ Oct. 03 2006, 9:26 pm)

I've got 4 sticks of 256 PC3200. What odd things did yours do? I always seem to notice quirks now and then but 8 times out of 10 I could attribute it to something.

random reboots.  
"unhandled exception" errors in Tribes every 20 minutes of play.
sometimes my tribes2 game would hang on the loading screen and not even start up.  
my mouse would freeze on the windows desktop (sometimes indefinitely;
sometimes it would "stutter" in ~ten second intervals..
where it would freeze, then resume, then freeze, then resume)
image files would have lines and artifacts acorss them after being "saved" or "copy/pasted"
I could "rip" MP3 files but they didn't play; eventually I couldn't even rip anymore.

etc.

I replaced the CPU and all my problems went away.  

THEN --> I sent the CPU to a friend in BC who insisted he wanted it as an "upgrade" to his old one and..  
lo and behold..
his Tribes game started hanging on the loading screen..
he had unhandled exceptions after 20 minutes of play..
he had mouse freeze-ups on the windows desktop.. etc.

my advice was to take that CPU and hit it with a sledgehammer:
problem solved.

Quote (MMFSdjw @ Oct. 04 2006, 7:27 am)

Is there some way, other than replacing the CPU, to tell if the mobo is still good or not?

you can take it in to a PC repair shop and they will poke around with a voltage-probe to find out where the fault(s) are.  they can tell you if the motherboard is fried.  (but they can't really diagnose a faulty CPU without replacing the old one with a "test" CPU)

Quote (wolf359 @ Oct. 04 2006, 8:58 am)

i'd be inclined to blame the MOBO. i've had them completely die on me many times without a single warning. one of my test machines used a dell mobo that literally worked perfectly fine one minute then was completely dead at its next boot.

  Same here!  I had MOBOs dying on me all the sudden...

And Cobalt advice is good as well.  Take the PC to a repair shop so they can tell you exactly what part is the culprit.  No need to buy a new CPU if the MOBO is fried and vice-versa...

Yeah, they may charge you a small diagnostic charge, but it could save you the cost of a whole new part when you have one that's fine.  Be careful though, some shops will try to avoid telling you exactly what's wrong, or they'll tell you they don't know for certain, all in order to sell you upgrade parts or a whole new rig.  Go somewhere you trust.

As for plugging in a new CPU, it's really pretty simple.  Unless it's more than 5-10 years old, you literally can't plug it in wrong.  Just have to be observant is all.

Quote (FaTaL eRrOr @ Oct. 04 2006, 3:05 pm)

As for plugging in a new CPU, it's really pretty simple.  Unless it's more than 5-10 years old, you literally can't plug it in wrong.  Just have to be observant is all.

My old computer is a Dell Dimension XPS R450 w/SE440BX mobo and a pentium ll CPU which is in a plastic box and mounted vertically. The Mobo is just hung on pegs, not attached to the back plate w/ stand offs :\ , so pluging anything into the Mobo becomes a question of..did it go in or is that the Mobo moving