Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

My dad recently purchased an Intel E8600 from Newegg new in retail packaging and just purchased an A5N-P motherboard from a local retailer also new. After plugging it into his old 400 watt power supply and memory he had on his old computer he cannot get a post. He has swapped video cards and tried all sorts of things, everything is wired properly it simply will not post and no image comes on the screen or anything. We're not sure if it could be the mobo that is bad or the processor or something else. The fan on the processor comes on just fine but I know that hardly indicates anything but the mobo allowing power to the CPU fan.

Can anyone recommend any sort of measure to test the problem here? This is driving him crazy as he took his old machine down to put this one back in it's place and is now stuck with no PC. Any suggestions appreciated!

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

Sadly this is something Asus boards are good at, outdated BIOSs.
Find a Pentium 4 CPU and install that this should allow the motherboard to POST and boot.
Then you'll need to flash the BIOS to the latest revision which will support the E8 series.
The fact the CPU fan comes on and powers, indicates to me that the CPU and mobo are somewhat fine.

I'd almost guarentee its the BIOS needing an update.
Out of the 10 or so Asus motherboard based systems I've built for clients and a mate, 8 did the same thing, all different motherboards (all also released last year) and 8 of the 10 didn't support some of the latest and most common CPUs (also released last or the year before).
Gigabytes never seem to do this, but I've only built 6 gigabyte based systems.

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

The 500-series chipsets dont support the 45nm chips I dont think. I could be wrong, but I dont think they're supported. Its not an Asus problem its most likely just the fact that the older chipset doesn't support newer chips.

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

No idea.
Is it even such a motherboard ~_^
I just googled "A5N-P", "A5N", "Asus A5N", "Asus A5N-P" and never did any reviews, offical websites or anything come up.
Are you sure you ahve the right model number or series? Because going by google, ain't no such motherboard...

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

First of all, I have a question. Is everything compatible with everything else? Because you haven't told us what sort of RAM you have, and I can't find any mention of your mobo all throughout the internet.

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

I mistyped, it is an A5N-D. I discovered the problem however. When removing the processor, one of the pins in the bed that is on the socket was bent in the opposite direction. No idea how this happened as it was installed gently - most likely a factory defect of the board. If you run your finger across the socket one way it smooths down the other way it sticks up. Without question this board is getting exchanged for a new one first thing. Was hoping we could determine the problem without removing the processor, however nothing else would've shown this but that. Is it possible to fry the processor if two of those socket pins should touch? Thanks for the helpful tips as well guys, much appreciated.

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

Not really, but you would have just fucked the motherboard by running you fingers over the pins anyway.
Just imagine all that oil on your hands and static that you just sent surging through the most fragile part of any motherboard.
Ohwell, it was stuffed anyways lol.
However, I highly doubt its a factory defect, those pins are easy to bend no matter how gentle you are.
Further, i still can't find your motherboard anywhere.
Nor have I ever heard of an A5N

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

Wow, really deficient today - P5N-D. Phew...I don't know why I kept getting that wrong.

Wouldn't normally touch the pins but was simply feeling the pin which looked broken. While probably not best for it I don't think that would cause it to stop working or any such. It wasn't any better to touch the pins on a processor and people did anyway with usually minimal consequence. I was grounded as well...always wear a ground strap.

My EVGA 750i FTW had no such problems and I was a little rougher on it (not much, but not quite as gentle as this one). One complaint I'd like to make about all these are those stupid factory heatsinks - such a PITA to put on and they make you think you're going to snap the mobo pushing the pins in place.

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

Thats why you pay $5 and buy a bolt-on kit

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

Those push pins are annoying little buggers. Its even more of a pain in the ass if you have a rather large heatsink that makes the pins hard to reach. Or if you have a board like mine with a large NB/SB heatsink and a large cooler, i literally had to stick something in between to push the one pin down since my fingers didn't fit.

I really should get that bolt on kit next time....

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

He might want to not get that motherboard if he plans to do any overclocking at all. A friend of mine recently sold his because it couldn't clock his dually or his quad for shit. He ended up getting a P35 based board and got 600 more mhz out of it (Q6600) than the P5N-D.

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

Uh no...I honestly hate overclocking and overclockers. I enjoy my nice factory warranty and have no desire to burn up or overwork an already blazing fast processor. He has no need to overclock, I would be more apt to and even I don't. All things considered I hardly see my processor being a weak point - if anything it'd be my video card but I can play everything I play maxed out with great FPS so I'm not complaining.

He got a replacement and despite some other stupid problems which he seems prone to (everything he gets messes up lol, I have no idea why because he does everything the same way I would) everything is working good now.

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

Not a wise thing to say in the Tech Discussion seeing as how almost all of us in here are overclockers...

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

And the fact that you dont void your cpu warranty or motherboard warranty by overclocking. Hell, overclocking is encouraged on the motherboards part. There really isn't any way to void a warranty from overclocking. Most makers wont be able to tell if you overclocked or not. Volt mods are pretty much the only thing that will void a warranty.

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

I don't care - I am stating what I think. If you have a problem with it, too bad. I see plenty of people who didn't overclock and I know people who are like myself as well. It's just an ePeen enhancer, like anyone will see some tremendous increase in performance from it.

And yes, the manufacturer can tell if you burnt the chip up. They've long since been able to tell if you overclocked it and if you do and it fries then you're out of luck. Again, excellent performance with stock clock and little gain from overclock - I see no benefit.

The question of this thread has been answered and I kindly request a moderator lock this thread to prevent any further posts. No need for this to turn into an argument (Mainly because you'll never convince me, so there's no need for it).

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

Main thing is you unlock more performance for free, often with a simple FSB increase and ram divider change, no voltage changes necessary. No one says you have to push your chip to it's extreme limit. No matter, to each their own.


As to the funky push-pin heatsinks, I read somewhere that the secret to them is to set them into the lock position first and then push them thru til they click rather than that push and turn crap in the directions. I did that with my current heat sink and it went right in very easily. An older Intel push-pin heatsink I used the directions on was a pain in the butt.

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

I did. I gained nearly 15fps in some games from just OCing my CPU.

Sounds like you've been hearing to many of the overclocking myths. With a good aftermarket cooler (which costs about $35-40) and proper knowledge of your hardwares limits overclocking is a perfectly safe way to increase your entire computers performance essentially for free. Spending just $40 to get a extra 1Ghz or more speed out of your CPU is fantastic, i don't see how anybody can argue with that.

For example, the E8600 is actually a bad deal. Its price is considerably higher than the E8400 for nothing more than a extra 160Mhz. With about a minute of your time in the BIOS, you can set the much cheaper E8400 to run at the same speed or much faster and save your money.

Your also not going to "Fry" your CPU unless your a complete idiot and set the voltage as high as it will go. Excessive voltage is really the only way to fry a CPU. Modern CPU's will either clock themselves back or shutdown/restart the PC if they overheat, and most made for OCing mobos with actually reset themselves to stock settings if your OC fails to avoid damage to your hardware. A little time, knowledge, and common sense is all thats needed.

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

The ONLY time you need to panic is if one of your 4 BIOSs fail to reset the OC :P
I did that once, BIOS failed to boot, so did the backup chip, the HDD flash file failed to automatically restore, as did the one on CD.
No drama though, besides crapping my pants, a nice screw driver to the CMOS pins while the system was running and boom, BIOS's all reset and all reflashed.
Ahh, life doesn't get much easier then that to fix a complete fuck up.
Like Doc said, I paid 70$ for my heatsink (bout 35$ USD!!) and got a 1.16GHz Overclock out of it, some games I've seen FPS jump up by 30 or more (Such as Crysis, CPU intensive game, and COD4/5)

Difference with me compare to the others around here, Is I'm never happy, and I'm only really a learner OCer, I want 1.2GHz OC from my CPU which I know it will do, I just don't have the RAM.

Give me ONE good reason to not OC and I may start to see your way, but as far as I'm concerned, there is no reason to not Overclock unless your a cheapscape and don't want to buy a new HSF (In which case you do what I did and OC and get 800Mhz more out of it ;) )

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

Hell, you can even overclock on a stock cooler. And NO a cpu maker will not know if you killed a chip from overclocking or not. A chip doesn't burn, hell if it does all you can say is that it overheated with the stock cooler. They dont really care since a chip that cost them $60 to make is a drop in the bucket when compared to keeping up and having a good customer service base. I fried my sisters e2160 doing a pad-mod on it and they sent me a new cpu overnight. Its not big deal for them to send you another chip. Also pilla, if you need some new ram imma have either some ballistix or OCZ reapers available soon depending on what takes my dually higher.

edit: who the hell gave me negative rep for saying that nvidia 500-series chipsets dont support 45nm dual cores? ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
I dont see 45nm support for that motherboard. Hell, they dont even support 1333FSB or the ability to overclock to that FSB speed. jackasses.

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

Lol, neg rep wasn't me, I agreed cause I couldnt' even find the motherboard lol.
Nah dude, I'm gonna get some HyperX, 4GB kits going for 85$ so I'll invest in two of them (Crank out 8GB 800MHz OCd boo yah!)

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

Hyper X is alright. Doesn't clock as high as other stuff but its decent.

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

Man, the children are out in full force here huh? Wah wah I disagree so Imma neg rep you and not say I left it! lol...thread well over and done with, :lock:.

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

Yeah I know, but Its to hard to get my hands on some decent GSkill or OCZ.
Besides, the HyperX im looking at is 4-4-4-12 so loosing them off should allow me to OC further if need be.
But im hopeful that 4.2GHz (My goal) will come without needing to loosen any timings.
As it is I had to loosen timings just to get 4.16GHz (7-7-7-19 ouch) (and that was + 0.40 volts) (CPU was buzzing along with 1.44volts lol)

Re: Bad processor, mobo, or ???
 

:agreed