[jwoods4]

Hello,
I am at the end of my rope here. I have purchased a Biostar M7VIG 400 (which can run at either 266 or 333 FSB) Socket A Motherboard and a Sempron 3300+ processor. The computer will turn on, complete the POST and boot from the CD-ROM drive (The hard drive is also new) As I am trying to format the hard drive in an attempt to install Windows XP, the on-board video will go to a blank screen or give a blue screen of death. After I try to restart the computer, the computer will not respond at all, no POST, no beeps, etc. I replaced the CPU, and it started working again, but same problem later on. I have done the following:

Changed Memory twice - Tried both 128MB PC2100 (266DDR) and 1 GB PC2700 (333DDR)
Changed Power Supply twice (Previously 400W, Currently 400W)
Changed Motherboards 3 times (all boards are Biostar M7VIG 400 boards as I can only exchange them)
Changed Processors 3 times (Sempron 3000+ and 2 Sempron 3300+)
Changed Hard Drives, first one was a 60GB IDE and the second is a 80GB IDE

I have always used a Heat sink, with working fan. No gel though. It clamps on tight and I can see no visible signs of damage to any of the processors. Right now, the computer will not start, but the fans in both the CPU and power supply come on as well as the motherboard LED's.

Could there be incompatibility between the MoBo and the CPU? I have already sunk about $270 in this black hole, and don't want to spend much more until I am sure that I have isolated the problem.

Can anyone help me?

Thanks

J. Woods

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Without that thermal grease between the heatsink and the processor you are taking a big chance that the processor is getting too hot and going into thermo overload. When it does the puter will not restart until the temp drops to a safe level. Restarting the computer may just get it back to thermo overload quickly. Most motherboards are set to about 70 degrees to shut down the system even tho AMD says the processor can run at 90 degrees.

I tried a test on a athlon 2400 puter i had. Without thermal grease it idles at 57 degrees and quickly ran past 70 degrees under any kind of load at all( just opening the browser and surfing the net hit my overload setting). With plain old thermal grease idle temp was 39 degrees and the temp never went over 44. It does make a big difference. I use speedfan to check temps on my new builds.

SRX660

[SRX660]

Without that thermal grease between the heatsink and the processor you are taking a big chance that the processor is getting too hot and going into thermo overload. When it does the puter will not restart until the temp drops to a safe level. Restarting the computer may just get it back to thermo overload quickly. Most motherboards are set to about 70 degrees to shut down the system even tho AMD says the processor can run at 90 degrees.

I tried a test on a athlon 2400 puter i had. Without thermal grease it idles at 57 degrees and quickly ran past 70 degrees under any kind of load at all( just opening the browser and surfing the net hit my overload setting). With plain old thermal grease idle temp was 39 degrees and the temp never went over 44. It does make a big difference. I use speedfan to check temps on my new builds.

SRX660

[jwoods4]

Thanks, you were right. The processor had burned out. Apparently, my Heat sink was not large enough. It was designed for a slower processor. Gel was not required with that particular processor, but it seems that the Sempron 3300+ runs considerably hotter.

Thanks Again

J. Woods