Overheated Pentium 4
Posted 02/05/10 at 12:00:00 PM by The Maximum PC Staff
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My 5-year-old computer—Windows XP, 2.4GHz Pentium 4, Antec server case, 430-watt PSU, Seagate HD, and two 256MB Corsair DIMMs in an Asus P4P 800 Deluxe motherboard—no longer boots. It was fine until the day my son used it without opening the door to the cabinet that it’s stored in. Now when I try to start it, I get an error saying “CPU Test Failed” and the machine won’t boot. I’ve switched the CPU out with a known good 2.8GHz Pentium 4 (tested in a second PC), to no effect. I have no way of checking the RAM as the second machine we have uses different RAM. Is there a way to check the motherboard? Or is there a way to check the power supply with a multimeter? I’m on a very tight budget so I’m going as cheap as possible.
—Harry
In the Doc’s experience, Asus’s “CPU Test Failed” error message seems to be a catch-all for any CPU-related problems, including power, RAM, and cooling issues.
Since you know the second CPU is good, we’ll look for the fault elsewhere. The Doc’s guess is the PSU. A 5-year-old PSU when suddenly stressed-out with heat could very well fail. You could use your multimeter to look at each of the power rails (12 volt, 5 volt, and 3.3 volt) to see if anything is out of order. But it may be easier to swap the PSU from the second machine into the first one to see if it boots.
If the capacitors on your motherboard are bulging or leaking, they're bad. You either need to replace the capacitors (difficult) or the board (expensive).
The other possibility is bad capacitors. The vintage of the board puts it right in the time period when the industry was using capacitors with a faulty electrolytic formula. That’s a story in itself, but for now, open up the case, grab a good flashlight, and look closely at the capacitors on the board (check the picture to see what to look for). If any of the caps are bulging or leaking, you likely have a failed capacitor. Usually bad capacitors result in a failure to boot or POST. You can actually buy replacement caps but you need to be handy with a soldering iron if you’re going to attempt a repair. It’s probably more cost- and time-effective to replace the whole motherboard—though by this point, given the age of the machine you’re working with, it might be time for a whole new computer.
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Hmmm I say time to get a new pc, no?
Submitted by Crzytoxicant on Sun, 02/07/2010 - 2:25pm
To have the computer running as long as you did is a feat in itself, but with technology progressing at the rate it is, The cost of replacement parts for the computer could be better allocated on a new computer altogether, which would be much more cost effective in the long run. Well that's just my take on it...
Here's the best idea yet!
Submitted by Stry8993 on Fri, 02/05/2010 - 10:52pm
Trying keeping your computer out, like out of the desk cubby. I know it looks all nice and fancy stuck inside some 200 year old desk built for ink wells and quill pens, but the only thing keeping your computer from getting proper airflow is you... and your desk. You're basically turning your desk into a convection oven built to bake that metallic loaf of a P4. Compounding the heat. And since comps pull the air through the front and out the back usually, that air coming forward doesn't move up as fast, and quite often can just get pulled back in, so opening the door is still pretty futile, though better than what your son had done.
Let the poor thing breath. Most people have computers, out, visible, and if your worried about tidiness, I'd say just tuck the wires away nicely and voila, 2010, and still good to go.
Submitted by lien_meat on Fri, 02/05/2010 - 4:48pm
I had an old p4 3ghz system laying around that I used ocasionally. Well, one day while running, just playing music off of it while I was cleaning my apt, it up and crashed (it just didn't function at all, no sound, no video...). When I rebooted, it gave me the CPU Self Test failed error. Well, I later tested out that cpu on another mb, and it worked. After swapping every single part from the original computer to the working board (ram, psu, etc...) it worked as usual.
The interesting thing: NO bulged or leaking capacitors or ANY sign I could find of a faulty motherboard, besides it just refusing to work. I even had my very very hardware savy friend look at it, but we found nothing interesting. Sometimes motherboards just die. I wouldn't be surpised if you had the same issue...although a PSU problem will give the same result very often.
Submitted by Morete on Fri, 02/05/2010 - 12:14pm
http://www.used-pcs.com/ProductCart/pc/viewContent.asp?idpage=13 -Used-PCs.com
Amazon might have some used parts vendors they use as a third party.
I bought an old refurbished HP PC back in 2004. It has a Pentium 4 and 1.5 Gig. RAM. It still works like a charm and doesn't have the complicated bloat O.S. in it like Vista and Windows 7. If this HP PC I still use keeps going good for another 20 years, it will be the only one that I will ever want to use. It can still play any non-disk online games with fast frame rates and do everything else that I use a PC for.
Submitted by michaelbart0n on Fri, 02/05/2010 - 10:10am
If you don't have a motherboard to switch out, do you have a store like Fry's nearby? They have a great return policy so you can keep it if it was the problem or take it back if it wasn't.
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