I killed my first CPU...boo!

Y

y0bailey

Gawd
Joined
Mar 31, 2003
Messages
558
I have been building/tinkering for roughly 11 years, and today marks one of my more dumb mistakes...which ultimately killed my FX 8320 processor.

Ordered a Corsair H105 water cooler, and went to install it. Removed my Noctua Nh-14d, popped out the CPU to clean it up and get some new thermal paste, and dropped the bastard! OK...a few bent pins, not the end of the world. Bend them back, clean it up, and lets see how we do.

Seated my Corsair H105 (or so I thought), and I think I over tightened the thumb screws. Boot it up, fans spin, one beep BIOS post, and it shuts down. Clear CMOS, same thing. Do this a few more times until it no longer posts, and now the CPU LED light is on non-stop. Fans still spinning.

Pull the H105 to check contact, and it seems a bit uneven. CPU is HOTTTTTT. Like clearly not contacted properly with cooler for those 3-4 times I was trying to boot the computer (literally lasting no more than 10 seconds of "on time" at most). Or I shorted something. Upon further thinking, I may have had the back-plate caught up on something and not had even remotely a proper contact with the H105.

Anyways. CPU is a goner. I put my Phenom II in, and it boots fine. So MOBO and PSU are not the culprits.

Sad day. First death of a CPU in the 11 years of tinkering and building. I have put screwdrivers through motherboards, had leaking watercooling loops, broken hundreds of fans with my big fat hands....but NEVER managed to murder a CPU.

RIP little buddy. $180 down the pisser ordering a FX 8350.
 
Yea...I would feel bad doing that. Going to just eat this one...or make a cool ninja throwing star.
 
That sounds awful man. I am not going to champion the intel world of things but I have literally ran an i7 without heatsink attached at all for a number of minutes without it melting down...crazy how many safety things there are built into most modern day CPU's.

Good luck with support on your proc though, you might try RMA as long as it doesn't look physically burnt out.
 
drill a hole through the corner of the ihs and make it into a keychain.

I have a couple old cpus I have done this with over the years.
 
Kaos_Drem said:
That sounds awful man. I am not going to champion the intel world of things but I have literally ran an i7 without heatsink attached at all for a number of minutes without it melting down...crazy how many safety things there are built into most modern day CPU's.

Good luck with support on your proc though, you might try RMA as long as it doesn't look physically burnt out.
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I CANNOT FIND THE BOX! I usually keep EVERYTHING, and after an hour of digging around in my attic I cannot find this one. That and the fact that the cooler is slapped in another rig, and I am lazy, means that it probably isn't worth the risk. I have also overclocked and over volted the hell outta this little fella, so again, going to keep the karma train going by not fibbing on the RMA.

I think my issue was I had one of the thermal throttling functions disabled in BIOS because I was prime95 testing a new overclock prior to installing the H105, and the 1-2 times I flicked it on prior to clearing CMOS may have been enough to do it.

So many mistakes made during this tinkering session.
 
Kaos_Drem said:
That sounds awful man. I am not going to champion the intel world of things but I have literally ran an i7 without heatsink attached at all for a number of minutes without it melting down...crazy how many safety things there are built into most modern day CPU's.

Good luck with support on your proc though, you might try RMA as long as it doesn't look physically burnt out.
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NO.
 
Robstar said:
NO.
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I wasn't trying to advocate for fraud, I didn't know he had overvolted, or any other stuff to it. RMA'ing a CPU that doesn't work seems pretty reasonable to me, with the extra knowledge I agree that it shouldn't be done when he knew the risks also I seemed to scan over the bent pins without seeing it.
 
The warranty only covers using processors with an approved heat cooling solution. User error applying a heatsink or waterblock wouldn't be covered.
 
y0bailey said:
I have been building/tinkering for roughly 11 years, and today marks one of my more dumb mistakes...which ultimately killed my FX 8320 processor.

Ordered a Corsair H105 water cooler, and went to install it. Removed my Noctua Nh-14d, popped out the CPU to clean it up and get some new thermal paste, and dropped the bastard! OK...a few bent pins, not the end of the world. Bend them back, clean it up, and lets see how we do.

Seated my Corsair H105 (or so I thought), and I think I over tightened the thumb screws. Boot it up, fans spin, one beep BIOS post, and it shuts down. Clear CMOS, same thing. Do this a few more times until it no longer posts, and now the CPU LED light is on non-stop. Fans still spinning.

Pull the H105 to check contact, and it seems a bit uneven. CPU is HOTTTTTT. Like clearly not contacted properly with cooler for those 3-4 times I was trying to boot the computer (literally lasting no more than 10 seconds of "on time" at most). Or I shorted something. Upon further thinking, I may have had the back-plate caught up on something and not had even remotely a proper contact with the H105.

Anyways. CPU is a goner. I put my Phenom II in, and it boots fine. So MOBO and PSU are not the culprits.

Sad day. First death of a CPU in the 11 years of tinkering and building. I have put screwdrivers through motherboards, had leaking watercooling loops, broken hundreds of fans with my big fat hands....but NEVER managed to murder a CPU.

RIP little buddy. $180 down the pisser ordering a FX 8350.
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Sounds to me you were tripping the thermal shut down (happens at 90c) I doubt your cpu is actually dead, put it back in there with the air cooler making sure there is proper contact and it should work.
 
ebduncan said:
Sounds to me you were tripping the thermal shut down (happens at 90c) I doubt your cpu is actually dead, put it back in there with the air cooler making sure there is proper contact and it should work.
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It's dead. New CPU running fine (8350) with the corsair cooler. It is for sure a goner.
 
And this would be why you reset to factory before installing a new cooling solution, any CPU from the last almost decade will shut itself down before it damages itself unless there's too much volts... which would beg the question just how high volts were since they have to be pretty high to fry a CPU before its thermal protection can react and shut it down.
 
So AMD still hasn't properly mitigated this issue. Many years ago (during the pentium 4 era) there was a test to see what would happen if the HSF fell off a CPU while it was under load. They tested an Athlon XP, Pentium 3 and a Pentium 4.

Athlon XP burned up within about a second with permanent damage to the chip and board.
Pentium 3 locked up but resumed normal operation after it cooled
Pentium 4 throttled to the point of becoming almost unusable but kept going with no loss of data or permanent damage.
 
RamonGTP said:
So AMD still hasn't properly mitigated this issue. Many years ago (during the pentium 4 era) there was a test to see what would happen if the HSF fell off a CPU while it was under load. They tested an Athlon XP, Pentium 3 and a Pentium 4.

Athlon XP burned up within about a second with permanent damage to the chip and board.
Pentium 3 locked up but resumed normal operation after it cooled
Pentium 4 throttled to the point of becoming almost unusable but kept going with no loss of data or permanent damage.
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I remember this, however its not true with the new chips.

MY 8320 has hit thermal shut down many times. It was caused by a liquid cooler (Antec 920). I would work on my computer doing something various and when I sit it upright it caused a air bubble to form in the cooler and prevent liquid from being pumped. Meaning the only thing cooling the cpu was the copper cold plate which isn't really a heatsink. It would heat up and shut off in a matter of seconds. Put the computer down on its side to start computer air bubble moved and it operated normally again.

Granted it did have a copper cold plate to heat up first before it shut down, its pretty much the same thing as a bare cpu. So the FX 83XX series cpu's I know for a fact will shut down before damage is done.

One odd bit about it is my chip now requires less voltage to run at 5ghz than it did before. 1.45 volts now, vs 1.5 volts before.
 
ebduncan said:
One odd bit about it is my chip now requires less voltage to run at 5ghz than it did before. 1.45 volts now, vs 1.5 volts before.
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Maybe the electromigration gods worked in your favor.

ebduncan said:
MY 8320 has hit thermal shut down many times. It was caused by a liquid cooler (Antec 920). I would work on my computer doing something various and when I sit it upright it caused a air bubble to form in the cooler and prevent liquid from being pumped. Meaning the only thing cooling the cpu was the copper cold plate which isn't really a heatsink. It would heat up and shut off in a matter of seconds. Put the computer down on its side to start computer air bubble moved and it operated normally again.
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This happened to me a few days ago with my Phenom II 965 and Swiftech H220. Somehow an air bubble was in the line between the pump/block and the radiator and the pump was still pumping but the water wasn't going in a full circuit. The system crashed before I could even get in the BIOS and lower the voltage. I saw the reading at 75°C a couple times. The pump housing and CPU backplate were HOT to the touch as well. I didn't notice any loss of overclock afterwards. My max IBT stable overclock was already limited by heat ~4.1 GHz with that chip. It also passed a 8hr stability test in AMD Overdrive at 4.16 GHz since that produces a fair bit less heat than IBT or Prime95.

On the other hand my 1090T died without ever overheating. It was well cooled by a custom water loop but 1.375v on the CPU-NB degraded it over time. Even though the cores themselves never lost their overclock, the CPU-NB can't run stable without a significant underclock from stock. It's a very expensive paperweight now.:eek:
 
ebduncan said:
I remember this, however its not true with the new chips.

MY 8320 has hit thermal shut down many times. It was caused by a liquid cooler (Antec 920). I would work on my computer doing something various and when I sit it upright it caused a air bubble to form in the cooler and prevent liquid from being pumped. Meaning the only thing cooling the cpu was the copper cold plate which isn't really a heatsink. It would heat up and shut off in a matter of seconds. Put the computer down on its side to start computer air bubble moved and it operated normally again.

Granted it did have a copper cold plate to heat up first before it shut down, its pretty much the same thing as a bare cpu. So the FX 83XX series cpu's I know for a fact will shut down before damage is done.

One odd bit about it is my chip now requires less voltage to run at 5ghz than it did before. 1.45 volts now, vs 1.5 volts before.
Click to expand...

I know they've improved their throttling technique since the Athlon XP days but based on the OPs experience they are still behind a 10 year old intel chip in terms of being able to save itself from burning up.

It may be good enough to save itself from a failed fan, or clogged fins, or even a partially seated HSF, but seems like a catastrophic failure of your cooling apparatus is still likely a terminal problem for AMD CPUs.
 
RamonGTP said:
I know they've improved their throttling technique since the Athlon XP days but based on the OPs experience they are still behind a 10 year old intel chip in terms of being able to save itself from burning up.

It may be good enough to save itself from a failed fan, or clogged fins, or even a partially seated HSF, but seems like a catastrophic failure of your cooling apparatus is still likely a terminal problem for AMD CPUs.
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i just proved you wrong did you not read what i posted? Then you still post this meaningless crap.

Its not a problem, its fixed.....
 
Yes I likely had throttle protection off when testing my overclock prior to swapping coolers. I say likely because I didn't check prior but remember setting it that way long ago.

This was all my fault. The chip self destructed because I made it self destruct. It would have throttled just fine if I wasn't dumb.

Definitely reset bios settings prior to cooler install gone wrong is the lesson I learned.

Now to overclock this 8350 to high hell!
 
ebduncan said:
i just proved you wrong did you not read what i posted? Then you still post this meaningless crap.

Its not a problem, its fixed.....
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I did read, until you run your CPU without anything on there at all, we are talking about two different circumstances, so it appears you're the one with a reading comprehension issue. Go ahead and try it, be sure to post the vid.

Even with just a copper plate, the rate at which it will hit thermal shutdown is a lot slower than nothing on there at all. That's still an extra piece of metal that needs to get heat soaked, which may be just the extra time it needs for it to save itself.
 
OP brings up an excellent point about turning off thermal protection.

As an aside: Why do that? Why even leave that option in there lol.

Also: I'm as guilty as anyone, but lately it seems like every possible thread no matter how well intended or innocuous turns into an argument. Is it because it's getting hot outside? Everyone having to deal with hotter CPUs and GPUs and extra cranky?
 
honestly I'm thinking the drop killed it in some way, that or the bending back of pins broke some connection. As far as I know the thermal protection of the cpu can't be disabled since its built into the cpu and any bios settings about thermal protection is for the board, or a secondary protection you can enable/disable in the bios in addition to the chips own protections (though I haven't had an amd processor for a while so who knows if this is different for the newer chips).

I've run 939 chips with no heatsink just to see what would happen and they throttled fine and still allowed me to navigate the bios (really slowly) with no heatsink.
 
ebduncan said:
I remember this, however its not true with the new chips.

MY 8320 has hit thermal shut down many times. It was caused by a liquid cooler (Antec 920). I would work on my computer doing something various and when I sit it upright it caused a air bubble to form in the cooler and prevent liquid from being pumped. Meaning the only thing cooling the cpu was the copper cold plate which isn't really a heatsink. It would heat up and shut off in a matter of seconds. Put the computer down on its side to start computer air bubble moved and it operated normally again.

Granted it did have a copper cold plate to heat up first before it shut down, its pretty much the same thing as a bare cpu. So the FX 83XX series cpu's I know for a fact will shut down before damage is done.

One odd bit about it is my chip now requires less voltage to run at 5ghz than it did before. 1.45 volts now, vs 1.5 volts before.
Click to expand...

this is a bit unsettling for me im thinking of buying a AIO cooler please tell me this is not a common problem.
 
techtechie said:
this is a bit unsettling for me im thinking of buying a AIO cooler please tell me this is not a common problem.
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I have 2 Corsair H55s, one of them I've dropped from about 7 feet (it was in it's little cradle and in the box though, so no big amazing feet) and they both work fine after having been tilted turned upside down and moved about constantly for the past 5-6 months. I've lapped one of them.

When there's a bubble in one it will usually only be when you first start it up. You can hear it being squished and pushed to the top of the rad. You always put the hoses on the bottom if the rad is oriented vertically, and this will cause a bubble to sort of naturally work it's way there. It pretty much happens every time I change one out completely and turn it upside down once or twice. After one boot cycle, shut down, startup, no bubble sound. These AIOs seem pretty reliable to me and I'm kind of a skeptic sometimes. I even had the ultimate horror happen when the H80i I first tried sprung a leak. I was actively trying to figure out why the temps were so hot, so I caught it before any damage was done. It took me about a month to get up the courage to order another one. I don't have any experience with horizontal radiators yet.

I'm eyeing a custom waterloop but the closed loop coolers eliminate about 90% of the legwork and at least give you a good chunk of the enormous amount of difference between water heat dissipation and air heat dissipation.
 
only cpu i ever killed was a pentium 2 and my dumbass had my finger on the cpu core while I turned the machine on, not only did I destroy the chip, I burnt the dogshit out of my finger.

Ahh to be 20 again
 
Bluesun311 said:
I'm eyeing a custom waterloop but the closed loop coolers eliminate about 90% of the legwork and at least give you a good chunk of the enormous amount of difference between water heat dissipation and air heat dissipation.
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If i could afford it i would build a custom loop. it sounds like alot of fun plus adds to the building part which i really enjoy :) :)
 
If I remember correctly the first chip I burnt up was a 1.3ghz duron that I was messing around with. I had just gotten a new chip so I didn't really care what happened to it.
 
I would recommend not selling on ebay. EBay is scam buyer central these days. Even selling it as is you're going to get a case opened against you for it not working and as ebay always does, they will blame you for selling defective hardware. You will lose the chip, your money and a lot of wasited stress.

You're better off throwing it in the trash. Fuck ebay for life.
 
I agree with some posters, I think your drop did some damage to the chip, these things are so much more fragile then they used to be...

One tactic I use when I put on a new cooler is I pick up the entire board by the cooler to feel if theres any give, then I try to move it from all four sides applying very little pressure. If I can feel movement of any sorts I re-seat it.

I feel your pain though, I killed my TB 1400 because I was in a rush and put the HS on the wrong way, damn chips. :mad:
 
Trimlock said:
I feel your pain though, I killed my TB 1400 because I was in a rush and put the HS on the wrong way, damn chips. :mad:
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QFT+1!

Did that twice, once with a 1700+ XP then again with its replacement, a 2000+ XP, crushed both cores, SMH.
Needless to say, I was a happy camper when AMD introduced the A64 with a IHS.;)
 
OP: bummer man, hell it happens. After 10 years of voiding warrenties something is bound to happen. Suck it up and you wont make that mistake next time :D

Only proc I ever killed was 15ish years ago...same as some other posters. Athlon XP series.

Waaay too much beer. 4th time I had torn the heatsink off trying to lap and get a better clock, guess I didnt get one of those bastard clips on all the way..... looked away to talk shit to a friend.... and then I smelled fried peanut butter and saw some smoke coming from the box.

Woopsie.

It happens. If it didn't than you arent trying hard enough!
 
I haven't killed a CPU (yet) but will probably happen one day however I did make a nice fiery mess with an old off brand crappy PSU.

Long story short.
Removed PSU from computer
Set PSU on table
Left to go get a certain screw driver to open it up to look for any blown caps or any other visible problems on the PSU
Come back (didn't notice friend plugged it back into the wall outlet)
Start to remove outer shell and hit something on the PSU with the screw driver, needless to say I got a nice shock and a small fire on the table.

Sorry OP about the loss but we love the story's and lessons learned! Thank you for sharing! :D
 
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