CPU dilema

A brief explanation followed by a couple of questions. I brought self inflicted havoc to my computer system that I just built. The system is less than a year old. I went tinkering in the BIOS and adjusted very conservatively the FSB and FSB multiplier in my system. The standard FSB is set to 133mghtz which I incrementaly raised to 136mghtz. The standard FSB multiplier is set at 13 and I raised it to 14. I had done all of this tinkering before with the worst case scenario leaving me with a black screen and ending up with me having to reset or clear the CMOS. Once I cleared the CMOS the system was fine and I left it alone at the standard settings until recently when I started adjusting the FSB and multiplier again to the afore mentioned 136mghtz and multiplier of 14. Now I get the black screen again (the computer doesn't complete its boot up self test, the power to all the fans and front leds work but no hint of actual computer processing going on) but even once I reset or clear the CMOS nothing happens. My questions to you are: With these adjustments and the described effects which is it more likely that I damaged, the motherboard or the processor? Also, Is reseting the CMOS the only way for me to go about this or is there other steps I should take? I know processors can be very sensitive to adjustments like these and are able to burn up but after making the adjustments in the bios and exiting it was as if the computer just went blank, it never even made its first beep to indicate that it passed the power on self test. I took the processor out and looked at it and could see no indication of it being overheated. So that makes me think the processor is ok but then when I consider the alternative of the motherboard being broken that doesn't make since to me either. This motherboard was built to make such adjustments infact it is capable of FSBs of over 200mghtz. I've called computer stores and they want $50 to just tell me if my processor is good or bad. This is probably what I need to do but before I go spend $50 for them to tell me I need to spend over $100 more to replace a component I thought I would ask some experts if anyone could make any sense of this. Any advice besides don't go tinkering in your bios again would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

This question was answered on February 28, 2004. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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My advice from experiencing similar problems would be for you to reset that CMOS on the motherboard and test the CPU again before going out to spend money for someone to tell you it works When I had this problem I reset the CMOS and after that it worked fine, hopefully this will be the appropriate solution to your problem.

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Posted by Student of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on February 28, 2004

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