Hi everyone
I recently built a new computer (Intel Core i7, SSD, etc.), but decided to keep my old setup for general use. The specs for the old computer are as follow (minus the graphics card as I installed this into my new PC):
AMD Athlon X2 5200+
MSI KA780G Motherboard
Gainward GTX 550 Ti Golden Sample (replaced with Asus X1300 Pro 256 MB)
DDR2-800 6GB RAM
Samsung 160GB HDD SATA II
500W PSU
Windows 7 Pro 64 bit
This might be a long story, but I want to give you as much background as possible for problem finding.
A friend of mine had a computer, but one of the capacitors on the motherboard blew. He had an AMD Phenom X3 8450 processor and 4GB RAM. Seeing that the CPU is an AM2 socket and all the new mobos are AM3 and AM3+, he bought a new motherboard, CPU and DDR3 RAM. Having no need for the old CPU, he gave it to me to replace the dual core Athlon (the mobo supports Phenom).
Now this is where the problem came in. My old computer worked fine the last time I used it (the day I finished building my new PC) until I installed the “new” Phenom CPU.
The CPU swop out went smooth and without any incident. I opened the case, unclipped the heat sink from the Athlon X2 CPU and removed it. I then lifted the catch lever to release the old CPU and carefully removed it where after I wiped the CPU and heat sink clean from old thermal paste. I carefully placed the “new” Phenom into the socket and closed the catch lever whilst applying some pressure on top of the CPU to ensure that it stays nicely seated. I placed new thermal paste on the CPU and reinstalled the heat sink making sure that it applies firm pressure and latches correctly.
Seeing that I took out the Gainward graphics card to use in my new PC, I installed an old Asus X1300 Pro for display. I plugged everything in (mouse, keyboard, monitor and power) and powered the PC up. Everything started perfectly until the Windows 7 “starting windows” screen came up, and then it froze. The mouse also powers off. I found this quite strange and rebooted the PC, went into BIOS (newest version) to ensure that all of the hardware gets picked up, which it does, and had a look at the general “health” of the computer. I restarted the PC and same thing. This is where I thought that maybe the CPU got damaged when the capacitor blew (I believe it to be unlikely), so I reinstalled my old Athlon X2. This time when I booted the computer, everything came to life, fans spinning, HDD working, CD rom, but the screen remains black with the power light flashing (no POST screen, nothing).
Reinstall the “new” Phenom CPU, everything starts up, but freezes at Windows starting screen. Boot safe mode and it freezes at driver atipcie64.sys. I inserted the windows installation DVD to format the HDD as I believed it to be a driver conflict and it shows the white progress bar with loading installation files and when it’s done, the computer just reboots and goes back to the start-up logo where it freezes. I swopped out the two CPU’s about 4 times as I convinced myself I didn’t seat it properly, but my old CPU which worked perfectly before suddenly causes the computer to do absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing is shown on the screen. I removed my RAM, swopped the RAM around, cleared my BIOS, reset my BIOS, used my original Gainward graphics card but nothing works. I installed the hard drive in another computer and windows booted perfectly besides from “installing new hardware”.
Why does windows suddenly hang, but starts-up when I insert the HDD into a different computer?
Why does the old CPU suddenly not work at all and the system just shows a black screen without beeps or POST?
I hope you can help!
Thanks
