General Question

Sarcasm's avatar

Installed a new processor. When booting up, it freezes on the bios boot screen. Is this processor DOA? Or what else could my problem be?

Asked by Sarcasm (16793points) March 18th, 2011

I got a new processor, I’m trying to upgrade from a dual-core (at 1.66) to a quad-core (at 2.66), and yes, I got the sockets correct.

After having my computer off all night, I got up and removed my old processor, and put in the new one. It got to the BIOS boot screen (The one that says, you know, “Press DEL to enter setup”) and it just froze. I waited about a minute, nothing happened. I pressed DEL to enter setup, but it didn’t do anything.
Which I then interpreted as it having frozen (as opposed to just being slow).

After getting that twice, my immediate reaction was, “Did I fuck up my entire computer in the installation process?”

So, I took out the new CPU, put back the old one, and clearly it’s running just fine now.

I don’t think this could be a problem that I caused, given that the only thing that fails to work is the new CPU, and I never touched the face of it.

Any ideas on what the cause of the issue could be?
My first guess was that the processor was just DOA.
But my second guess is that perhaps my PSU doesn’t have the wattage to support it (Which I don’t think is likely, but I admit to not knowing very much about power supplies. ...or really, anything).
I’m sure other jellies could think up other causes of this.

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9 Answers

Michael_Huntington's avatar

What’s your PSU wattage?

Michael_Huntington (15994points)“Great Answer” (1points) Flag as…
Sarcasm's avatar

450W.
Antec Power Supply Calculator says I’d need 273W. But then Newegg’s PS Calculator recommends 404W.

I feel like I should have enough. But I really don’t understand electricity. I know that amperage and voltage come into play, but I have no idea how.

Sarcasm (16793points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…
Lightlyseared's avatar

If the CPU is a newer model and was’t out when the MB was made then the BIOS may not recognise the CPU and crash. You could try updating the BIOS and then installing the new chip.

Lightlyseared (34866points)“Great Answer” (7points) Flag as…
Sarcasm's avatar

@Lightlyseared Aha! Yup, my BIOS version is from ‘07 (Jeez. I can’t believe it’s been that long) and this CPU was released in ‘09. I guess that would explain it.

Unfortunately, I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to test this out now. But that sounds like possibility as to the source of the issue.

Sarcasm (16793points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…
XOIIO's avatar

@Lightlyseared How do you update the bios anyway?

XOIIO (18328points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…
jerv's avatar

@XOIIO The exact process varies from system to system. It used to involved booting from a floppy, but as you can probably guess, that is exceedingly rare these days. My Toshiba laptop does it with a Windows program, and I think that that is how most of the others also roll these days. That reminds me, I have to check for updates :/
You also have to make sure that you have the right update file, which means knowing your exact model.

@Sarcasm What mobo do you have?

jerv (31076points)“Great Answer” (1points) Flag as…
funkdaddy's avatar

Are there still voltage jumpers for the processor? (it’s been a while)

funkdaddy (17777points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…
jerv's avatar

@funkdaddy (in “Valley Girl” accent) Voltage jumpers are so last year!
Seriously, it’s usually something coded into the CPU, though on some motherboards those settings can be ignored/overridden in the BIOS.

jerv (31076points)“Great Answer” (1points) Flag as…

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