Possible dead processor??

[kpdvx]

hi-
AMD 1.0ghz, BioStar M7VKD

last night i was playing around with some OS's, linux, win, etc. Anyway, i was in dos, copying some files to a floppy, and the screen went blank(monitor not receiving a signal) and all of my drive lights came on. I restarted, the screen was just blank, and al drive lights were on. i swapped out my ram, to test that, but the problem is not the ram. Anyway, this morning, i decided to try it out and turn my comp. on. I turned it on, and i got a POST beep, telling my my ram wasnt seated correctly. I fixed that, and the computer came on and worked. so i decided to install 98. I ran fdisk, fixed my partitions, etc, anyway, about 5 mins later it restarted. I turned the computer on, it ran for about 3 secs then restarted. Now whever i turn it on, it boots, waits about 5 secs then restarts. I'm thinking its overheating(fan/heatsink is on, and the feel cool, however, i have a northbridge chipset, and it requires a fan, the fan seems a little hot). Im not real worried, as everything is still covered under warrenty, so ill just send it all back next week, and get new everything, however, i would like to know what is causing all of these problems. By the way, before this started happening, i installed a old 850mb IDE drive as a slave to hold my swap partition for linux...

thanks for your help.

 

[paparazi]

The fact that the processor heatsink remains cool is worrying, it may indicate that the heatsink is not touching the processor correctly, either it is 180 degrees out (there is a recess in the base of Athlon heatsinks that must be seated over the sockets "socket A" writing)
Or that thermal paste is not properly applied to the contact patch to ensure proper heat transfer to the heatsink.
North bridge fans can cause problems but rarely imediate as you have decribed, so I dought if this is your fault.
Have you removed your heatsink recently? and not realised that the fault occured after that?

Martin

 

[kpdvx]

no, i have not removed it recently. I havent done anything to the processor, and or heatsink since i originally installed it. I was working in DOS, and it just died... however, this may be of some importance... the monitor didnt say (a warning sign that the monitor displays) that it wasnt recieving a signal, it just turned itself off, as if the computer was going into standby. Also, the floppy light isnt on, which leaves me to believe that it is an IDE problem, because only IDE devices light(and stay lit) upon startup. Also, when i recieve my new(replacement) hardware, i plan to use Artic Silver on the heatsink(I will be using the same heatsink/fan- a VolcanoII), something I should have used to begin with. Thanks for your reply, if anyone can offer any tips/solutions, i welcome your response as well.