> The  owner tells me that the troubles seemed to start following a power outage. 

This tells me to start by checking the power supply first! Use a power supply tester to ensure that the unit is functioning properly. Remove the power supply from the PC. It will definitely be to your advantage to have a tester that you will be able to test all of the types of leads coming from the power supply. This way you can assure yourself that your problem is not one molex lead, or one sata power lead that is causing a problem. You could also use a known good power supply for this as well.

This link will give you a good idea of what to look for in a power supply tester:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=power+supply+tester


If the PC wasn't hooked up to a surge protector, and is configured to automatically restart upon a failure, you could see damage occur to any part of the system due to the initial power spike through the line when the grid is re-energized.

So you could have a problem anywhere, and your initial approach of bare minimums, and slowly adding components as you confirm stable operation is a good, solid method for testing.  

I sincerely hope this is helpful, and wish you good luck!



> Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 08:47:01 +1000
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] CPU overheating at idle
> To: [log in to unmask]
> 
> Russ wrote:
> >when you said you touched the CPU and it
> >was very hot, did you touch the actual CPU or the heatsink?>>
> 
> Thanks for those helpful comments Russ.
> 
> The top of the heatsink is hot. Where the fan attaches. It's just a basic 
> finned heatsink.
> 
> I've refined the problem a bit--looks like something's going into an 
> infinite loop, and this is throwing extra load on the CPU.
> 
> Without any hardware attached (other than mouse and keyboard) it seems OK, 
> so now it's a process of trial and error.
>   There's only a printer/scanner and a wireless ADSL modem.
> 
> I now suspect the modem, but will make further tests. Could this create 
> difficulties, even though it seems to connect to the internet OK?  The 
> owner tells me that the troubles seemed to start following a power outage. 
> I'm wondering if the modem might have got partly zapped.
> 
> I know very little about wireless modems, and don't really want to know!
> 
> Don Penlington
> 
>               The NOSPIN Group is now offering Free PC Tech
>                      support at our newest website:
>                           http://freepctech.com

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