Hey. I have a p4 3.20E ghz cpu on a Asus p4s800 mobo. I overclocked my cpu to about 3.5 ghz. Last night, I was installing the Thermaltake Bigwater cooling system on my computer. I had just finished filling up the water pump for the first time before I turned my computer back on. I did not plug my monitor or otherthings back in the cpu as I only wanted to start the water pump to get rid of air bubbles. After I notice that the pump was no longer pumping water as there wasn't enough of it, I pressed my power button to turn of the cpu. The cpu stayed on, so I tried the "hold for 5 seconds" trick. That didn't do anything either, so I plugged the monitor and mouse back in to see what was going on. When I turned my monitor on, my screen was at the stage just before windows loads, where u have to press delete or whatever to get into your bios. Something said that there was a hardware problem or something like that (I can't really remember), and to press f1 to go into set up, or delete to do something else (I'm not too sure). I went to go plug my keyboard back in when my cpu suddenly turned off. I tried turning it on, but it wouldn't respond. I then noticed that my water block was incredibly hot (far too hot for me to hold a finger on it). I also noticed a possible faint smell of burning. I am really hoping that it was my mobo that I fried, but when the powercord was still plugged into the psu, a little green light on the inside of my case was still on. I took off the bigwater waterblock and didn't notice any physical changes to my cpu chip. If anyone knows what the heck might be going on, please say so. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Jordan

Pentium 4s have thermal protection and will shut down before they overheat. I'm more concerned about your hot plugging. This can kill the motherboard. Try disconnecting the power for five minutes. Fill up your cooling device and try again.

What is hot plugging? Anyways, this happened a while ago. I've tried unplugging my psu, reconnecting the power/reset button wires to the motherboard, and taking out the CMOS battery for 5 seconds or so. I still get no response whatsoever from the computer when I try to turn it on, but the little green led at the bottom of my mother board goes on when the psu is plugged in. Just a note, the very faint smell of burning comes from the cpu socket on the motherboard, not the processor itself (which seems perfectly fine to me, although that doesn't mean much as I'm new to the computing world). Is it possible to fry just part of the motherboard (like just the cpu socket) so that the wiring for the green power led would still work? If it's my mobo that's fried, instead of my processor, it's only $80 to replace, instead of $280 (CDN) Thanks.

Hot plugging or hot swapping refers to connecting or disconnecting whilst the power is on. This can cause component failure. As you've already observed, there isalways power supplied to the motherboard when the mains is connected. It's best to disconnect the mains before plugging or unplugging anything. Although USB is OK, it was designed for it. Removing the cmos battery for five seconds is unlikely to do anything. They are designed to hold there memory for some time. Try half an hour with the mains disconnected. Of course, if you have the motherboard manual, there will be an easier way to clear the cmos. When a system will not boot up, there are four possible culprits. The cpu is possibly the first to try as it is easier to replace than the motherboard. Also it could be ram or video card. Going by what you have told me, I would be inclined to suspect the cpu or motherboard. Your best course of action might be to tacke the computer to a local repair shop and ask for a quote to repair. They are likely to have another cpu to try and see where the fault lies. Of course, before you do take it to someone else, try to correctly clear the cmos which should remove the overclocking. If you do get it going again, try taking smaller steps and don't try to do everything at once.

Thanks. Yeah, about overclocking my cpu, I had done that a while ago when I first got my computer. I had got it stable to about 3.69 ghz, but in recent months, it has slowly become more unstable, restarting more often, having a generally higher cpu/mb temp, and failing prime95 stress tests. Only in the last month, when I have slowly been decreasing my cpu speed for stability did I decide to buy a watercooling kit. As for the hot plugging, I only did it with the crt monitor and usb mouse. The computer turned off before I was able to plug in the keyboard. Is hot plugging crt monitors severly bad for a computer? I've been doing it for quite sometime (with my older computer), and I havne't noticed anything bad. Actually, I guess that I tend to hotplug alot of things (keyboards, monitors, mice, and speakers. anything that goes in the back), although I make sure that the psu is fully disconnected from an outlet before I touch anything inside the case. As for disconnecting the psu for a while and then restarting the computer, I've had my psu disconnected for over a day and still gotten no response from the computer. I plan to properly clear the cmos (will that fully erase all evidence of overclocking?) and then bring my computer back to the shop where I built it. Hopefully, the warranty will cover something... Thanks for all the help! Jordan

As we have yet to determine the cause of the failure, most of your questions must go unanswered. Without knowing all the workings of your processor, I can't eliminate the possibility that it will record the speed that it was running at. Don't be alarmed, I don't believe that they add this ability. It is possible. If it is the processor that has failed, the most likely reason for this is that the thermal protection failed. This should be covered by warranty. Just remember, if theyb ask you about overclocking, try looking at your watch and ask 'what time is it?'

Hi I have a similar problem, but I didnt overclock ... my pc has worked fine for 2 years but now it just died... only the green light shows on my motherboard arghhh ... i think my psu might of fried my mobo?