Hi, My computer was on, then I cam back to it and it was dead. When I press the power the fans and lights come on, however it does not boot up, with no system checks, no beeps,no display. I have tried disconnecting all drives, removing RAM, removing and replacing PCI, video cards. Have tried another power supply and no joy. This leads me to think its the CPU or motherboard... is there anyway to test either individually without buying any more? I take the cpu out and its exactly the same. I am not sure what should happen with no CPU normally so not sure what to expect. One of plastic clips that the heatsink fit on to on the motherboard has snapped, so the heatsink may have been slightly loose. Possibly the cpu overheated? Although I imagine its been like this for ages with no problems. No sign of any frying anywhere, but don't know if this would be visible. Would a dead cpu give an error message? Thanks for any help this is driving me mad!

You could take the Motherboard and CPU to a shop and have them tested. But maybe this is a good time for an upgrade? "Would a dead cpu give an error message?" Nope, and neither would a dead motherboard. Do yourself a favor BACKUP! Sorry, I do not check for private messages

Ok thanks but its only a year old I built it myself. I don't want to buy a new mobo AND cpu if only one is broken.

Have you tried resetting the BIOS? Your CMOS battery going dead can also cause your problems.

Its pretty hard to fry a P-4....there is a diode in the CPU that will shut it down if it overheats....which it probably did if the heatsink was loose. What may of happened is the CPU overheated and killed your motherboard before the Chip shut itself off. I would look at the motherboard as the victim. The easiest way to find out would be take the CPU somewhere and test it. If it tests out ok then its probably the MB....which will have to be replaced. Sounds like the MB needs to be replaced anyway if the heatsink wont connect securely. If you had a AMD chip it would of probably burned up within 10 seconds.