Dead motherboard, or dead CPU?

[Plaster]

I recently loaned my old system to a friend's father (P3 700/Abit BX133 RAID) and last week he said it wouldn't post. I got it back from him and I tried messing with it to see what the cause was. I adjusted everything, reseated the RAM, CPU, even tried another PSU. About 30 minutes into poking around I noticed the CPU cooler is ice cold. It's usually at least 90ºF and above room temp, so somethign was wrong. I pretty much said "dead CPU" and put it in the closet.

I just pulled it back out and noticed something. The CPU isn't the only part that shows no temperature difference. The RAM is cold, the CMOS is cold, the BX Chipset is cold. I'm not an electrician, but aren't capacitors supposed to be at least a little warm? Some of them are also swollen on the top, but not splitting. The only thing that seems to get enough juice is the AGP slot and the fan headers. The Video card chip heats right up.

Anybody have a guess?

[Plaster]

Ok, I ripped the cooler off the BX chip, and it is in fact getting hot. The CPU on the other hand, even without a cooler is ice cold. Wouldn't a dead CPU still give off heat?

[Dracas]

Yeah it would I believe, then again I had a similar problem with a dead Laptop Mainboard. The board was shot but the processor wasn't, the processor still got warm, so perhaps the traces in the CPU themselves are goners.

try the CPU in a seperate mainboard if you have one handy. If the CPU still works, the power grid for the mobo is shot.

Sorry about your luck, hopefully this isn't the case - keep us posted :)

[Plaster]

I'd love to test it on another board. If I had one it would be my first option. I'll be damned if I'm going to buy a new board to see if the CPU is toast. Sadly, I don't know anyone that owns a FCPGA P3/Celery board either. Odds are no store will just let you test it for free. :D

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Well no heat doesnt mean no power to the cpu really. I'll explain.
I had recently gotten a used board (DOA). I got a refund so no biggy. Anyhow its symptoms. All fans power up no beeps. But no video. Can be a million things right. Anyhow I go through the norms. Reset the bios reseat the cpu (slot 1) and video card swap ram still noda. Feel cpu-its really HOT! It was a celeron 366a. Which still works in another board-there tuff little suckers. Anyhow then I tried a P3 600mhz just to see if it was too high fsb prob. or what ever (knew something was wrong). So the P3 is in there and now I get fans powered but the cpu is stone cold. Nodda signal of life. Put the cel back in and its hot! P3 and its cold. Hmmm, somthing is buggerd but it is getting power. Too much for the cle and not enuff fotr the P3. BP said it maybe one of the caps doing it and board is shot, I think he's right. My guess is you got somthing similar to mine. And its a dead mobo not cpu.;) :t

[Plaster]

The reason I thought the CPU may not be dead was because I fried a K6-2 450 when I tried to get it to 600 (too much voltage) and it remained hot. Someone here should ship me a P3 board so that I might test the CPU. :D