so the other DAY i shut down my COMPUTER. Then when we started it after post it went into a black screen and wouldnt do anything, and after some time(about 30 seconds)it started saying "system failed cpu test". We tried restarting it, replacing the motherboard BATTERY, removed and then placed the cpu back again etc etc...Then we tried REINSTALLING windows. I inserted my windows and booted them and it said something like "setup is looking for hardware" or something like that. After that it would be a black screen again!!! And we dont know what to do. Please help.

The cpu is AMD Athlon Barton 2600 and the motherboard is ASUS A7N8X-E and im using winows xp professional..please help..

P.S. sorry if i spelled something bad..i am from Croatia and trying to write as better as possible..Power on the computer, open up the case and make sure all fans are spinning... If everything looks good, power off the computer, unplug it, re seat the ram modules and all cables, try booting up again...post back with resultsi did all of that..several times..and it didnt work..AMD CPUs don't have much protection for extreme overheating.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qpqm7v9cn0
Granted this video has the heatsinks pulled from the boards which probably didn't happen to you.

It might not be the CPU. Inspect your motherboard capacitors near the CPU. Look for color or shape distortion. See here for inspection details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague
http://www.badcaps.net/pages.php?vid=5Yes, there could be bad capacitors on the board.





http://www.techpowerup.com/printarticle.php?id=134

Adding a new layer of thermal grease to the cpu might prove helpful