OK here's my advice .

1. TAKE it all apart , look at all connections on the motherboard and make sure its all in good shape.

2. Take out all extra pci , pci-e cards , give them a good once over to make sure there not to dusty .

3. take the cpu out the of 478 socket and wipe of all thermal compound .

4. Check the pins on the back and make sure none are bent , if you happen to find a bent pin , carefully adjust it to its correct and up right postion with some tweezers.

5. check for any type of dust in the 478 socket , compressed air if there is any will do the trick .

6. re apply a thin layer of the paste , and smear on with a card , be sure not to leave any gaps or any big splodges of the thermal compound .

7. reattach all wires and cables fans pci cards etc , and boot up .

8. If you manage to boot , go into bios and remain in your systems vital settings for about 20 Min's , make sure all temps are OK and are idle at around 40 to 50 max .

I generally believe this is a heat issue.

Tony Frankie, I dont mean to be mean here but the advise and info your giving me is at the 1st grade level. Im simply looking for the signs and symptoms of a bad processor, nothing more. Maybe I'll look elsewhere unless someone has something useful to say.Yes, I thought it may be a heat issue also, but would a heat issue cause a computer to not even boot up after not having been on for several days? Orignally when I assembled the rig there was a heat problem. I reapplied the paste and everything was fine after that, that was only three weeks ago. I just find it hard to believe that in three weeks time a heat issue would arise from a problem with the paste. Curiously..... I used Dynex paste, is there any quality issues with this brand that anyone knows of? I looked at all the pins already and see that nothing is bent or MISSING. I cant for the life of me figure this thing out.Well, this may not help you much, but I have recently have done the same thing. [Made a comp from other comps] Every thing is compatible, that was my first check. And I checked my cables. [duh] My problem is QUITE similar. My comp worked for a while, then I had problems with the monitor signal cutting in and out. Finally it just stopped sending signal all together, but my computer starts up. I can hear the hard drive working, plus I tested it. I have tried two different video cards, two different motherboards, several monitors and all the same thing. No signal output. The only thing I haven't changed is the CPU . How it went bad is a mystery to me but I can see slight rainbow looking discolorment on it, when they are normally fully silver toned. [and i mean FULLY] I had another CPU that had this same discolorment and it would randomly shut down. Later I found out that it came with a heat sink that was incompatible and caused it to over heat running at its normal clock value [3200]. So theres my bit of research and I'm sure your CPU is bad. I hope this helps you. When I get money I'm gonna buy a new one and test my theory out. I'm pretty sure I'm right. [I know OLD cpu's are cheep but I'm really broke lol]i would say if you have another mobo with the same socket that WORKS with the same cpu, i would swap the good cpu out with the old one and see if it does it then. if you can do it that way you will find your answer if its a bad MOBO or bad CPU ect.you just bumped a 4 month old thread...3rd or 4th one today i've seen.
Lot's of newcomers on board....Check the CPU fan/heatsink and make sure it is operating correctly.Quote from: homer on March 14, 2008, 05:04:35 PM

you just bumped a 4 month old thread...