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View Full Version : Strange but true story of a bad CPU



ezsit
November 17th, 2010, 05:53 PM
OK, I have just seen the first incidence of a buggy CPU. I guess it happens, but it's never happened to me before. I was experiencing random crashes under Ubuntu 9.10, 10.04 and 10.10. By random, I mean that the computer would lock up without warning, no mouse or keyboard input, the screen would go to the Ubuntu splash screen with the little white dots under the logo or would just go black and the caps lock and scroll lock lights would flash on the keyboard. I swapped hard drives, power supplies, motherboards, memory, CPU fans, and even cases -- to no avail, the system would lock up, sometimes within a couple minutes, sometimes it would take hours and had no relation to what programs were running. I finally swapped out the CPU and, viola!, the system stopped freezing completely! I was stunned! It was an older CPU, and Athlon Sempron 3800 single core 64bit processor. Just thought I'd share in case some one else is having random lockups and they have eliminated all other possibilities. I never would have suspected the CPU, but I it happens.

sydbat
November 17th, 2010, 05:57 PM
Sounds like a problem a client of mine is having. Ran every stress test I could think of and they were all negative...as it were. I keep thinking it is the motherboard, but I might swap out the CPU and see if that clears things up. I'll let you know.