Symptoms of bad CPU?
Reply #1 –
If you're getting a BSOD try and write down the stop error if you can. Also, I notice that it's an MSI board, is there a fan on the heatsink for the northbridge? If not try touching it while it's running, if it burns the out of your finger you need to put a fan on it. MSI boards are notorious for ping out due to the northbridge overheating. So... if none of these things help the situation move to the CPU. Start by making sure that there is "just" enough thermal compund between the heatsink and cpu. Too much and it won't transfer heat and the cpu will overheat, too little and, well, same thing. Last resort, if you can find a known working processor that you can swap into your machine for a test run, you'll be able to rule out the processor for sure. Lastly, make sure that you have the latest bios update for motherboard. Hope this helps.