CPU Swap - New CPU Producing No Signal

[ahaglin]

Broken pins on old CPU OS slot for BB2e. Purchased replacement CPU and installed. Getting green box that says no signal on both screens (with new CPU). reseated multiple times with no luck. Reinstalled the old CPU. Connection to screens working fine. Any brilliant mind care to assist? I'm stuck (CPU pictures included).

[TheZode]

It looks like you don’t have the bios and jurisdiction chips installed on the new CPU?

[ahaglin]

Thanks for the response. I swapped parts only to find a missing fan beneath the hard drive. Having navigated purchasing options, I'm kind of feeling like ebay isn't the best place to purchase. Everything is a cheap copy and parts are incomplete. Any community suggestions for reputable/fair sellers? I doubt I'm alone on this one.

[Stayouttadabunker]

There's not supposed to be a fan under the hard drive for that model.
Those only had a small blue video card with heatsink fins on top of the main GPU chip.
There is however,  just to the right of the GPU card, a small fan screwed to the enclosure pulling in air.

[sccarlso]

I didn't even know there EVER was a fan there. 

I can't say for sure, but I think most folks with BB2's yank that old rotational hard drive out and put in an 80GB or so 2.5 SATA SSD instead.  Was a long time ago when I did it, but if I recall it's a simple remove and replace job as the old rotational drive is SATA as well. 

Those old rotational drives generate heat, but a basic SATA 2.5 in SSD doesnt transfer with any high speed in a BB2, so it doesn't generate any heat at all.  So a fan being there wouldn't really do any harm if it has an SSD instead of an old rotational drive.  Anything that reduces heat and power usage in the CPU box is a good thing!

If it's replaced with a simple 2.5 in SSD.  You just use the clear card the same way as usual and load up the game.  The machine works exactly the same with almost any 2.5 in SSD in it.  It can be much larger, but the space would never be used.  So one that's around 80GB is just the right size as it still has more than enough space for any game to be loaded on.  Pretty sure it never uses more than 40GB, but larger ones are usually cheaper since really small SSD's aren't really made anymore, so if you REALLY wanted a small size, they can charge a lot more.  So larger 2.5 in SSDs that are the cheapest will also work just fine.

You might even have one just lying around that you could put in there and give it a go!

[TheZode]

Thanks for the response. I swapped parts only to find a missing fan beneath the hard drive. Having navigated purchasing options, I'm kind of feeling like ebay isn't the best place to purchase. Everything is a cheap copy and parts are incomplete. Any community suggestions for reputable/fair sellers? I doubt I'm alone on this one.

I’ve used Get-t.net, their shipping costs are usually pretty reasonable, and they can have good deals on parts, and Patriotgaming.com are a good source, but their shipping can be outrageous, unless you are in Vegas and can pick up yourself.

[ahaglin]

I appreciate all the commentary. Just an FYI, I thought I'd throw up a picture of the illustrious 3rd fan. It was included in my old CPU, and the reason why I assumed it was missing from the new one. Update - incorperated two missing chips. Still receiving "no image" on both screens. Wondering if blue video card is the culprit.

[sccarlso]

Interesting.  A lot easier to test if you had a second working BB2.   But not everyone has more than one!   lol

But might be worth marking the video card from the new CPU box with a sharpie just so you know which card came with the replacement box.  And putting the video card from your old CPU box into the replacement one and see if there's any change.  If no difference, I'd also try putting the video card from the new CPU into your old CPU box and testing that one as well.  Or marking the memory on the replacement CPU and swapping them in the same manner to try to rule a component out.  Easier if you have a known good CPU box to test when swapping these components, but with no luck so far.  If it was me, I would mark those components in the replacement CPU box and swap them one component at a time.  Generally the chance of having two bad video cards, two bad RAM chips, or two bad CPU's should be fairly low.  If you get one to boot normally from two CPU boxes, well, at least you'd be running.   

If either CPU box has ever overheated enough it "can" mess up a voltage regulator or other main board component that gets really hot when powered on even with all fans running.  But BB2 CPU boxes have been pretty solid in mine, never had a failure such as this on any of them.   There are also plenty of cases where the CPU, video card, or memory isn't seated well that can cause it to fail to boot.  As well as making sure the CPU box is locked down securely in the backplane slot when installing it in the machine.  Really easy to install it where the slot that connects it to the backplane isn't fully seated.  Kind of an annoying mechanism, where it's locked down so much that it needs that assist lever.

[Stayouttadabunker]

I'd pull off the heatsink and fan from that card and check to see if the thermal paste under the heatsink is soft.
If it's dry and hard-caked, like a brick of mud on a hot summer day, then the heatsink isn't doing it's job of cooling down the GPU chip.
You have to scrape off the caked stuff, and liberally apply fresh thermal paste.

Keep an eye on the diagnostic temperatures of the GPU.
While you're at it, check the CPU thermal paste too.
The machine you're playing with is way past it's "shelf-life"...needs to be serviced.