Isn't this lovely? Going from Linux love to Hardware hatred?

...anyway. Read on, if you're interested.

Last week was hell for my primary machine. It all started rather innocently as a simple processor transfer. I was moving a CPU from one fully-functional machine to another. I had followed all practical protocols for such a transfer. I took great care to not damage the CPU in any way. There was no ESD. There were no accidents of any kind, nothing fell or was knocked over. I shut down the machine containing the CPU in question, unplugged it, carefully removed the HSF, and unsocketed the CPU. I placed it gently in a small plastic box designed for CPU containment and shipment. I then shut down the destination machine, unplugged it, and followed the same procedure with its processor.

I then did everything in reverse order after cleaning the thermal grease off both processors and HSF assemblies and re-applying a thin coat of Arctic Silver 5 compund as evenly as possible.

This was all done as carefully and gently as possible.

I finished re-assembling both machines and turned one on.

Nothing.

The fans spun, but nothing else happened. I quickly double-checked that I had the proper FSB set on the motherboard. It was correct.

Fast as I could, I shut down and disassembled the machine again, still being careful with the CPU. I placed the original CPU back into the machine, reassembled, and fired it up.

Nothing.

I tried the other machine.

Nothing.

SHIT! I flailed with different combinations - processor, motherboard, power supply, ram, video card. Not a single functional combination.

I was forced to go buy a new motherboard from our only local Fry's (about 15-20 miles away). Brought it home and flailed again. Still nothing. Great. It's the processor. I went out and bought the only AMD processor I could find locally that would still fit a Socket A/462 motherboard - a Sempron 2800. I dislike the Sempron for one major reason - AMD went backward in the production of this processor line by cutting the L2 cache back to 256 and using the Thoroughbred core rather than the superior Barton core and 512 L2 cache. No reseller local to where I live still sells Athlon XP processors anymore.

Anyway, the combination of the new motherboard and the Sempron works perfectly.

Over the course of last week, I went through the effort and expense of going online and purchasing an actual Athlon XP 3200+ processor. The day I received it, I installed it into the new motherboard, with all FSB settings set correctly and CMOS cleared. When I turned it on, I heard two small "pop" sounds and smelled magic smoke. I cut power as quickly as I could and disassembled everything again. Sure enough, the processor was fried. Brand new XP3200, dead instantly. The Sempron POS still works just fine, though XP sees it as an Athlon XP2400.

Frustration abounds.

Got an axe?