Motherboard without cpu

[RyanLewisBull]

Is it possible to power on the system without a cpu installed or rather a broken cpu installed, for example so that the fans spin and lights come on?

[minibois]

Fan spin, sure. But it won't POST.

You need a CPU, motherboard, RaM and PSU at the least. Assuming the CPU has integrated graphics, otherwise you need a videocard too.

[Master Disaster]

15 minutes ago, Bullzy said:

Is it possible to power on the system without a cpu installed or rather a broken cpu installed, for example so that the fans spin and lights come on?

 

13 minutes ago, minibois said:

Fan spin, sure. But it won't POST.

You need a CPU, motherboard, RaM and PSU at the least. Assuming the CPU has integrated graphics, otherwise you need a videocard too.

To add to this...

 

Testing with a known bad CPU is pointless. When a system POSTs it will do the following tests (note this is very simplified)

 

1) Self test, so are the board components responding as expected

2) Is the CPU responding

3) Is the RAM responding

4) Is the GPU responding

5) Everything is OK > Power on

 

Because the CPU is second on the list it will fail at step 2. If, for example, the board has a bad RAM socket or a bad PCIe slot you would never find out because these tests would never be performed. The entire POST process has to pass before you can say the board is good.

[Dabombinable]

36 minutes ago, Bullzy said:

Is it possible to power on the system without a cpu installed or rather a broken cpu installed, for example so that the fans spin and lights come on?

As said above, no. Which is why I bought a Pentium G620 (cheaper than the Celerons...somehow) to test+update a "pulled from working machine" B65 motherboard.