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Booting a PC without CPU power.

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Jun 19, 2008
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Shepparton, Victoria, Australia
System Name Toaster!
Processor Intel Core i7 10700KF @ 3.8/5.1GHZ
Motherboard ASUS Prime Z490-P Motherboard
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 CPU cooler.
Memory G.Skill Trident Z RGB 64GB (4x16GB) 3600MHz CL16 DDR4
Video Card(s) ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3090 OC 24GB
Storage Samsung 970 PRO M.2 NVMe SSD 1TB
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Case Corsair Obsidian 900D
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Power Supply Corsair AX1000 Titanium Modular
Mouse Razer Deathadder
Keyboard Corsair K70.
Software ALL HAIL WINDOWS 10.
Benchmark Scores Old system: http://www.3dmark.com/fs/6805248
As the title says, I just did this many times. I forgot I'd taken the power out of the CPU to remove my 5970 (the CPU power cord was not able to be threaded through the back). Can this cause damage?
 
Nope. Typically the bios would complain, or the computer wont post without it. But no damage.
 
Good! Thank you
 
I'm new to building systems and I bought a mini-itx motherboard recently that I wanted to test out. I just stuck in some ram and connected the PSU and tried jumping the on/off pins to turn it on. I then realized I forgot to add the CPU power cable in, panicked and felt stupid.

I've been told it should be fine but, man, if I've damaged it I'll be so disappointed. :( Good lesson anyway to always double check before booting.
 
i think the only boards that might have had an issue with it were the first socket 478 boards that finally started using the P4 plug for the higher speed cpus. even then, i think they just simply refused to boot until you pluged in the P4 connector. same goes with amd's "socket A".
 
I would not try to plug in the cpu power cable after you had powered up the system (and had it failed due to lack of cpu power lead) this would most probably cause some component failure ie sudden volt/amperage spikes/draws
its always safer to make sure the system IS COMPLETELY POWERED DOWN before attaching or detaching any cable/component
 
thats more or less a given, but yea what above poster said
 
thats more or less a given, but yea what above poster said

Sometimes you just have to state the simplist of things othewise people make mistakes
 
Sometimes you just have to state the simplist of things othewise people make mistakes

Sure, although this topic was about accidentally booting without a CPU wire. I'm sure we're all competent enough to not play with wires and hardware while the motherboard is being pumped with electricity. :laugh:
 
lol . i did this before too. no damage.
 
reply

done this recently as well, everything seems to be running ok
 
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