Booting without heat sink: how far is the BIOS concerned.

Dear friends,
I've got the idea of doing a little crazy experience.
I've a Socket 775 Biostar motherboad I can't recall the model and an Intel Pentium D CPU. I got the idea of building up a PC without a heat sink installed.

When the power button was pressed the Chassis fan started spinning but no POST, no boot up, nothing happened but the motherboad was power supplied.
After switching off the whole stuff I touched the processor it was still as cold as before it was installed. Now my question is: Is it the BIOS preventing it from booting up? Because I know the BIOS can detect whether a heat sink is installed and running.

The CPU becomes active the second you turn on the power most likely to cooked that processor. It is good practice to never ever ever turn computer on with out all the proper cooling on. Even running your computer without the side panel can be bad for cooling.

Yes it would be able to boot. It just would hit the POST screen and beep at you a few times and refuse to go further because the CPU fan is not plugged in. It can't detect the heatsink itself though.

I'm pretty sure I saw that somewhere I hope it's not a copy n paste reply.:

archer said:

The CPU becomes active the second you turn on the power most likely to cooked that processor. It is good practice to never ever ever turn computer on with out all the proper cooling on. Even running your computer without the side panel can be bad for cooling.

No, the CPU didn't cooked and yes some BIOS can detect the heat sink and its rpm speed.

Obviously buddy, you will find this repeated. Because you will get the same reply every time you ask this question.

You might not see the burnout on the CPU chip. But the transistors will be dead.

if you manage to get it to boot the cpu with go pop within seconds. it will heat up so quickly it wont have time to go into thermal shutdown.
I wanted to see if one would basialy explode after seeing it "happen" on a youtube vid. mine got to about the widows loading logo and then died.
twas a AMD duron 1.2ghz =) RIP lol

joeycedric said:

I got the idea of building up a PC without a heat sink installed.

And you have a bad idea.


Put your ear to the CPU and listen it's high pitched squeal.

The surface may may feel cold, but inside it's hot as Hades.


And yes, the BIOS will indeed halt the silliness.

Thanks to all of you for replying. Yes I know this is foolish but as some may say: experiences make you grow wiser. Legit or not, a wanted to do it so I did it. I will try booting it up with a heat sink to see whether I've literally cooked that cpu or not.lol

The BIOS checks all components for proper operation. And a CPU without heatsink will probably not pass the test.