I have an older pc running 200 megahertz pentium with mmx. I recently discovered that my cpu cooling fan was not working. I don't know how long it was bad. I started having trouble with it not booting when i turned it on. I would turn it off and on again,then it would boot properly. gradually became worse, to the point that now it will not boot at all. Is my pentium chip bad? If not what could it be?

If not, then I would suggest you do that first. And yes, overheating could cause damage to many internal components. This page offers an excellent discussion of this:

It's the heat!

Will the computer boot into Windows Safe Mode? At Start-up (First screen, or first error code beep) tap the F8 key repeatedly until you see the Windows Start Menu.

Then use your arrow key to select choice 3 - Safe Mode. Press the Enter key. If it will start in Safe Mode, you can do some diagnostic checks and retry to start the computer into "Normal Mode".

For help with diagnostic checks, please let us know what operating system you're using.

I hope this helps!

Dwight

[This message was edited by Dwight on 09-25-02 at 01:40 PM.]

running windows 95. when i turn on pc, i can here the hard drive start spinning and reads for 2-3 seconds. then it stops reading and nothing else happens. I do not get anything on monitor, just a blank blue screen