I know this theme ran on the forum a few years ago when BIOS A11 was released.  This is a new occurrence.  I have a 5.1 year old Precision T3400, 2.4Ghz Quad Q6600, 2 x 2TB disks, blue-ray and conventional DVD, 8GB RAM.  A11 installed years ago.  Never had a problem with it except to expand hard disks and replace a dying overworked DVD drive.  It's been a wonderful machine and I'd like to revive  and retain it if possible.

On Sunday night I shutdown after a normal day's use.  On Monday morning it wouldn't start.  I got the full screen error message stating Error 0x000000e, The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible.  press ESC / ENTER etc

Booting to F5 diagnostic mode gives a BSOD.  
  Running MATS, error code 2000-0111.
  CPU0  General protection exception occurred.

There are no POST beep codes and no light pattern on front panel (all 4 are off)

If F12 (boot sequence) is pressed at bootup, lights 3 & 4 are illuminated whilst waiting for input to select boot device.  Once selection is made these go off (normally this means successful POST tests?).

The advice when these message occurred on the release of A11 was along the lines of "faulty BIOS installation", "revert to A09, reinstall A11 if needed".  My A11 has run faultlessly for years.

I have been able to boot with the "Ultimate boot CD" and run some tests.  Some have run without problems for an hour (CPU burn in, stress test etc).

I've run the Dell Diagnostic disk which came with the workstation.

EXPRESS TEST:  repeatedly fails at 22% progress when attempting to start processor with APIC ID 03h.

EXTENDED TEST: repeatedly fails at 13% overall; Device I/O APIC
                                   Test:  APIC MP test
                                    Test status: starting processor with APIC ID of 03h
some text in command line mode breaks through the blue interface background indicating unexpected processor exception.

SYSTEM TREE TEST:
tree branch:  "Can not boot OS",
      hangs on test L1 cache (multiprocessor) - dirty cache read test
       Status: "starting CPU1", overall progress 29%

tree branch: ""System locks up"
      hangs at 43% completion when starting CPU1

CUSTOM TEST > All devices > Processor
Hangs: with message:  Falied on device L1 cache (M/Proc); dirty cache read test; starting CPU1

My assumption is that the CPU tests of "Ultimate boot CD" (which  ran for about ten of minutes and completed several GFlops) were running on CPU0 and that the exception error occurs when CPU1 is enabled.

Is the system recoverable?  How?

Assuming CPU is functionally dead/disabled what CPU replacement options are available?
The Q6600 has been out of production for years.  EBAY lists some used Q6600 (I suppose from scrapped machines) but they are all of lesser speed, and likely to be hard worked over the years.

I'd like a plug-in replacement CPU for the 775 socket and don't really want to replace the motherboard except as a "no other option" solution.

Can anyone offer some assistance?  I've read the Forum for years, this is my first desperate post.

Paul

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