Hmmmm sounds good to me. :0 So I guess it'd be fairly safe to assume that if it will not run without the top CPU, then it is probably the bottom one that is likely to be bad if any  anyway? I am still typing this on the half a dual-processor machine after about an hour of running without a recognised second CPU... same session, no reboots or freezes,, that said I switched it also to running at reduced-rate. There is some occasional fan spool-ups and I don't have temp monitor on this machine to suss out what it's doing, but It isnt going nuts and trying to take off from under the bench yet.

I really would like to keep this machine running in some way or another as it seems a waste using it to grate cheese when sometimes it works stirlingly.