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My computer smells of burning, is that bad?

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2005 1:11 pm
by Iain
;-)

Last night, I could smell this burning plastic type smell, I found the source was from my poor computer!! :( After a couple of minutes, Windows blue screened, I rebooted and before it could fully boot up the same thing happened.

I reset and left the computer in the BIOS setup screen, looking at the temperture , which didn't go up massively and the computer stayed up.

The burning smell seems to be coming from the power supply (which would link up with the burning plastic smell) but how would this make Windows blue screen, rather than just straight switch off the computer.

I'm assuming it's not the motherboard or the CPU since a burning smell would mean they'd be fried and useless.

I guess I'll try to get hold of another power supply and see it that solves the problem.

Does anybody have any other ideas?

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2005 1:13 pm
by Lloyd Mangram
Hmm, the last time I smelled that smell it was my (brand new Athlon) CPU getting fried, because I accidentally attached the cooling fan the wrong way round. :evil:
Hehe.
Yeah, that was kinda stupid. :wink:

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2005 1:14 pm
by Lloyd Mangram
Mr.Zzapback wrote:(brand new Athlon)
See what I did there?
I want my share! :twisted:

(ooh, it doesn't work when you quote it?) :D

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2005 1:29 pm
by Iain
You mean how your word turns into a nice advertisment? :)

I assume when you smelt the burning, your CPU was totally dead?

All my bits (oh er Sir!!) seem to work fine for a few minutes and then the burning smell starts. I don;t think you could lightly fry a CPU and still have it work afterwards, but a power supply is a more hardy thing!

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2005 1:31 pm
by Lloyd Mangram
Iain wrote:
I assume when you smelt the burning, your CPU was totally dead?
No, it wasn't. After trying to switch it on 50 times, it was. :D

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2005 1:49 pm
by Iain
Arse... well the temp of my CPU is around a steady 39 Degrees (AMD Athlon XP) so that's not on fire temp. The only thing I can do is try putting in another power supply and see if that stops the burning... Although it was nice this morning to get up and not switch on the PC first thing and arse around on it for an hour. :)

Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2005 3:43 pm
by Iain
Well, it doesn't seem to be the power supply :(

I think I've narrowed it down to the motherboard or CPU.

Rob? When your CPU was burning, when you took it out was there still a burning smell off it?

I've removed my CPU and it seems alright.

There's a fan with AGP X8 on it, which when I put in my new HD and RAM a month ago, wasn't working, I assumed it never worked but didn't seem to be causing any problems...

Maybe with the hotter weather, it does matter now.... I wish I had a spare AMD Athlon to test :(

Is there a difference between an Athlon and Athlon XP?

Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2005 4:18 pm
by Lloyd Mangram
Iain wrote: Rob? When your CPU was burning, when you took it out was there still a burning smell off it?
Yes, and the core had a dark brown burn mark on it.
Iain wrote: Is there a difference between an Athlon and Athlon XP?
Yes, I think, it depends what you mean. (bit puzzled here)
Have you googled about the metallic smell?
Could indeed be your videocard if it gets too hot.
But really I'm no expert (see other posts -hehe) although I always build my own 'puter.
I'm not much of any help, sorry. :?

Succes! :)

Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2005 4:47 pm
by Iain
Ironicly enough, I had a mess with the fan and it works now!! But maybe it's too late, as the PC won't even boot up, at all now, fans just whirr and the PC internal speaker clicks a few times.

There no burns or smell off the CPU so I have to assume it's the motherboard.... Hopefully a mate has a spare Athlon or Socket A motherboard to further test before I have to buy a replacement part.

Arse, probably won't have had this problem if I'd sorted out the little motherboard fan a month ago... still strange that it only started giving problems a few days ago, so it may be unrelated...

Anyway, I'm a bit stressed and pissed off now :(

Might just try booting up without a graphics card and see if I get different clicks! :-D Dunno if you can boot up without a graphics card though, might have to dig out my old 2MB PCI one!

Anyway, I'm totally rambling here, so time to go back to the coal face...

Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2005 5:42 pm
by Iain
Well, well, well I have gotten to the bottom of it!

After doing a little searching using the amighty Google, I discivered that a number of people have had problems with burning smells with this model of motherboard and it's down to dodgy capacitors. SOme bulge, some leak and some explode!

Well I had a look around my motherboard and lo and behold, there are two capacitors with bulges (on top) and a little brown mark in the middle of both of them.

My motherboard is over 2 years old, so probably out of regular guarentte but this appears like a manufactoring fault so they should repair / replace it for me. I have sent off the details to their tech support anyway.

I just hope with all my rebooting that no other components have been damaged! but until the PC stopped botting at all, everything else seemed okay.

It's nice to know what the problem is anyway... now I just have to get it sorted out! :)

Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2005 8:42 pm
by Lloyd Mangram
Iain wrote:
After doing a little searching using the amighty Google
Glad I could help! :D

Btw, if the speaker give bleeps you could have counted them and look in the motherboard manual to see what it meant, IF you still had it?

Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2005 11:31 pm
by Iain
Well I still do have the manual, I'm a bit anal when it comes to things like that , although not as bad as I was before!

It doesn't really beep, more clicks but that's probably because I never connected up the PC speaker correctly. Generally, I only bother with the power switch and on/off led and HD, if I get lucky :)

But those capaciters are knacked anyway, so I know what's wrong with it :)

Thank you for your help! ;-)

Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 1:31 pm
by Iain
At last!!!! I have a new motherboard, only took a month and two ebay auctions to get here!!!

It's nice to be back at a proper desktop, although the monitor looks very big and has a high resolution, compared to the laptop screen. Although I do notice the rounded shape of it more.

The laptop's mere 256Mb of RAM was also very annoying, especially when trying to use Eclipse, now I'm back at 1Gb :))