Smoking Computer

[Kroma]

Help!

Last week my PC was rendering some video - when I entered the study halfway
through the process, there was a smell of burning dust - as if I'd turned a
little-used electric heater on.

My CPU (Intel Pentium 4 2.66) was running at a temperature of 61 degrees C
and my motherboard at a temperature of 40 degrees C.

I put it down to the fact that I haven't pushed my PC to the limit recently
and that some dust must have settled recently.

For the next week, the PC ran properly without any smells.

Last night, the computer had been on for around 5 hours doing basic tasks
such as streaming music, web surfing/email, bit torrent uploading and
recording a TV show.

The last thing it did was upload a bit torrent for 90 minutes.

At around 11pm I checked on a newsgroup and made a brief visit to the
bathroom.

Upon returning I was alarmed to hear my monitor going into standby (it is
set to after a certain amount of time but not 2 mintues) and upon
investigation I saw that the PC had rebooted.

I sat down in front of the computer and moved the mouse in an attempt to see
what was going on and then noticed a faint smell of burning. This quickly
turned into a STRONG smell of burning accompanied by lots of grey smoke!!!

My instinct led me to hold the power button for 4 seconds to switch the
computer off but then common sense came into play and I switched it off at
the wall.

After opening a few windows and calming down for a moment I took the side of
the PC off to see if there was any visible damage... none!

I then switched back on at the wall and turned the PC on to see what would
happen inside. The PC went to BIOS which I exited. The PC then started to
boot up normally but, after about 10 seconds the smoke started to appear
again - I was unfortunately unable to tell where exactly it was coming from
though.

I immediately swictched the PC off at the wall again and it has sat there
ever since with its side off.

So, what can I do now? How can I tell what the problem is - has anybody got
any ideas?

Many thanks in advance,

Daz (at his girlfriend's computer)

 

[Malke]

Help!

Last week my PC was rendering some video - when I entered the study halfway
through the process, there was a smell of burning dust - as if I'd turned a
little-used electric heater on.

My CPU (Intel Pentium 4 2.66) was running at a temperature of 61 degrees C
and my motherboard at a temperature of 40 degrees C.

I put it down to the fact that I haven't pushed my PC to the limit recently
and that some dust must have settled recently.

For the next week, the PC ran properly without any smells.

Last night, the computer had been on for around 5 hours doing basic tasks
such as streaming music, web surfing/email, bit torrent uploading and
recording a TV show.

The last thing it did was upload a bit torrent for 90 minutes.

At around 11pm I checked on a newsgroup and made a brief visit to the
bathroom.

Upon returning I was alarmed to hear my monitor going into standby (it is
set to after a certain amount of time but not 2 mintues) and upon
investigation I saw that the PC had rebooted.

I sat down in front of the computer and moved the mouse in an attempt to see
what was going on and then noticed a faint smell of burning. This quickly
turned into a STRONG smell of burning accompanied by lots of grey smoke!!!

My instinct led me to hold the power button for 4 seconds to switch the
computer off but then common sense came into play and I switched it off at
the wall.

After opening a few windows and calming down for a moment I took the side of
the PC off to see if there was any visible damage... none!

I then switched back on at the wall and turned the PC on to see what would
happen inside. The PC went to BIOS which I exited. The PC then started to
boot up normally but, after about 10 seconds the smoke started to appear
again - I was unfortunately unable to tell where exactly it was coming from
though.

I immediately swictched the PC off at the wall again and it has sat there
ever since with its side off.

So, what can I do now? How can I tell what the problem is - has anybody got
any ideas?

Many thanks in advance,

Daz (at his girlfriend's computer)

It is very, very unlikely that this computer's motherboard (and possibly
the other components) can be saved. If you really want to try
troubleshooting it, you'll need to strip it down to the motherboard.
Then start turning it on with nothing connected and smell and watch what
happens. The culprit could have been the power supply, the board itself,
video card, fans... Pull the hard drive and try it in another machine.
Test it with a diagnostic utility. If it is good, then set it aside.
Personally, I wouldn't trust the RAM but you could test it in another
machine.

As you see, the operative words are "another machine" and also testing
the troubled computer will require advanced hardware knowledge and being
comfortable taking it apart. You know your abilities and your resources.
If doing this sort of thing isn't your forte, then you should take the
machine to a professional computer repair shop (not your local version
of BigStoreUSA).

I'm sorry for your troubles and wish you good luck,

Malke

 

[Paul]

Help!

Last week my PC was rendering some video - when I entered the study halfway
through the process, there was a smell of burning dust - as if I'd turned a
little-used electric heater on.

My CPU (Intel Pentium 4 2.66) was running at a temperature of 61 degrees C
and my motherboard at a temperature of 40 degrees C.

I put it down to the fact that I haven't pushed my PC to the limit recently
and that some dust must have settled recently.

For the next week, the PC ran properly without any smells.

Last night, the computer had been on for around 5 hours doing basic tasks
such as streaming music, web surfing/email, bit torrent uploading and
recording a TV show.

The last thing it did was upload a bit torrent for 90 minutes.

At around 11pm I checked on a newsgroup and made a brief visit to the
bathroom.

Upon returning I was alarmed to hear my monitor going into standby (it is
set to after a certain amount of time but not 2 mintues) and upon
investigation I saw that the PC had rebooted.

I sat down in front of the computer and moved the mouse in an attempt to see
what was going on and then noticed a faint smell of burning. This quickly
turned into a STRONG smell of burning accompanied by lots of grey smoke!!!

My instinct led me to hold the power button for 4 seconds to switch the
computer off but then common sense came into play and I switched it off at
the wall.

After opening a few windows and calming down for a moment I took the side of
the PC off to see if there was any visible damage... none!

I then switched back on at the wall and turned the PC on to see what would
happen inside. The PC went to BIOS which I exited. The PC then started to
boot up normally but, after about 10 seconds the smoke started to appear
again - I was unfortunately unable to tell where exactly it was coming from
though.

I immediately swictched the PC off at the wall again and it has sat there
ever since with its side off.

So, what can I do now? How can I tell what the problem is - has anybody got
any ideas?

Many thanks in advance,

Daz (at his girlfriend's computer)

If you're a DIY repair guy, the first step would be a spare power
supply. Power supply failures are quite common, and slightly more
so if you got a "$20 wonder supply". As a replacement, get something
like Fortron/Sparkle, Enermax, Seasonic, PCPowerandCooling, or if you
need more assistance in selection, post back with your questions.
(Some people don't have access to good brands, and then it is a
matter of picking the best of the lot.) Someone can work out the size
of supply needed, if you will post a list of your hardware, or you can
read the label on the supply, and make sure that the current for each
rail, is more than is shown on the existing supply label.

As in any repair, take notes before you disassemble anything. If
there are cables in the way, make a note of the connector orientation,
and if there is a red mark on the cable for pin 1, take note of which
side it plugs into. Many connectors are keyed, but not always. The more
notes you take, as you take it apart, the fewer surprises later.
Be especially careful with the PANEL header (where the power switch,
reset switch, power LED, IDE LED and the like plug in), as the motherboard
may not label which is which, and a motherboard manual would be required
to put them back right. You shouldn't need to disturb them for
this repair.

Usually the power supply is held in place with four screws, and
once all the power cables have been disconnected, you should be able
to ease it out and install the new one. Then you get to do your
switch-on experiment again Since the BIOS screen appeared
on your second attempt, I bet it'll still work.

If you had it repaired in a shop, one thing they could do that
you wouldn't typically be able to do at home, is measure the
current being used. You can get a clamp-on DC ammeter for example,
and the jaws on one of those, slide around bundles of same-colored
power cables, to measure the current flowing in them. The meter
uses the magnetic field around the wires, to figure out what
DC current is flowing. That gadget is $250 or so, and that
is why not every DIY repair person has one. I have one, and it
takes about a minute to verify that everything is normal or not.
But it hardly makes sense to buy one of those, for a single
repair. This is a picture of one.

http://exphil.com/images/products/Extech/380947.jpg

Paul

 

[Kerry Brown]

Is your insurance up to date and do you have a fire extinguisher handy? This
is a dangerous situation. It is very likely the computer is beyond repair.
The data on the hard drive may be retrievable. My recommendation is to take
the computer to a qualified professional to see what is wrong. Trying to
troubleshoot something that is possibly a physically dangerous problem
should be done by someone who is qualified. Do not continue without some
means to quickly unplug the computer from a reasonable distance and a fire
extinguisher very close at hand.

 

[Kroma]

If you're a DIY repair guy, the first step would be a spare power
supply. Power supply failures are quite common, and slightly more
so if you got a "$20 wonder supply". As a replacement, get something
like Fortron/Sparkle, Enermax, Seasonic, PCPowerandCooling, or if you
need more assistance in selection, post back with your questions.
(Some people don't have access to good brands, and then it is a
matter of picking the best of the lot.) Someone can work out the size
of supply needed, if you will post a list of your hardware, or you can
read the label on the supply, and make sure that the current for each
rail, is more than is shown on the existing supply label...

Thanks for the replies everybody. At first, the replies some of the replies
scared the hell out of me... but after a couple of days of rational thought
and a 'sniff' around my PC, I'm pretty sure that the PSU was to blame - it
does smell very strongly whereas there's hardly a scent within the main body
of the PC (although I'm aware that all smells will be routed through the
power supply with the airflow). The fan on the PSU has been rather noisy in
the past too - I should have been more concerned with this I guess. It also
appears that my PSU is an 'unbranded' one - the cheapest component in my PC
no doubt!

I really don't think the problem is the CPU - it ran at 61 degrees C when I
smelt the burning dust odour last week - that's not a particularly high temp
is it? The same with the motherboard - 40 degrees isn't too high is it? My
graphics card isn't one of the latest - it's an Nvidia 5200 and there are no
visibble signs of damage.

Also, I didn't mention that after showing the BIOS on the final manual
reboot, the monitor did display the Windows XP screen before I switched it
off again. I guess the only anomily was the appearance of the BIOS screen -
could that have been due to premature switching off???

So, I'm planning to buy a new power supply - I realise that it has to have a
special Pentium 4 connector. I'm also aware that the latest supplies have
SATA hard drive connectors but mine are merely IDE hard drives. Any advice
here?

Do you think I've diagnosed correctly? Anything else I should take note of?

Thanks for the help,

Daz

 

[Guest]

I think 61 degrees celsius is a bit high myself.. My Intel P4 2.4GB CPU & the
PSU info as of this moment.. My CPU, System board and Antec TruePower 430
watt PSU have all served me well for 4 years now, knock on wood..

Sensor Properties:
Sensor Type National LM85
(SMBus 2Eh)
GPU Sensor Type National LM63
(ATI-I2C 4Ch)
Motherboard Name Intel D845EBT /
D845GEBV2 / D845PEBT2 / D845PESV / D848PMB / D865PERL / D875PBZ

Temperatures:
Motherboard 32 °C (90 °F)
CPU 33 °C (91 °F)
Aux 33 °C (91 °F)
GPU 34 °C (93 °F)
GPU Ambient 32 °C (90 °F)
Maxtor 6Y200P0 28 °C (82 °F)
Maxtor 6B250R0 30 °C (86 °F)

Cooling Fans:
CPU 2469 RPM
System 1475 RPM

Voltage Values:
CPU Core 1.43 V
+1.5 V 1.43 V
+3.3 V 3.27 V
+5 V 4.95 V
+12 V 11.75 V

If you plan to upgrade the mobo get a decent PSU, check your specs and
upgrade accordingly..
Cheers
j;-j

 

[Paul]

Thanks for the replies everybody. At first, the replies some of the replies
scared the hell out of me... but after a couple of days of rational thought
and a 'sniff' around my PC, I'm pretty sure that the PSU was to blame - it
does smell very strongly whereas there's hardly a scent within the main body
of the PC (although I'm aware that all smells will be routed through the
power supply with the airflow). The fan on the PSU has been rather noisy in
the past too - I should have been more concerned with this I guess. It also
appears that my PSU is an 'unbranded' one - the cheapest component in my PC
no doubt!

I really don't think the problem is the CPU - it ran at 61 degrees C when I
smelt the burning dust odour last week - that's not a particularly high temp
is it? The same with the motherboard - 40 degrees isn't too high is it? My
graphics card isn't one of the latest - it's an Nvidia 5200 and there are no
visibble signs of damage.

Also, I didn't mention that after showing the BIOS on the final manual
reboot, the monitor did display the Windows XP screen before I switched it
off again. I guess the only anomily was the appearance of the BIOS screen -
could that have been due to premature switching off???

So, I'm planning to buy a new power supply - I realise that it has to have a
special Pentium 4 connector. I'm also aware that the latest supplies have
SATA hard drive connectors but mine are merely IDE hard drives. Any advice
here?

Do you think I've diagnosed correctly? Anything else I should take note of?

Thanks for the help,

Daz

Take the power supply, and a list of all the hardware in the computer, to a
local computer store. They should be able to dig up something with the same
number of minimal cables.

If you want to buy the power supply on line, then post your hardware list
here, post the URL for the site you want to buy from, and maybe we can
pick something out. But if you don't list the hardware, it is pretty hard
to guess at what is needed.

If you don't have any fancy graphics card or super-hot processor, this supply
is a reasonable "universal donor". It could be your supply is a smaller form
factor one - this one is a standard sized ATX. This one would power an
Athlon system that leans heavy on the 5V supply, or will power the latest
Pentium 4.

Enermax EG365P-VE FMA 1.3 ATX 350W Power Supply 90V~135V or 180V~265V
+3.3V@32A, +5V@32A, +12V@26A, -5V@1A, -12V@1A, [email protected]
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103455

The reviews for the supplies, help tell you their quality. That Enermax
passes with flying colors.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustratingReview.asp?item=N82E16817103455

There are some supplies that come in a smaller form factor. Sometimes
it is hard to get something with the exact same dimensions.

http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/17-103-424-09.JPG

Paul

 

[Kroma]

I then switched back on at the wall and turned the PC on to see what would
happen inside. The PC went to BIOS which I exited. The PC then started
to boot up normally but, after about 10 seconds the smoke started to
appear again - I was unfortunately unable to tell where exactly it was
coming from though.

I immediately swictched the PC off at the wall again and it has sat there
ever since with its side off.

Well, the good news is that my computer DID survive. It certainly WAS the
PSU at fault and I managed to catch it in time before it blew and took the
other components with it!

An acquaintance has given me a PSU of a higher rating which is working
wonderfully. The only downside is that it is a single-fan model whereas my
old one had a lower fan as well - therefore my chassis temperatures are a
little higher - I plan to get a chassis fan in the next week to counteract
this.

The PSU is only a basic model but is doing the job - I agree that the
enermax PSUs seem to be of great quality (my PC mag rates them very highly
too) but they cost far more than I currently afford. Maybe when this one
starts to show signs of wear...?

The upside to this is that my PC is now ultra-quiet (until I fit the new
fan)!

Thanks for the help everybody - I've got a week's worth of computer use to
catch up on!

Kroma

 

[Kerry Brown]

Thanks for the update. It's always good to see a problem resolved.