Forum Moderators: phranque
I thought it was coming in the windows from some construction in the neighborhood, but this morning, a bit of sniffing narrowed the smell down to one of our computers. I took the case cover off, but there's such good airflow I can't smell anything at all inside the case. Evidently the burning smell is getting exhausted out the back of the case and getting trapped under the desk, so I can smell it in the room but not in the case.
Anyway, it's obviously not a catastrophic failure at the moment since the computer is continuing to work without any apparent problems. However, equally obvious is the fact that *something* is slowly burning up inside this particular computer.
How can I go about finding the faulty part so I can replace it, hopefully before any further damage takes place to other components?
Thanks,
Matthew
Look at the voltages etc on each rail ..if any are near the limits ..( BIOS will tell you ) or Everest or similar ..
Transfo windings going down smell slightly "waxy" compared to straight forward burnt or melting insulation smell.
Of course do this with the power cable unplugged. More danger of a fan nipping at you rather than a shock though.
Install a temp app such as speedfan to see if that gives you clues for the cpu / mobo / disks.
What's the dust like on the fans and heatsink fins? Give it a good de-dusting with vacuum cleaner and see if that helps.
I was presuming the heatsink(s) were clean :) ..just like we all have backups ..we all have clean machines ;)) ..like Frank says ..a gentle clean with a vacuum cleaner wont hurt ..although hot dust has it's own smell ..( like convector heaters started again after the summer if they haven't been dusted first ) ..sort of acrid and "confined" as opposed to aromatic trannny winding insulation or capacitors .:)
Just a thought ..I've had some PSU fans run intermittently on me before ( and sometimes they didn't start up at all )..when your machine is running ..put your face about 6 inches ( 15 cms ) from the back and see if there is any breeze ..
If you cant get your head under the desk then wipe the inside of your wrist with a wet sponge ( makes it more sensitive to air flow ) and put your wrist in the way of the outflow ..in case there isn't one ..
If you have another PSU ( spares are always usefull to have around for each machine you own ) swap it and see ..
If it was the motherboard it would have died by now. If it's the power supply (seems likely) then a lump of grease/flux has probably fallen onto something hot (or maybe there's a dead insect/spider in there). In this case, the smell will pass in a couple of days. If it's more serious, just fix it when it dies.
Kaled.
if any other compoment makes that smell it stops functioning on the spot.
Well, off to buy another one....fortunately our small town does have a computer store with a decent PSU in stock!
Search for "testing a computer power supply" for some methods to see if it works on its own or can run a fan etc.
