Acer Aspire scorched heatsink ?

[Elixer]

This is a bit odd, friends laptop was shutting down on its own, so I opened it up, and looked at the heatsink/fan, and noticed what you see in the picture.

Anyone have any ideas on how it got like that ? I don't see any other damage on the side the motherboard was facing, but, I suspect there is more damage on the back of it.

Is this common ?
He said it ran fine before yesterday, and there was no smoke or anything, it just shut down. He also said the fan wasn't on like it usually was, but he shrugged it off, thinking the room was cool, and that is why the fan didn't kick in.

 

[fralexandr]

i'm not seeing any picture
what model number is the acer aspire?

it's never a good idea to run a notebook without it's only source of cooling.
the automatic shutdown hopefully was able to protect the notebook's hardware from overheating, so i would try finding a replacement heat sink/fan part on ebay or someplace as well as some thermal paste (if you don't have any),
although the cpu or some capacitors or something might need replacing as well due to the scorch marks. it's kind of hard to help you without being able to see the picture.
if you see scorch marks on the motherboard, cpu, or elsewhere it might not be worth repairing at all.
you might even be able to find a dead for parts notebook in that exact acer aspire model that had a different problem if you're lucky .

if the notebook is within warranty you probably voided it upon opening it up :\, but you could try contacting acer customer service anyway.

 

[Elixer]

i'm not seeing any picture
what model number is the acer aspire?

it's never a good idea to run a notebook without it's only source of cooling.
the automatic shutdown hopefully was able to protect the notebook's hardware from overheating, so i would try finding a replacement heat sink/fan part on ebay or someplace as well as some thermal paste (if you don't have any),
although the cpu or some capacitors or something might need replacing as well due to the scorch marks. it's kind of hard to help you without being able to see the picture.
if you see scorch marks on the motherboard, cpu, or elsewhere it might not be worth repairing at all.
you might even be able to find a dead for parts notebook in that exact acer aspire model that had a different problem if you're lucky .

if the notebook is within warranty you probably voided it upon opening it up :\, but you could try contacting acer customer service anyway.

This was out of warranty, and as for the pic, that is odd. I'll try another image host.


I don't see anything else that appears to be burnt, so I am thinking it was a electrical arc of some sort.
edit*
The model # is 5741

 

[notposting]

I had one for 16 months and it crapped out around New Years. Would just start overheating and shutting down. The fan would no longer spin up, just stayed at the idle speed while the AMD processor ran over 100C before shutdown.

Got it replaced with another Aspire...this one has an Intel in it. Son poured some milk in it and it is still working so far