HELP, my cpu smells of rubber and won't turn on

[Isuck]

Help! I don't know what happened....well...I was just using my PC computer like normal and decided to upload pics from my digital camera, so I just plugged the cord into the serial port and started uploading. Suddenly my computer starts smelling like rubber and it shuts off!!! I turn it back on...it works for a bit, then shuts of again. Now it just turns on and nothing appears on the screen. AAAAHHH. Is it because I did a hot serial port plugin? I have no idea what's going on, any help would be appreciated.


Isuck

PS Heeeeeeelp

 

[Shazam]

A hot serial port plugin is a recipe for disaster.

You probably shorted your whole motherboard.

 

[Atomicman]

Try letting it stand for a while!
Than look inside for black stuff (burned circuits) LOL . Sorry i know it's not funny!

 

[TheBigZ]

Hot serial & parallel changes are definately a bad thing, but I've never had it crater a system so badly that shutting it down didn't fix it. Altho I suppose it's possible that if it wasn't a clean plugging action, it's possible it could have sent some stry voltage to somewhere it shouldn't have. But I'm not sure a digital cam sends any power down it's cable.

 

[MWink]

I thought you COULD hot plug serial devices?!? I have done it and never had a problem. I do know that you can not hot plug parallel devices.

 

[Pretender]

Hot parallel plugins are bad? I thought they were fine. Maybe it's mobo-dependant because I've done it at least 10 times with my current system with no negative results.

 

[jamarno]

While you're not really supposed to, you can hot plug old serial devices that have 1488 and 1489 bipolar buffer chips because they're designed to withstand 60 volts for long periods (not just surges), and their internal transistors are fairly large. But I'd never hot plug anything that didn't contain separate, cheap buffer chips, and 100% of the equipment made today instead has expensive MOS chips tied almost directly to the outside world.

One person I know plugged a parallel printer into his notebook while it was turned on, and its interface chip's package bulged and split open.

 

[cpars]

No advice, but good thing I read this thread cause I have hot plugged parallel and serial several times.

 

[Doctorweir]

Parallel plugs definitely aren't good...especially for laptops when engaging with some other colleagues on a project (can you pass me over the printer cable, pal...? )
I've seen some parallel-ports dying due to such hot plugs. But normally it shoots only the parallel device controller, not the whole system...
Sorry for your system

 

[utopia]

Damn, i hotplug everyday, never had a problem... Anyone ever see a monitor die because of a hot plugin? I dont think its possible because it has its own separate power supply, but it would be interesting to know.

 

[bozack]

Hot plug tons of stuff everyday at work when swapping peripherals and such, have yet to have any problem, parallel, serial you name it

 

[Whitedog]

Burnt rubber huh. maybe power supply? hope it is!

 

[jamarno]

"I've been doing it for years without problems" is said by a lot of hacks.

Hot plugging peripherals doesn't always cause immediate damage but just partially punctures the silicon, making it easier for a spike to punch through completely later on. I've seen photomicrographs of this.

The safest things to hot plug are probably ancient parallel and serial ports with separate TTL bipolar buffer chips, the next safest are USB ports and drives rated hot pluggable (their chips are designed to take 10,000-15,000 volt spikes). I don't know about video cards because while the monitor side probably uses bipolar buffers, I'm not sure of the D/A converter on the video output.

 

[Isuck]

Thanks guys...yeah I'm pretty screwed. I just got a new motherboard from mwave.com and they shipped it the same day so it'll be here soon so I'll be set. I think I found the problem; I plugged in the serial cord to my digital camera, turned it on, and THEN plugged it into my serial port in my computer causing some form of feedback or something. Thats when the rubber smell started and the nasty shutoff. So my logical conclusion is hot serial plug-in is ok when the cord isn't hooked to anything that's turned on. It's not the power supply cuz my cpu still turns on, just nothing happens. Anyhow thanks, and just to be safe, I'll never hot plug again.

 

[Hossenfeffer]

Eww, definately not fun. I get impatient myself because I've yet to run into a tangible problem from hot-plugging devices. Suppose the best is to just -make- yourself get into the habit of shutting down or finding a more hot-swappable option. Best of luck.

 

[Isuck]

HEEELP, I just put my new motherboard in and its STILL not working..the power goes on but nothing on the screen like before. I have no idea what's going on and I really need my cpu...I think I checked everything right according to the instruction book but I'm just plain lost...could anything else have been damaged in my hot serial plug-in? Please, I will appreciate any help I can get, thanks alot.

 

[utopia]

looks like its the power supply...

 

[Pretender]

When you say "The power goes on but nothing on the screen"...what power are you talking about? The power light on your case or the one on the motherboard (if there is one)?

 

[Isuck]

well, what I mean is the computer itself turns on, I hear the fan and the "vroom"...but nothing comes up on my monitor...maybe my video card got shorted? I hope not.

 

[PistachioByAzul]

If you smelled burnt rubber then it was your powersupply. I know that smell very well, having accidently reversed the polarity on an AT case switch when I installed a new PS. Lights in the room dimmed and smoke poured out the back.

 

[Howard]

damn

 

[RossGr]

LOL. As anyone who has ever done any electronics work can tell you, any burnt component will smell of "burnt rubber", I personally recongize it as burnt electronics. To say that the burnt smell is the Power supply is a bit of an over simplification. More likely it is something in the PS2 port circurity.

 

[PistachioByAzul]

True, but do those components generally don't burn. The Powersupply usually takes the blow.

 

[Isuck]

Allright, but apparently, everything is turning on just fine, my hard drives, cd rom, etc. I did just make an interesting observation however....with this new motherboard, I decided to open the computer, take off the processor fan, and turn the computer on..and whatta you know, the processor is burning emanating heat to about an inch away from it AND I smelled the same burning rubber smell as the day my computer broke down coming directly from it. What do you think? Is it my processor? I had an Epox motherboard and the processor is an AMD K6-2 450, which I heard are slightly less tough then Intels. The only other possiblity I see is my RAM, but THAT'S not giving off any kind of smell or burning my fingers off. What do you guys think? I hope I"m steps closer to solving this dilemna.

 

[Tigris]

get yerself a new processor. you can get a k-6/2 500 for about 60 bucks no prob.
kinda sounds like youve been using a bad fan/heatsink combo for a long time and it finally died? That happened on my sis's comp, except it didnt die, it just randomly crashes. Its a cool subject to joke about in the family now, seeing as it used to be my parents. It was the second computer I had ever built. Whoohoo!! Glad to see it still works... somewhat... sometimes...