slight burnt smell from computer...causes?

[dquan97]

A friend of mine bought my old AMD system from me a year ago. He just called and said that he left the computer on for a little while, then came back to find that the computer froze. After rebooting, the computer won't start and there's a slight burnt smell. I think it might be the motherboard or power supply. Any thoughts? How do I test to see if it's the motherboard, besides replacing it?

 

[fs5]

the heatsink fan broke and now the chip is fried... hurry tell him to throw water on it!

PS. we do have a general hardware forum ya know.

 

[amdskip]

I'm guessing its power supply if anything.

Edit: Look for burned capacitors.

 

[Ausm]

That happened once when i fried one of my hard drives...Not much smoke but smelled like burnt plastic. On The other hand, When i smoked my PS there was a huge cloud of smoke followed by a burning plastic smells.


Sysadmin

 

[EeyoreX]

I have also experienced issues with cables being melted do to things like USB connectors plugged in wrong (USB 2 cables plugged into USB 1.1 pinheaders - internal). At any rate, nothing good comes from having a burnt smell from any electronic device. The only way to know is to open it up and start looking.

\Dan

 

[ArchStudent]

Same thing happened to me, came into the office and smelled burnt plastic, and it was the Power Supply. A quick trip to my local computer store, $20 spent and an hour later I was up and running once again, even better than before (went with a higher rated PSU from 200 Watts to 350 Watts).

Replace your PSU and you will be fine

 

[Zepper]

If something burned, you will be able to locate it by eye or nose - use a flashlight if necessary to get some light on the subject. If it's in the PSU, you may need to open the PSU case if you really want to see. Just replace the offending item and hope it didn't take anything else with it.
. BTW, this is the proper section for your post. General Hardware is for discussing the technology, this is the section for fixing things that broke... Constantly trying to get this type of post OUT of GH! Congrats for being among the few to do it right.
.bh.

 

[PCTweaker5]

Originally posted by: fivespeed5
the heatsink fan broke and now the chip is fried... hurry tell him to throw water on it!

PS. we do have a general hardware forum ya know.

This does not belong in the general hardware forum pal!