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The Smell of Burnt Electronics


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Everyone's smelled it at one point or another in their life, right? It's hard for me to explain the smell...but I got to smell it for the first time last night.

 

Same old night like any other. My boyfriend comes home from work and I tell him our buddy called and he wanted to hang out. So he calls him and they are talking about computers and overclocking like always. Our buddy suggested something, I don't know, I wasn't really paying attention. So my boyfriend goes into his BIOS and I believe he turned up the CPU frequency or possibly the RAM. He's always had it running stable at 3.0 GHz (Athlon x2 5000+) and wanted to see if he could get a little more out of it. He's an experienced overclocker, has done it for years, so he thought nothing would be wrong.

 

So he was playing FO:NV for a stress test so to say (it's the only intense game he has lol). I was playing Audiosurf at the time. All of a sudden, this stinky smell fills the house....and instantly my boyfriend lets off a few naughty words. I was like "WTF is that smell?"

 

"That's the smell of burnt electronics", he sighs. He told me there was even a puff of SMOKE that came out of the computer :ohdear:

 

So our buddy comes over and he's all wondering why my boyfriend has his computer torn apart and scattered on the coffee table. Something obviously popped on something. We checked the entire motherboard 4 times over looking for burnt spots, popped capacitors, etc...nothing. Checked his GPU, nothing. We opened his PSU and saw no damage either, but the smell was very strong from it. There's a huge mess of wires in that too, so the damaged bit could be hiding.

 

So, my boyfriend puts his computer all back together to see if it would turn on. It did, but his rear fans would not spin up nor would it POST. The CPU fan still started and so did the GPU's.

 

We're not 100% sure, but we think some component in his PSU popped. But can the PSU still provide power to certain parts while it doesn't provide power to the others? We've never really dealt with a blown PSU other than it dying completely. We are going to take my PSU out after he gets off work to really make sure that it is that (hopefully I'll get it back :P).

 

Guess we might have to buy a new one. Does anyone have a suggestion for a 500-600W PSU that's good and a decent price? Something in the $50-80 range is the budget we really have at the moment.

 

But man, that stunk so bad :yucky: He was so upset :( At least we have a laptop so he can wander around on the Internet and not take over my computer :dance:

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Woah...well we double checked it again today. We put my PSU in it and it still wouldn't light up, the only thing that worked was the HDD. So I get a flashlight and we look at the motherboard one more time.

 

Two of the transistors by the MOSFET are cracked and burnt! :blink: We must of just overlooked it...dunno how we couldn't after seeing it. So, it's his motherboard :( Luckily, we have my old Biostar TForce 550 laying around, so he can use that :) Guess his old mobo couldn't take the overclock anymore or it was just some weird coincidence that this happened.

 

Worked out I guess. The old Biostar board is pretty good. Glad we didn't have to buy new parts :D

 

Got a picture of it, pretty nasty

 

http://i683.photobucket.com/albums/vv200/Illiana86/IMG_4565.jpg

 

lol don't mind the nicotine dust in the CPU pins :P

Edited by Illiad86
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Ya....

 

OK WOW! So we just put in the Biostar motherboard. He turns it on and it automatically shut itself off.

 

So...the PSU had some sort of problem, most likely over voltage. It shot through and destroyed the transistors :( So his mobo and his PSU are shot. So...still gotta get a new PSU :(

 

Any suggestions? $50-80 budget...he wants like 500-600W

 

So lame...

Edited by Illiad86
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Hmm that looks nice...maybe something a wee bit cheaper though. He was hunting around yesterday, I'm sure he'll find something he wants to get. He just hooked up his mouse, keyboard, and monitor to the laptop, so it's sorta like his computer again :teehee: He'll live for awhile hopefully...sooner or later he'll be bugging me to use my computer ;D
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That's not too bad either, but he said "meh" to it, doesn't need Crossfire/SLI ready. He's not looking for anything too fancy, he's not planning on upgrading anytime soon. Just at least 500-600W Edited by Illiad86
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