HELP!! I'm scared seriously

Well, i have a strange problem: there is a burned plastic smell coming out of my PC for a long time (some months) As I discovered, it comes out of somewhere near floppy drive. But the drive itself is okay and there is nothing wrong with the PC, even though it is on for approximately 12-16 hours daily. So I can't fix it because i don't know what exactly to fix. :) I'm scared that someday it could burn and damage my PC. What to do?

....take it in for repair?

Also, unplug it RIGHT THE FUCK NOW dude, I'm serious, you're probably so lucky that it hasn't like, melted or some shit. Do NOT use your system until you've gotten it checked out.

Unplug and open the case side, and throroughly inspect all major components (Hs/CPU, hard drives, cd-rom/rw, video, network, and sound cards along with everything else)

Report back what you find

http://hardcoreware.net or http://www.anandtech.com should help plenty from their forums

Just set your computer on fire and be done with it.

Mr. Chris said:

Unplug and open the case side, and throroughly inspect all major components (Hs/CPU, hard drives, cd-rom/rw, video, network, and sound cards along with everything else)

i did it 100 times before, and i tell you - everything seems to be okay. The smell is produced only when PC is on. When i'll have the opportunity i'll unplug the floppy and see if it still smells(i'm not home right now).

BTW, i have an HP case, it is rather unusual and i don't have to use a screwdriver to open it, so i can inspect it while it is on.

Also, DaJuice, SHUT UP AND DON'T MOCK ME!

Call tech support, that would the first thing I would do.

Check if both your powersupply fan and CPU fans are still going. My mom was telling me once how her computer was making all kinds of racket but it's okay now. Eventually it went quiet again. That's because all the fans in it died. I had to wait for 20 minutes to open the thing up because it was so friggin hot. Funny thing is running 24/7without fans for 4 months and that p50 never crashed once. Heh, when I took the CPU fan off it was all soft a squishy.

It's possible a component that gets very hot is just slightly fouling a plastic mounting or other part of your system. Did you build it yourself?

Other than that I'd suspect a fan is maybe clogged with grime or just out of alignment and the resistance on the motor could be causing it.

BackFromTheDead said:

-Insert Panic-

Chill out, unless you have a AMD system you really should not worry about a burn out.. I had a CD drive that had a small piece of plastic rub up against the spindle motor, it produced a similar burning smell since the little nub of plastic was left over from the factory where the machine stamped it out..

I do know what panic is, I own a AMD system.. If it so much as hickups I rip it out of the wall; but if it is infact a AMD system when a cpu pulls a doo doo.. you know right away or your house burns down.

Burning plastic? Check your heatsync. Or some wires might have overheated.

Edit: I really should get one of those panic buttons. :P

Just touch every component while the computer is running and which ever one that burns you the worst is producing the smell. Duh!:P

just take her out and shoot her, shes to old.

Tyockell said:

just take her out and shoot her, shes to old.

Wtf? She?

yea looks to me like it says 'she'.

It could be an isolation melting very slowly, my advise is to swap the power supply and to sniff if it still smells.

Power supplies often take the mainboard with them when they finally go...

Heh, what about this:
Ignore the machine.
Go to the drugstore and buy a bottle of "Fébréze", an odor-killer.

sniff, sniff

Tyockell said:

just take her out and shoot her, shes to old.

The "Sexual morality" thread is two doors to your left.

Peter Heinemann said:

It could be an isolation melting very slowly, my advise is to swap the power supply and to sniff if it still smells.

Power supplies often take the mainboard with them when they finally go...

sniff, sniff

Agreed, whats your PowerSupply?

Brand
wattage
If possible info on all the volt/amp rails.

Dark Fox said:

Chill out, unless you have a AMD system you really should not worry about a burn out..

Jesus, welocome to 1998. AMD's heat sensors are just fine nowadays, and if the heatsink catastrophically fails on ANY modern CPU, it's going to melt before the heat sensor even has a chance to react.

Linguica said:

Jesus, welocome to 1998. AMD's heat sensors are just fine nowadays, and if the heatsink catastrophically fails on ANY modern CPU, it's going to melt before the heat sensor even has a chance to react.

Thats what I was saying..
except for the fact that p4 have burnout protection, it will clock itself down to keep from burning out..

Dark Fox said:

Agreed, whats your PowerSupply?

Brand
wattage
If possible info on all the volt/amp rails.

Gah, I am not an expert in electronics, I usually fool around with the soldering tool and I am happy when nobody get´s hurt :)

See, I love all RISC platforms, not only Macs and one of my computers, a DECstation 2100*, has a truly impressive power supply, but please don´t ask me to open that beast, it weights around 20kg and is stored under my table. The power supply of that desktop computer has 380Watt! Made in 1989.

Here´s a picture one owner shot, I found it on the net, it is not mine:

http://people.freenet.de/flammberg/cover_removed.jpg

Believe me, it sounds like a hovercraft, but I love it. It has a round mouse, but a way better one than what Apple delivered with those early iMacs :)


* it has the "Mips R2000" RISC processor@12MHz and runs Ultrix 4.5, a Unix OS by Digital.

except for the fact that p4 have burnout protection, it will clock itself down to keep from burning out...

I think the AMD's do too. My bro got a 2100 but couldn't get it to run past 1800. One day he opened her up and found that he put the heatsink on wrong and only a quarter of the thermal gel was conducting. Once he flipped it around it worked full speed no problems. I could be wrong, I'm not really a hardware guy.

Rellik said:

I think the AMD's do too. My bro got a 2100 but couldn't get it to run past 1800. One day he opened her up and found that he put the heatsink on wrong and only a quarter of the thermal gel was conducting. Once he flipped it around it worked full speed no problems. I could be wrong, I'm not really a hardware guy.

Nope.. AMD dont have any form of protection, he got lucky ^^