Burning smell coming from my Desktop PC

Lee_Howden

Hi,

I apologise in advance for not being totally clued up on this sort of thing, especially seen as I work in Networking.

I noticed a strange burning smell this morning coming from our desktop PC. I put my hand behind the unit behind the PSU fan and I thought that it was quite hot, seen as it had only been on for less than half an hour. Obviously I shut the PC down properly and took the power lead out of the back.

Recently the PC has been rather noisy and sometimes vibrating when it has been running. It's now 4 years old.

Am I right in thinking that the PSU is probably on its last legs? If not, what could it be? If it is, what's the best way to make sure that I get a correct replacement? How easy are they to replace by a computer insider novice like myself?

Any help, whether it be little or great will be appreciated.

ormus

check the fan/s for dust etc and clean it all out. fans attract a lot of dust over the yrs.
also clean the cpu fan & heatsink. dust can reduce cooling by 50% dead easy.
ps. does your graphics card have a fan?

BritBrat

Clean it.

And I remove the heat sink and clean that and all fans.

I also take the little paper patch off the fans and give it some silacon oil then replace the patch or a new piece if sticky tape.

Take tha cases off and clean out all the dust.

Clean arround the PSU fan if you can, may have to take it apart I don't normally do that. BUT MAKE SURE THE POWER HAS BEEN OFF A WHILE.

totalsolutions

Hi That does sound very dangerous! I would replace the psu as a matter of course. They are cheaper than replacing the complete pc and your data. The psu has been overstressed now and will just go pop any time and catch fire before that all controlled output voltages will rocket, destroying all the compoments.

Replace that psu before plugging in that power lead. Having pulled out the psu completely, sniff it, and you will know if its has been burning.

prost

I think probably your psu.

check the cpu fan works several times over 3 hours, during which switch the pc off then on. if it's bad you'll probably want a quiet replacement.

https://www.quietpc.com (they have websites for different countries) sell many components that are quiet. They list most of their processor fans at about 20dB - quiet. Less than 25 is quiet. They sell power supplies too.

https://www.speeze.com show all their cpu fan volumes, though the 'Speeze EE708S3-1 Kestrelking' is much the loudest at 32dB, the EEA67B4 is 19dB, the EE792B12 is 22dB(Socket 754 / 940 / 939).

The fan that came with my AMD Sempron 2800+ was noisy inside the pc, so I got an 'alpine 64' made by https://www.arctic-cooling.com (& works for Athlon 64/64 FX/X2 up to 3800+) which was very quiet inside the pc.

the new cpu fan should have "heatsink compound" applied to the heatsink bottom. if not you'll have to get some. apply 5 drops so you get a good connection to the cpu.

if cpu fan is ok then it's probably the psu or graphics card fan - if you have one. Power supplies made by Hiper eg. 'HiperPower aPFC HPU-35' (350W) are quiet - if you read their descriptions they are around 19dB. (You can plug a 20 pin supply into a 24 pin motherboard & vice versa).

note what things you unplug on the psu. for a novice they're dead easy to install, just unscrew the old one. 350-550W should do it. the extra power doesn't mean more wastage if it's not needed.