Burnt smell from computer

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xcarni

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May 11, 2012
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Last night I smell a burnt smell from my computer and I immediately turned it off. I Google around and ppl said dust, cpu, psu, video card or mobo. I smell the psu but doesn't look like the smell came from there. I need a bigger screw driver to take out video card but I didn't want to wake up my family looking for the screw driver so I stopped looking further on the problem.
This morning I turned my computer on waiting for the burnt smell but instead I noticed my cpu hitting 100% sometimes and my computer is very noisy.
I know I should give my pc to a technician to check but I want to know if it's possibly to use and check to confirm the problem or should I not touch it so the problem wouldn't affect the other components.
Note: I build this computer September's of last year.
 
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Calculatron

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Apr 3, 2013
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If there is any dust, like said, clean it up.

Then, try to find, specifically, where the noise is emanating from. Maybe it's just a bad fan? (Hopefully.)

What brand of PSU do you have, along with the rest of your rig? I once had a bad PSU, and I smelled that burning smell before it blew a capacitor.
 
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xcarni

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May 11, 2012
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I think the problem is the cpu or the heatsink. It's usuallly 10-20% but it spikes to 70-80% from time and the strong noise seems to come from there. I'm not sure if the power supply has problems or not, it could possibly fried my cpu if it has problems. I uses ocz modxstream pro 700w.
 
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BulletdR

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Aug 14, 2013
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Calculatron

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Capacitors are found on any sort of circuitry. There is no easy way for me to concisely define what they are and how they work, but here is an attempt: They are essentially little reservoirs of energy that can have many purposes, one purpose being to help distribute and regulate flow of energy. Here is a wiki link to do some quick reading to help you get a better idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor

As for what did I mean by blew, well, you can take that statement at face-value: from the poor quality and abuse it it was taking, the capacity warped and expanded beyond its physical means, until finally the stress was too much. Either before, during, or after a short-circuit happened, it popped. Thankfully, it did not hurt any other components, but, after a replacement power supply, my motherboard puttered out after a couple years. I'm sure the event had a hand in that, although years of use and abuse at the hands of bad power supplies is ultimately the culprit.
 
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