[SOLVED] Burnt smell after a GPU stress test, and no more video output afterwards, what to do now?

[CatastrophicBox]

Hi, first of all, i'm running a prebuilt PC (Acer Aspire GX-281) and I have very limited knowledge of hardware and PC building in general, as I haven't manipulated the inner components of a PC at all. It's not in warranty anymore, sadly. So, sorry for my novice behavior!

I have:

• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050
• CPU: Ryzen 7 1700
• Mobo: I don't know, it's a prebuilt :/
• RAM: 12GB

My problem started out when I did a stress test on my GPU using OCCT — after experiencing an exceptional freeze while playing civ 6, to check if the problem is related to overheating, because it has been 2 years since the PC had been cleaned, ouch, that's a huge mistake. Four minutes in, I stopped the test; two seconds after that, the PC stopped working, in a weird way: the screen was not receiving any signal and the keyboard had no lights on, the system was clearly not running anymore. However, the fans were still running and the power light was still on.
That's weird, but at least we now know that the problem is overheating! It's now time to force the computer to shut down, but... what the hell there's now a burnt smell coming from the computer?! I quickly unplugged the power cable, the burnt smell disappeared after 2 minutes.

By the way, I previously experienced many weird stuff with this computer.
First, it started while someone was playing Roblox on the PC, and suddenly, the screen goes off, no more keyboard but instead an indefinite BEEEEEEP not coming from the — turned off — speakers, but somewhere inside the computer. After restarting it, it just doesn't boot at all (no bios screen) but instead greets you with a scary and infinite BEEEEEEP until you force it to shutdown. Luckily, the warranty was still there! So, after using it, they replaced the GPU and it worked well... But the issue appeared days afterwards, so we sent it again to the customer service, they again replaced the GPU, and finally this issue did not happen anymore. Or, at least, with no more beeps...
Second, remember those weird "crashes" where the screen goes black with no OS running while the computer seems to still be running. Well, they already happened multiple times before, probably around four or five times, but it has been a while since I experienced one. It comes in two flavors: one where the computer stays on, and one where the computer just restarts. It sometimes just stops the sound or freezes it with an unbearable screeching sonority, exactly like when audio was playing while you got a sudden BSOD.

After I let the PC rest for over an hour, I decided to plug it back and see how it goes. Good news: the computer boots, and Windows fully works. Bad news: there was no video output at all, the monitor was just not receiving any signal. Although, after using the narrator to navigate through the menus (it was a pain), I saw in Task Manager that the GPU was still recognized and used, but still no output. And I'll avoid touching that computer again unless the culprit will be replaced (probably the PSU?).

So, what to do now? What could be broken, what burnt part should I look at inside the PC to see? And what to replace? Can I run the computer after cleaning it? Also, should I refrain from doing GPU stresstests in the future?

 

[sonofjesse]

I stress a PC you know how? By using it.

If your really experienced with PC's it might be best to get a new one or take to a shop for a pro to troubleshoot.

Welcome to Toms Hardware we hope you can be a great addition to our community!

 

[CatastrophicBox]

I stress a PC you know how? By using it.

If your really experienced with PC's it might be best to get a new one or take to a shop for a pro to troubleshoot.

Welcome to Toms Hardware we hope you can be a great addition to our community!

I planned to send this PC to some professionals, but I also wanted to try out fixing some stuff myself to learn, but that can absolutely be what I should do lol!

 

[Gam3r01]

Can you post a picture of your PSU, specifically the label on the side?
Also can you open up the PC and smell for the burning smell again, but try to isolate it to a specific component?

It could be a GPU or PSU issue at this point, Im leaning towards PSU since you had the GPU replaced twice already.

 

[CatastrophicBox]

Can you post a picture of your PSU, specifically the label on the side?
Also can you open up the PC and smell for the burning smell again, but try to isolate it to a specific component?

It could be a GPU or PSU issue at this point, Im leaning towards PSU since you had the GPU replaced twice already.

Here's some pictures:

https://imgur.com/a/SaibbQW

View: https://imgur.com/a/SaibbQW


Sorry if those aren't particularly useful, I don't know how to take helpful pictures for hardware. As for the smell, there wasn't anything really smelly besides a sort of metallic smell around the GPU, but nothing else on the other components.

Trying with an HDMI cable didn't work, the DVI cable didn't work as well. However the last one once sent some "signal" (the screen LED was on, not blinking) but the screen was just 100% black, and, after a restart, no more signal at all.

 

[CatastrophicBox]

I'm going to try to swap the GPU with an old NVIDIA GeForce 210 just for confirming that the GPU is indeed the dead component, is this safe and okay to do?

 

[TommyTwoTone66]

I'm going to try to swap the GPU with an old NVIDIA GeForce 210 just for confirming that the GPU is indeed the dead component, is this safe and okay to do?

Yes of course.

By the sounds of it some component on the GPU has fried during your stress test. I'd be surprised if replacing the GPU doesn't fix it.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

More than likely your power supply gave out. And my guess is it took out the GPU with it and maybe the motherboard

 

[David0ne86]

That psu SCARES me so much.

 

[TommyTwoTone66]

That psu SCARES me so much.

Nah, Lite-On is a pretty decent brand and although it's only a 432W PSU there's nothing in that PC even approaching that, so the PSU should be fine really. Don't be scared of Chinese characters.

Zotac on the other hand, is not a good brand. I would suspect that it is just the GPU has popped, not the PSU or motherboard.

 

[CatastrophicBox]

Yes of course.

By the sounds of it some component on the GPU has fried during your stress test. I'd be surprised if replacing the GPU doesn't fix it.

Alright, so I did that, swapped the GTX 1050, from the presumably broken computer, and a working GeForce 210, from the old computer. I did my best to avoid ESD by often touching the metallic case, and made sure the graphics cards were correctly plugged in the PCI-E slot. None of those GPUs needed to be powered with a cable from the PSU. Despite this, very strange behavior happened...

• The presumably broken computer booted with the provably working GeForce 210 successfully POST'd and the OS ran, but there was a problem: there was no DVI output sent to the screen! Although that DVI output worked perfectly well with the old computer.
• The old computer, with the maybe broken GTX 1050, didn't even POST, it did a long beep and two short beeps, meaning that there was a graphics card error.

After swapping back the graphics cards to their original place, the two computers worked exactly as they did before: the old computer boots normally with video output from its GeForce 210; and the broken one boots with no video output from its broken GTX 1050.

 

[Fatalzo]

First off, nice wording - The perfect mix of serious and funny, you're gonna make a great addition to Tom's Hardware.

Second, it's quite unlikely that it is the GPU as it has been replaced twice. Either the PSU or the mobo has issues. I'm leaning towards motherboard damage as only your GPU has killed itself. Still though, do what you were going to do with the old GPU to test if it really wasn't the GPU. Seeing as the problem has happened 3 times in a row, it seems like a more critical component is dying though.

 

[dorsai]

Sounds like the magic smoke escaped from the 1050...time for a new one.

While you're at it getting a quality 500w PSU would be a good move...not worth risking a new GPU (especially considering the prices today) on a sketchy OEM power supply that's been in use for years.

 

[CatastrophicBox]

First off, nice wording - The perfect mix of serious and funny, you're gonna make a great addition to Tom's Hardware.

Second, it's quite unlikely that it is the GPU as it has been replaced twice. Either the PSU or the mobo has issues. I'm leaning towards motherboard damage as only your GPU has killed itself. Still though, do what you were going to do with the old GPU to test if it really wasn't the GPU. Seeing as the problem has happened 3 times in a row, it seems like a more critical component is dying though.

Sounds like the magic smoke escaped from the 1050...time for a new one.

While you're at it getting a quality 500w PSU would be a good move...not worth risking a new GPU (especially considering the prices today) on a sketchy OEM power supply that's been in use for years.

Thanks for your advices! Although I'm still immensely confused about fact that the working GeForce 210 is just not outputting any video — despite POSTing as expected — on my broken PC while it's working correctly on the old PC. What could be broken? Is something dead in the motherboard?

 

[dorsai]

Thanks for your advices! Although I'm still immensely confused about fact that the working GeForce 210 is just not outputting any video — despite POSTing as expected — on my broken PC while it's working correctly on the old PC. What could be broken? Is something dead in the motherboard?

It's possible. I would get a bright light and check the GPU slot you're using on the motherboard for any evidence of burned plastic or arcing scorch marks...might as well look at all of the power connector locations on the board too.

 

[CatastrophicBox]

It's possible. I would get a bright light and check the GPU slot you're using on the motherboard for any evidence of burned plastic or arcing scorch marks...might as well look at all of the power connector locations on the board too.

Alright, here's some images of the GPU slot, I'm unsure if those are related with burnt stuff but it didn't smell so.

https://imgur.com/a/m8Mv3Xy

View: https://imgur.com/a/m8Mv3Xy

 

[RodroX]

Hello,

I would start by cleaning the PC, sometimes its hard to find burn/scorch spots with all the dirt.

Also, if you know how to do it, not a bad idea to clean whatever is visible of the gpu PCB and take a closer look at it for burn spots.

If you have no clue try to find a PC repair shop you can trust (I know is really, really hard) and take the PC to them for testing and diagnosing.

 

[CatastrophicBox]

Hello,

I would start by cleaning the PC, sometimes its hard to find burn/scorch spots with all the dirt.

Also, if you know how to do it, not a bad idea to clean whatever is visible of the gpu PCB and take a closer look at it for burn spots.

If you have no clue try to find a PC repair shop you can trust (I know is really, really hard) and take the PC to them for testing and diagnosing.

I agree, this is way too much over my level, I'll just send it to a repair shop to diagnose this weird problem. Although they said they'll have to erase all data on the drive (for... some reason???) I'll just take the HDD containing all the data out!

 

[RodroX]

I agree, this is way too much over my level, I'll just send it to a repair shop to diagnose this weird problem. Although they said they'll have to erase all data on the drive (for... some reason???) I'll just take the HDD containing all the data out!

lol, Dear Lord, Is this an Apple repair shop?

Why on earth are they going to erase all data on the harddrive?, this is certanly a hardware issue. God!, if they have doubts Windows may be corrupted or something (which is not very likely with a burning smell) they could just use an USB stick with linux and boot from there to try.

Anyways, good luck! Hope you get your PC up and runing soon!!!

 

[Fatalzo]

I agree, this is way too much over my level, I'll just send it to a repair shop to diagnose this weird problem. Although they said they'll have to erase all data on the drive (for... some reason???) I'll just take the HDD containing all the data out!

That doesn't sound like a good idea to send it to that shop. There is no reason a hardware shop should erase the HDD, the most they should do is swap out the HDD with an HDD with a diagnostics operating system, and swap it again after the repairs. I wouldn't trust them. Also, if the GeForce 210 was working but not displaying any output, this is a motherboard issue. However the card could be fried already, though this happening 4 times in a row is unlikely.

 

[dorsai]

Although they said they'll have to erase all data on the drive (for... some reason???)

I would steer well clear of any shop that makes a claim like that...they clearly have no idea what they are doing.

 

[CatastrophicBox]

I would steer well clear of any shop that makes a claim like that...they clearly have no idea what they are doing.

Followed this and sent the computer to a trusted individual, and the faulty component is indeed the GPU! Also, would it be a good idea to buy a new motherboard, PSU and case (optionally?) to get away from OEM components? (And also benefit from the updated motherboard BIOS that supports later Ryzen CPUs on the B450 chipset, whereas the OEM one only supports up to Ryzen 7 1700x)

 

[dorsai]

Followed this and sent the computer to a trusted individual, and the faulty component is indeed the GPU! Also, would it be a good idea to buy a new motherboard, PSU and case (optionally?) to get away from OEM components? (And also benefit from the updated motherboard BIOS that supports later Ryzen CPUs on the B450 chipset, whereas the OEM one only supports up to Ryzen 7 1700x)

Only you can decide if there's a reason to upgrade the other components of your system. If what you have now is doing what you need it to then I would continue to use them...you've already paid for them after all. If you find your system isn't doing what you need it to, then yes investing in a new motherboard (I'd recommend B550 not the older B450) and something like the Ryzen 5600x will provide a very nice upgrade over an older system. As far as the PSU goes I would upgrade that to a good Gold or Platinum rated 650w unit when you decide to replace the motherboard and CPU.

 

[CatastrophicBox]

Only you can decide if there's a reason to upgrade the other components of your system. If what you have now is doing what you need it to then I would continue to use them...you've already paid for them after all. If you find your system isn't doing what you need it to, then yes investing in a new motherboard (I'd recommend B550 not the older B450) and something like the Ryzen 5600x will provide a very nice upgrade over an older system. As far as the PSU goes I would upgrade that to a good Gold or Platinum rated 650w unit when you decide to replace the motherboard and CPU.

Right now, I'm pretty satisfied, however I'd like to upgrade my CPU later for supporting Windows 11. Also, is the death of the GPU due to the GPU itself or faulty behavior coming from another component (maybe Motherboard/PSU)? I'd like to prevent stuff like that from happening next time!

 

[dorsai]

Right now, I'm pretty satisfied, however I'd like to upgrade my CPU later for supporting Windows 11. Also, is the death of the GPU due to the GPU itself or faulty behavior coming from another component (maybe Motherboard/PSU)? I'd like to prevent stuff like that from happening next time!

I would certainly buy a quality PSU as a starting point.

Moving to a decent B550 motherboard and a Ryzen 5600x is a solid base for any gaming rig and will remove any issues with Windows 11 migration. Intels 11600k CPU is also a pretty solid gaming choice. Just make sure the drive you install Windows on is partitioned for GPT instead of MBR and you should be all set for Win 11.