- Nov 13, 2012
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- 18,785
I have a used Dell 3020 SFF PC that I have no idea of previous history. Used, but super clean with hardly any indication of use. A friend gave me an old xfx-one low profile HD 5450? non-fan cooled GPU, and decided to try it in the 3020. The 3020 has the stock 255W PSU.
Anyway I installed the GPU in the 3020 to simply see if the GPU worked, and also take this time to run system diagnostics, and try to problem solve a non-recognized HDD issue.
GPU seemed to work fine, ran diagnostics, could not get the HDD issue solved, (but that's a different forum question). After having the PC on for maybe 30-35 minutes doing nothing but diagnostics, and trying to run system repair CD unsuccessfully I started to smell something nasty. Finally realized it was coming from the PSU. I shut the PC down right away and unplugged. It was burning plastic smell I'm guessing.
During that time there was no issues aside from the already present HDD problem. No screen flashes, etc. Of course I was not pushing the system much either. I went ahead and opened up the PSU and there was a decent sized piece of dust wedged about halfway through the unit itself. I thoroughly looked at everything inside and no swollen capacitors, no burn marks, etc. that I could see Got the dust piece out and called it a day. I just reinstalled the PSU about 1 hour ago and started it up using on board video as I removed GPU yesterday. I ran diagnostics for maybe 10 minutes no screen flickers, etc., but smell returned.
I'm wondering if I pushed the PSU too much just trying out the GPU and running diagnostics, etc. yesterday.
Thanks for any input.
Anyway I installed the GPU in the 3020 to simply see if the GPU worked, and also take this time to run system diagnostics, and try to problem solve a non-recognized HDD issue.
GPU seemed to work fine, ran diagnostics, could not get the HDD issue solved, (but that's a different forum question). After having the PC on for maybe 30-35 minutes doing nothing but diagnostics, and trying to run system repair CD unsuccessfully I started to smell something nasty. Finally realized it was coming from the PSU. I shut the PC down right away and unplugged. It was burning plastic smell I'm guessing.
During that time there was no issues aside from the already present HDD problem. No screen flashes, etc. Of course I was not pushing the system much either. I went ahead and opened up the PSU and there was a decent sized piece of dust wedged about halfway through the unit itself. I thoroughly looked at everything inside and no swollen capacitors, no burn marks, etc. that I could see Got the dust piece out and called it a day. I just reinstalled the PSU about 1 hour ago and started it up using on board video as I removed GPU yesterday. I ran diagnostics for maybe 10 minutes no screen flickers, etc., but smell returned.
I'm wondering if I pushed the PSU too much just trying out the GPU and running diagnostics, etc. yesterday.
Thanks for any input.
Last edited:
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