Laptop Smells Like Burnt Plastic

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Sairozenkai

Honorable
Sep 30, 2015
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Last night I noticed a strange smell coming from my fairly new 7 month old hp pavilion 15, it smelt like burning plastic but it was so vague that I had to go close up to the keyboard to smell it, and yep, it smelt like burning plastic. My CPU Fan is defective and I'm getting it serviced soon but I inhaled burning plastic. Will I be okay? I'm kind of paranoid because I went really close up to the keyboard and I can't contact their phone service because of public holidays. Please help me, thanks.
 
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IF your CPU fan is not working, you shouldn't even be running the unit at all. You've probably either overheated something due to a lack of cooling, or damaged the CPU. If the CPU fan is not working, and working correctly, do not use the unit at ALL until a working fan has been installed.
 
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NOTE: The CPU Cooler isn't 100% broken. It still spins, it just makes noise that's all. It does an average job at cooling my laptop, my laptop isn't overheating just FYI, I use it on a laptop cooling pad as well just to help the fans for the mean time. My system has never shut down due to over heating.

BACK TO THE MAIN POINT:

Will I be okay? I have inhaled burnt plastic fumes, even if it was only a little will I be okay?
 
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You will be OK... I have inhaled lead junk from soldering and stuff like that and I am fine... (I don't use lead solder anymore because I don't have a fume hood.
 
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Yeah, I wouldn't do it intentionally, or repeatedly, but a small amount of electrical smoke, which is what it likely was, probably from an insulator or something similar, isn't going to kill you or give you instant lung cancer. Repeated exposure probably isn't good, but a one off shot is nothing, unless you're breathing straight fumes from large amounts of burnt rubber or insulation.

Back to MY point. If there is smoke coming out of your unit, regardless of WHAT you think the fan is doing, or what kind of shape it's in, or the fact that you have a cooling pad (Which is largely useless anyhow, as they do nothing but cool the surface area on the bottom of the laptop, not the core components buried inside.), there is a reason for there being smoke and whatever that reason is, is enough to recommend discontinuing use of the unit and returning it for warranty or RMA. What you do is up to you, but I repair, upgrade and replace hardware on laptops all the time, for years, along with pretty much every other kind of computer system, and have never once seen smoke come from any electronic component without a good reason that was always BAD.
 
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1. There isn't any smoke or anything it's just a faint smell.

2. My laptop's temps when idling are: 40-59 degrees Celsius, mostly in the 40-43s.

3. Alright thanks for the answers I'm feeling a bit more relieved now.
 
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The temps when I'm browsing the Internet and watching YouTube videos are: 40-69 mostly in the 50s around 50-55, sometimes spikes up to 60-69, sometimes even 70 but those are really quick spikes for a second or two. I'm using RealTemp to monitor my temperatures. When I'm gaming it goes up to 60-89 mostly in the 70s around 70-78, mostly 72. My system has never shut down automatically due to overheating. Sometimes when I'm gaming it spikes up to 90-97 but those are very quick spikes for always less than a second or a second. Also, sometimes web I game, on real temp thermal status it says "LOG". It has never gotten to "HOT". When it says log I don't particularly stick around at all I turn off the system an let it cool down. As I've said before my system has never shut down due to overheating.
 
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