My gaming pc overheated and its my first time this happened.

[Lazylion]

So I need some help here's what happened. I was in the middle of starting to play the division on my gaming pc running on an old amd cpu and a gtx 960. I noticed my cpu was hard at work. Took no notice to it, it seemed to be running smoothly in game. Couldn't just change the resolution since I was having fun. Play for 40 minutes and I smell some smoke, then sudden crash of my system. Inspect my inside to note that the cpu was really heated and the gpu as well. I have it 15 minutes but nothing but flashing lights as I hold the button. It seems to be getting power so it couldn't be the PSU right? I'm worried this might have broken a component but I have no way of testing that since I don't know what to do either than wait. I just got the pc as well and it wasn't running the fans at a very fast speed either and don't know how to tweak it so it can run faster and cooler. Please help!

 

[hang-the-9]

Smell of smoke, maybe a power supply issue or burned out CPU, motherboard, video card or a bad power supply causing the other components to fail. Need to swap out components to test them one at a time. What is the brand and model of the power supply? If it's low quality, that is the first thing that needs to be replaced, even if the actual failed component is not that or more than just the power supply.

 

[Lazylion]

Its a kentek 850 watt psu, the cpu is an amd fx 4170. I can't really tell what model the PSU is at the moment.

 

[hang-the-9]

Its a kentek 850 watt psu, the cpu is an amd fx 4170. I can't really tell what model the PSU is at the moment.

Very likely your power supply died and may have taken other components out with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gABaQAJdsUI

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/power-supplies/58328-has-anyone-heard-kentek-power-supplies.html

Take a look here http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html pick a unit from from tier 1 or 2 if you like your computer working well for a while, tier 3 is also OK, but that class uses cheaper and less reliable or stable parts.

 

[Lazylion]

So even if the light is blinking in the front panel but no other internal light is you think its a PSU issue right? Im going to try swapping some parts around starting with your suggestion from parts I have on hand. Thank you I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[Lazylion]

Alright so I'm ordering a new psu since might actually be that the power supply is fried since I smelt something smoky from it. I used your list so thank you for that. And bought a evga b2 750w. I was checking the gpu and cpu and can't tell if it could have burnt something? Is it mostly hidden? I did see that the cool paste on the cpu had an odd design on it. Is there a possibility the motherboard got fried? How did you know it was the PSU anyway From just the Smokey smell detail I gave in my post? Also any helpful links to lists of good amd cpu I could use just in case?

 

[hang-the-9]

Alright so I'm ordering a new psu since might actually be that the power supply is fried since I smelt something smoky from it. I used your list so thank you for that. And bought a evga b2 750w. I was checking the gpu and cpu and can't tell if it could have burnt something? Is it mostly hidden? I did see that the cool paste on the cpu had an odd design on it. Is there a possibility the motherboard got fried? How did you know it was the PSU anyway From just the Smokey smell detail I gave in my post? Also any helpful links to lists of good amd cpu I could use just in case?

No way to know what else was damaged without testing the parts. If things don't work when you get the new power supply you'll have to try the parts in a known working computer or other parts in yours. If you removed the heatsink to check things, get some thermal paste, clean off the CPU and heatsink and install them with the new thermal paste. I just got some noctua NT-H1, that's one of the better ones for the price, a small tube is under $10 and will last a while.

How to know if it was the PSU is simple, bad smell and the brand you have has bad reputation for failing. That's usually the first thing to look at in a system, does it have a stable power supply. Poor quality power supply in a system is often the cause of component failure or system crashes even if the other parts are still good.

 

[Lazylion]

Alright I have received and installed my new psu it powers it up but now it won't start up properly. It freezes on startup, don't know how to enter recovery mode either but I don't think that's the issue. I think something may have broken maybe the cpu idk help!

 

[Lazylion]

Alright I figured out how to get into safe mode but don't know what to do from here... I don't know what could have caused/ is causing my freezing pc