Smell burning near my CPU.

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oggyphillips

Distinguished
Feb 15, 2015
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Parts:

CPU: Athlon 860k. NO OC
GPU: pallit gtx 960 4gb
PSU: Corsair cx430

I was playing games and I could smell a burning smell. I looked at my temps and they were all fine, but when I looked at my memory usage on my GPU it was 4000000%. I went to the other side of the house and I couldn't smell it. My bro walked into the room smelling something burning.

I opened up my PC and I took out my GPU. I couldn't smell anything, took out my ram didn't smell anything there either. The smell was very heavy next to my CPU/CPU cooler. However, my PSU fan does blow down onto the CPU.

It's either the CPU, CPU cooler or the PSU. I don't think It's the mobo because I only OC my gpu.

help!
 
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Hi,

Your nose is the best tool.
First, turn off everything, unplug from the wall outlet, put your nose in and start sniffing.

A burned electronics will have a certain smell, it could not be confused with burnt cloth, burnt plastic or anything like that.
Try to locate the area, then look very carefully after any discolored things om either the motherboard, or the surrounding areas.

Make sure that it is no visible shortage from cable connectors and so on.
Best regards from Sweden

 
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The smell has faded, should I turn the PC on again to catch the smell? If I had to take a guess it's the PSU, but idk.
 
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No, don't turn it on.
If it is a burnt electronics, the smell will still be there, however fading as you said.

Try again, take a fresh breath of air throw the open window, the back in again with your nose.
If necessary, if you fell that the smell comes from the cpu, the you must remove its heat sink, the cooler.

Do you know how?

 
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Yeah, I know how to remove it, I will see if the thermal paste is laid out properly.
 
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Ok ill try that. Could it possibly be a sticker from a part of my PC that got burnt?
 
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Hard to tell. As I said before: "A burned electronics will have a certain smell, it could not be confused with burnt cloth, burnt plastic or anything like that."

Now, I could not possible smell this from Sweden, so I am not sure what you experience over there.

Where is this sticker located? again, your nose should be able to pin-point the area.

Best regards from Sweden
 
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The sticker is on my cpu cooler. I felt the sticker and it was normal so I think it's the CPU or PSU.

However I smelt the back of the PSU where the power switch is and I didn't really smell anything. I smelt the CPU again and then the HDDs and was really strong.

It's 1:30 AM here so I'm not going to disassemble anything now.

btw I think it's toxic as I have gotten a headache from the smelling.
 
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Yes, don't smell anything more, not now or in the near future.
Open the window get some fresh air in the room.

Not GPU, perhaps the CPU?
I really can't tell, pull out all the memory sticks but one.

Test Your memory's (the normal way):
Run memstest86+ Download and install Memtest86+ it's a free s/w http://www.memtest.org/
Create a bootable CD/DVD or USB-stick, it is a very small program, it will easily fit on a CD.

Then boot the computer from this, memtest will automatically start, and don't worry - it will not in any way compromise nor touch anything on the hard drives.
You must run memtes86+ until at least pass 8,9,10 and 11 (it uses different test pattern then) and for 8GB of memory with an Intel 2600K it will take the whole night, approx 4-5 hours, if 16GB memory - twice as long.
If an error occur, You can just shut it down. Then You know that it is a serious problem with your memory's.
Take out all memory stick but one and run the test again - it will be much faster.
If no problem, replace the memory stick and run memtest86+ again so that you now which memory stick is faulty.


And turned the computer off as soon some suspicious smell is coming.
Best regards from Sweden

 
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ok the next day i cleaned my whole pc incase if dust was the problem as some people did suggest to clean it first before doing anything else. whilst i was cleaning i did see a lot of dust come out my psu and when i booted my pc back up i did not smell anything no more. i took out the side panel and then looked at all the fans and they were fine and working properly, i then smelt the whole entire pc and got my dad and my bro to smell and they cant smell anything now too. I think it was just the dust build up and my pc is now working like it was. thank you for your feedback. (i'm going to do a 3d mark test and still see if i can smell anything if my pc is on full load.)
 
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