Question Smell coming from IBM NetVista M42 Desktop

[Root602]

I have an IBM NetVista M42 that when you open the case there is a strange smell on the inside. It seems to be coming from the IDE hard drive cables. When I turn it on the air coming from the exhaust fan on the back smells like fumes of some kind. Like the smell from the inside heats up and becomes more intense as it heats up. It's strong enough that I can smell it when it's blowing against the wall. I have used this PC mainly for playing old XP games for a month. What could be the cause of the smell? Ever since I got it it's had this smell inside the case. As far as I'm aware there's no smoke, and nothing seems to be burning.

Specs:
OS: Windows XP
Pentium 4 Northwood 1.6GHz
64mb 168-pin DDR SDRAM
Nvidia Geforce 2 MX 400
60GB IDE hard drive

Year manufactured: I'd say 2000.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

there is a strange smell on the inside. It seems to be coming from the IDE hard drive cables

unplug the drive and see if the smell dissipates while the system is in use.

the smell from the inside heats up and becomes more intense as it heats up.

unless you want to risk possibly burning down your residence do not continue to use this system, especially when you would not be in the room with it.

move a fire extinguisher into the same room as the system.

What could be the cause of the smell?

could be processor burning old thermal paste/pad,
GPU burning up,
power supply burning up,
bad cable connection(s) sparking or just overheating,
fan bearing shot and grinding and/or cables damaged, etc.

you would need to disassemble this entire system and practically rebuild it.
run it in a breadboard setup, see if the smell continues, and where it is coming from exactly.

 

[Root602]

unplug the drive and see if the smell dissipates while the system is in use.

unless you want to risk possibly burning down your residence do not continue to use this system, especially when you would not be in the room with it.

move a fire extinguisher into the same room as the system.

could be processor burning old thermal paste/pad,
GPU burning up,
power supply burning up,
bad cable connection(s) sparking or just overheating,
fan bearing shot and grinding and/or cables damaged, etc.

you would need to disassemble this entire system and practically rebuild it.
run it in a breadboard setup, see if the smell continues, and where it is coming from exactly.

The desktop smells when it's not running as well, the moment you open the case, you can smell a musty smell. The ribbon IDE cables which there are 6 of them are sticky to the touch. I think they're very old and coming apart from old age. I'll have a look at all of the details you mentioned.

 

[Root602]

I figured out the cause of the smell. All of the IDE ribbon cables were directly on top of the CPU fan, smothering the CPU heatsink. As the machine heated up, the cables heated up, and because the exhaust fan was directly above, the heated up cable smell was being exhausted out of the machine. As soon as I put all of the ribbon cables into a corner of the case, the smell disappeared.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

you may want to find some replacement IDE cables now.
they may have suffered some damage over time of melting/overheating that could lead to further damage to the motherboard or attached drives.