• Happy holidays, folks! Thanks to each and every one of you for being part of the Tom's Hardware community!

[SOLVED] Smell coming from pc.

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
S

SupaLan6969

Honorable
Jan 16, 2016
38
1
10,535
So this smell problem occurred 2 days ago. I have a Gigabyte 1080 and have been mining off and on for about 2 months. I don't mine all of the time, but I do when I'm asleep or not playing video games. I use Nicehash to mine and decided to use run ethlargement to get the most out of the gpu while mining. Before doing that my profit was around $1.50-$2.20. After using run ethlargement with daggerhasimoto nbminer I was making $3.20-$3.90. I mined for about 4 hours and this smell started radiating out of the pc, I also have the case open, and it smells like fumes from an old car. I stopped mining and tried mining the next day and would get bsod every single time using run ethlargement. I've been trying to pinpoint the smell and I've smelt it from the gpu, psu and the radiator (i100h Corsair RGB Platinum water cooler). At first I thought it was dust burning so I started to clean all of the dust out. I opened the 1080 and cleaned it as well. I also replaced the thermal paste on it too. I don't know what the temps were before I replaced the thermal paste, but right now it's sitting at 48 celsius. I've made a return request for my psu, but I think it might be the gpu. There isn't any smoke or wires that are messed up as far as I can see. Also the water cooling tubes seem fine and don't appear to have any cracks. It's very strange to me that when I'm sitting at the desk there's a very strong smell, but when I go to pinpoint it then it's very hard to find. I smell it the strongest in one spot, the middle, of the radiator. The psu and the gpu were very slight smells, but they were there. Any help is appreciated!
 
Solution
punkncat
I would suspect that you cooked the GPU. That is a good PSU make, generally although I cannot say what your power demands are for the rest of the system.

I was gifted some components consisting of a Z mobo and an 8600K that the owner had this strange obsession with OC to 5Ghz. It smelled a lot like burnt popcorn for some time afterward. I think the guy had damaged the VRM. I ended up messing with it for a while before basically gifting it to someone else, but it had to be "overclocked" with a locked voltage such that it wouldn't BSOD.
Sort by date Sort by votes
Flayed said:
Check inside the case for ham. That was what caused the last my PC smells thread I saw.
Click to expand...
huh? how do you even get ham inside a computer?

Back to OP, this started when you modified the graphics card in some way, not sure what eth enlargement is but I'm sure it mods the card in some way, have you altered the power limits and overclocked? if you did it's probably some component in the card either shorted or is overheating, if it smells then it could be a capacitor, flux, coil silicone...
The BSOD is crucial but what kind of error message does it show? could be drivers or hardware related.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I would suspect that you cooked the GPU. That is a good PSU make, generally although I cannot say what your power demands are for the rest of the system.

I was gifted some components consisting of a Z mobo and an 8600K that the owner had this strange obsession with OC to 5Ghz. It smelled a lot like burnt popcorn for some time afterward. I think the guy had damaged the VRM. I ended up messing with it for a while before basically gifting it to someone else, but it had to be "overclocked" with a locked voltage such that it wouldn't BSOD.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
punkncat said:
I would suspect that you cooked the GPU. That is a good PSU make, generally although I cannot say what your power demands are for the rest of the system.

I was gifted some components consisting of a Z mobo and an 8600K that the owner had this strange obsession with OC to 5Ghz. It smelled a lot like burnt popcorn for some time afterward. I think the guy had damaged the VRM. I ended up messing with it for a while before basically gifting it to someone else, but it had to be "overclocked" with a locked voltage such that it wouldn't BSOD.
Click to expand...
I agree on the VPM, too much of anything especially on the GPU is a subtle yet critical issue.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
carocuore said:
huh? how do you even get ham inside a computer?

Back to OP, this started when you modified the graphics card in some way, not sure what eth enlargement is but I'm sure it mods the card in some way, have you altered the power limits and overclocked? if you did it's probably some component in the card either shorted or is overheating, if it smells then it could be a capacitor, flux, coil silicone...
The BSOD is crucial but what kind of error message does it show? could be drivers or hardware related.
Click to expand...
Not really sure exactly what the bsod said, but I can open up the card again and take pictures. I don't know what a blown out capacitor looks like but it's weird since I doesn't really smell the smell coming from there. Maybe once it gets really hot the smell comes out, but I have stuck my nose in there as the pc is running and I can't smell it from the open side of the pc.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
punkncat said:
I would suspect that you cooked the GPU. That is a good PSU make, generally although I cannot say what your power demands are for the rest of the system.

I was gifted some components consisting of a Z mobo and an 8600K that the owner had this strange obsession with OC to 5Ghz. It smelled a lot like burnt popcorn for some time afterward. I think the guy had damaged the VRM. I ended up messing with it for a while before basically gifting it to someone else, but it had to be "overclocked" with a locked voltage such that it wouldn't BSOD.
Click to expand...
The temps of the gpu do seem fine though? That's what is confusing to me. Since I don't have warranty on this card anymore I'm here thinking I should get a riser and open the card up and run it to see if I can smell it when it's on haha.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Just a quick update: I can smell the smell in different parts of the radiator. I have to stick my nose up in there, but I can smell that exact smell. I don't know if it's because it's lingering from the gpu or even if it is the gpu at this point. I did run the comp without the gpu and couldn't smell the smell as bad as I did before. I did smell a tiny bit, but it could just be the smell lingering in my room/nose. Could it be a leak? I'll continue to troubleshoot.
Edit: I have the case open and playing NBA 2k21 to get everything heated up. Max temp for the gpu was 67 celsius, but it sits at around 60. I used an air compressor to blow stuff, if anything, out of the radiator and took off the gpu metal plate to do the same and clean the little dust that there was. I did notice on the metal plate that there were some sort of heat scorches? Not too sure what to call them, but it has a rainbow tint to it. I cleaned that up too. Right now I really don't smell anything. I wanna say I smell a very, very slight smell, but it isn't like before. I put my nose up to the gpu and it doesn't smell. If anything it smells like a hair dryer. Just a hot air type of smell which I think is normal. Whatever that smell is is hopefully on its way out, but I'm still weary.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom