Is my Psu about to go bye-bye?

ClutchClutch North Carolina New
edited September 2003 in Hardware
I noticed yesterday when I came home, there was a smell of burnt something in the air of my room. I keep my door closed because of my little nephew pulling on the wires from my surround sound, and computers, so all the hot air from all my electronics are kept in my room, but this time it was a burning smell.

I automatically thought it was my main rig's power supply. It has a lot of hot, burning smelling air blowing out the back, and when I removed the case, the actual psu was extremely hot to the touch, like it would almost burn you. I didn't have time to mess with it so I shut down, my computer and head off to work, come home and power back up, and it isn't hot anymore, and no burning smell as of yet.

It is just a generic :banghead: psu that my friend gave me because I didn't have one when I put together my computer.

Comments

  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited September 2003
    At a guess, it is being slightly overloaded. Possibly the low voltage legs if you OC at all, otherwise could be a DVD player.

    Eithr way, burning smell with no smoke is probably slowly melting wire insulation. Unless fuse was bypassed, a large overload would cause fuse to blow, so this is something progressive.

    COULD be with any extra fans being turned on, that is giving you the overload, OR, could be one of the pins on a power harness connection has come partly loose and the result is a no-good circuit in power harness casuing feedback into PSU. That would be consonant with what you are talking about.

    Probably, to answer your question, YES, but slowly right now rather than catastrophicly. Time, well, have seen them last up to a month that way, but I would replace when can afford if the hot air was not coming from another fan outlet in back. Add 50 watts or get lower power draw fans like Panaflos (from Panasonic), for now, and watch it when you get home and just after it has been on all night.
  • ClutchClutch North Carolina New
    edited September 2003
    I do not think that it is a overload of any sort actually. I mean I just put my hardware into this new case, and no extra fans are running from the psu, only one 80gb hard drive, 1700+, K7S5A so no oc'ng at all, and a lite-on cd-rw, 512mb ram. Its a 550w psu if I'm not mistaken, but I do believe that it is about to bork up big time. As soon as I get paid Friday I will know what type of budget I'm in for the rest of my parts needed to complete my new build. Thanks for the input Ageek.
  • TheSmJTheSmJ
    edited September 2003
    Be carefull.

    I've used generic PSU's which have displayed these systems. They may do this for a little whilke, then suddenly blow out and take components with it (for some reason, it's always the hard drive).
  • ClutchClutch North Carolina New
    edited September 2003
    I'm going to be shutting my computer down for tonight, and tommorow if we have power ( hurricane coming ) then I'll slap in my Antec true power I bought for my new system, until I can afford all my parts for it. Thanks a lot guys.
  • SpinnerSpinner Birmingham, UK
    edited September 2003
    We could speculate all day about what the problem is, if there is one, but I have one golden rule about PC's, where the power supply is concerned, if in doubt... take it out!

    To some that might sound hasty, but PSU's can cause massive damage to a PC and some can quite easily set your house on fire.

    I never take risks with the PSU, at the first sign of trouble, it's gone.
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited September 2003
    Spinner's right. You don't want to risk running a generic PSU in a Athlon or P4 system. Unless, that is, you LIKE spending money to replace everything in your system that it kills when it dies.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited September 2003
    ...you make sure that the power supply fan is still working. You might just have no cooling on the sucker. If the fan's still running and it has those symptoms I'd go along with the rest and replace it ASAP.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited September 2003
    If you want to find out what a psu going poof can do, I suggest that you send an email to Steve at hardocp and ask him what he thinks of Enermax psu's.;) He builds "Killer Gaming Rigs" occasionally on his own site(hypothermia) and has a giveaway contest every now and then. A couple of years ago, he was building a high end P4 KGR, with a high end Enermax psu in it and the psu caught fire. It also toasted the mobo, ram, vid card and hard drive when it went up in smoke and Enermax didn't reimburse him anything for all the parts their brand new psu fried. I think this happened right after the Northwood procs were introduced. A dodgey psu isn't good to mess with. Prof's suggestion is valid though; I've had psu fans go out on me, especially the el cheapo fans used in a lot of generic psu's.
  • ClutchClutch North Carolina New
    edited September 2003
    Yea, I didn't want to risk any of my parts being fried, so I took it out, it is now sitting on my desk, thinking of what I can do with it, which I will probably throw it away. I have another psu coming from newegg for my computer, and also all the parts for my new system, so everything is good now.
  • SpinnerSpinner Birmingham, UK
    edited September 2003
    Sweet. Another disaster stopped before it happened.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited September 2003
    it is now sitting on my desk, thinking of what I can do with it, which I will probably throw it away

    Goodness, don't do that! I keep a derelict but functioning PSU in my garage for fan testing, and for emergency motherboard diagnostics. I've shorted one of the power leads for 7 volts, and configured another for three-pin connectors. It's very handy for testing fans - I'm always scheming on ways to improve airflow and reduce noise. (I've also got a modding ailment known as 'fan fetish'!:eek2::eek2: )

    Also, if you ever need to troubleshoot a system with a suspect power supply - say if a system won't post and you need to rule out the system's PSU as the problem, you can use your spare PSU for testing. (Of course, you would not want to install it and leave it unattended. )
  • ClutchClutch North Carolina New
    edited September 2003
    You have a point there Leo, I used to have a 300w psu that I got a heck of a deal when Xoxide had one of there x-hour sales for like 10 bucks, it used to be there for testing and stuff, but I gave it to a family friend when his psu bit the dust. Guess I will toss it in my computer parts bin for a later use.
  • stillwatersstillwaters Pittsburgh, USA
    edited September 2003
    heheh yeah i had a similar incident in my college dorm.

    i went to class, and when i got back i saw a few guys standing at my door knocking...i asked them what the problem was and they informed me that something was burning and the smell was coming from my room ... opened the door and there it was...the PSU was pretty much on fire.

    good thing the fire alarm didn't go off yet. i shut the machine down and ordered an Antec 430 watt psu... no problems since :D
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited September 2003
    One Codicil-- If I am going to investigate the fan in a PSU, I let the PSU sit unplugged in on an antistat mat for at least 3-8 hours (depends on size) before even opening it. The capacitors in a PSU are large capacity and realively slow discharge for complete draining, and can have a residual charge for a long time. If suddenly shorted they can pump a lot of ampacity at whatever shorts them.

    For a fan test, which is a good idea, you are typically using the 12 volt line mostly as far as amps go, so if you have a PSU that will boot mobo but will not power a HD it might not be able to reliably test a fan. If opposite, 5 volt circuit might well be damaged and the 12 volt might be fine, so if you short 12 to 5 to get 7 volts (not really a good long term use idea, though possible) the fan might not work or might get damaged. I would instead get a rheostatic voltage adjuster and a voltmeter and put both inline in PSU->rheostat->VOM->fan order on fan input (hot) leg and measure and test off 12 volt lead itself, as the rheostat and VOM can yield more accurate voltage control than a PSU with one bad leg.

    John.
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