What happened to my pc?

F

Friedpet

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This morning, round about 8:30, my computer just shut down. No one was working on it, it was just being idle, the screen was turned off due to inactivity. It suddenly made a loud noise - like an old computer working really really hard - for a few minutes and then it went dead. I could smell something burning and immediately unplugged everything.
I tried to switch it on now, the fans start for a few seconds and then it switched off again.

What happpened? What causes this?
 
I would put my money on PSU, because of the noise and smell part.
 
Friedpet said:
What happpened? What causes this?
Click to expand...

You let the magic smoke escape!

As for the real cause, since it does power on, it could literally be anything. You'll have to open it up and try see if anything has (magic) smoke marks on it
 
Take out the PSU and see if the burnt toast smell disappears. Maybe something crawled in, you never know.
 
The PSU for sure. Maybe dirt that clogged up inside the PSU, which caused it to heat up...also check PSU fan. Rather replace the PSU! Less trouble and then you are guaranteed for a while...:D
 
What brand and model PSU do you have?
... and what is the rest of your PC specs?
 
Pada said:
What brand and model PSU do you have?
... and what is the rest of your PC specs?
Click to expand...

Power Supply: Corsair 500CX Builder Series 80+ Power Supply
Processor: AMD FX 8120 Eight Core Bulldozer CPU
Heatsink & CPU Fan: Standard Heatsink & CPU Fan
Motherboard: ASUS M5A970 970GX AM3+ SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 MB
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz High Performance RAM
PCI-E Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB 192bit DDR5 Overclocked Card
Sound Card: Integrated 8 Channel HD Audio
Primary Hard Drive: Seagate 500GB SATA3 7200rpm Hard Drive
Secondary Hard Drive: 2TB SATA3 6400rpm
Main Optical Drive: 24x Dual Layer DVD +/- Writer
Network Adapter: PCI 802.11g 54mbps Wireless Network Card
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64Bit

Bought the system as-is in January 2012. I only added the secondary hard drive a few months ago.
 
I inputted your specs exactly into This PSU calculator and the Minimum wattage was only 340 Watts (I added a few fans and 2xRAM sticks, wern't sure if it was 2x4GB or 1x8Gb)

PS: I ran the same calculation and your PSU *should* still be able to handle 6 (7200 RPM) drives in total.

So I really doubt by adding 1 drive will fry your system.
 
Archer said:
You let the magic smoke escape!

As for the real cause, since it does power on, it could literally be anything. You'll have to open it up and try see if anything has (magic) smoke marks on it
Click to expand...

Yes, magic smoke is gone now:(

Did not notice any smoke marks anywhere inside. It doesn't power on anymore...

Rickster said:
I inputted your specs exactly into This PSU calculator and the Minimum wattage was only 340 Watts (I added a few fans and 2xRAM sticks, wern't sure if it was 2x4GB or 1x8Gb)

PS: I ran the same calculation and your PSU *should* still be able to handle 6 (7200 RPM) drives in total.

So I really doubt by adding 1 drive will fry your system.
Click to expand...

Yes, I agree. It just happened; while the pc was idle for about 2-3 hours...:wtf:
 
Hi ther,
I would still check out the PSU first. Is there a lot of dust and dirt in the PC?
With the PSU removed use your nose to try and decide if the smell is coming from the PSU or if it is inside the box.
If the box smells more then I suspect the CPU or if you have it the fan on the graphics card has gone. (I hope you smell nothing much here as this is where it gets expensive)
If the PSU smells more then it is likely the fan has gone and I would suggest a new PSU.

Remember when your PC is "idle" it is still consuming power and the fans are still turning.

Regards

Tim

ps let us know especially if the smoke returns
 
Turns out it was the motherboard. Evetech sent it in to Asus and a week later I've got my pc back:) Only thing now is that my CPU fan is going insane! I opened up the case and see that my rear fan isn't working...:wtf: It's unplugged and tied with cable ties so that I'll basically have to remove the motherboard to untie and use the fan:confused:
 
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