Hi! I recently built a system, smelled a burning smell and shut it down. At the time I had my case cover on and I smelled it through the vents in the side. After a few minutes (I had the window open and I first thought it was from outside) I shut the system down an opened the case. The smell dissipated shortly and neither my wife nor I were able to tell what component it was coming from.
I'm hoping someone here can help me formulate a diagnostic plan.
SYSTEM STATUS
I have checked my connections and don't see where I could have gone wrong. I built a system a couple days ago and have had it running much of the time (except nights) since build. Everything seemed to be OK. I used CoreTemp to check the CPU cores when it was under resting load(during Day One) and these showed around 39C/40C. The motherboard has an LED on it that I think is the motherboard temperature and it shows 25 constantly. There is no dust build up.
WHAT I WAS DOING
I ran without the case cover on day one and had the cover on all of day two. A few hours before the burning smell I connected a 2nd monitor (a 24â€) where I had been running only a 20â€. Not sure if the new dual monitor setup is a factor.
At around the same time as the burning smell (just not sure if it was before or after the smell started) I was backing up a DVD to my hard drive using DVDFab. I cancelled this about half-way when I shut down. Aside from my Windows 7 install, this has been my only sustained use of the DVD drive thusfar.
ABOUT MY BUILD
Let me tell you about my build – I got these parts a bit over a year ago and so I am afraid they are probably out of warranty. Due to circumstances unforeseen, I haven't been able to put them together until now:
QUESTIONS
I am very new to this – am I running too much on rail #1? Is there anyway for me to diagnose the load on that?
I know that the most common problems are a bad power supply but I have one that (I think) is supposed to be pretty reliable – is there a way to test it?
I am somewhat at a loss here. Everything seemed to be working well up until this. Is it possible the DVD drive just makes that smell when it is new? Does that ever happen?
Trying to keep this on the safe side but also my time/money is limited and so I want to come up with as smart of a diagnostics plan without putting all my components at risk. It didn't take long browsing to realize that this is the perfect form to ask for help in. Thanks much in advance for any ideas!
I'm hoping someone here can help me formulate a diagnostic plan.
SYSTEM STATUS
I have checked my connections and don't see where I could have gone wrong. I built a system a couple days ago and have had it running much of the time (except nights) since build. Everything seemed to be OK. I used CoreTemp to check the CPU cores when it was under resting load(during Day One) and these showed around 39C/40C. The motherboard has an LED on it that I think is the motherboard temperature and it shows 25 constantly. There is no dust build up.
WHAT I WAS DOING
I ran without the case cover on day one and had the cover on all of day two. A few hours before the burning smell I connected a 2nd monitor (a 24â€) where I had been running only a 20â€. Not sure if the new dual monitor setup is a factor.
At around the same time as the burning smell (just not sure if it was before or after the smell started) I was backing up a DVD to my hard drive using DVDFab. I cancelled this about half-way when I shut down. Aside from my Windows 7 install, this has been my only sustained use of the DVD drive thusfar.
ABOUT MY BUILD
Let me tell you about my build – I got these parts a bit over a year ago and so I am afraid they are probably out of warranty. Due to circumstances unforeseen, I haven't been able to put them together until now:
- Antec 900 case (note: the two front fans span the bottom two bays, with the HD mounted at the center of the bottom on. There is no optional side fan in use because the heatsink blocks it)
- Antec TruePower New TP-750 Blue 750W (Because of the case the case mounts on the bottom with the fan pointed up. There are four rails: #1 =Motherboard, all 4 case fans, DVD; #2 = EPS, HD, #3 & #4: PCI-E)
- EVGA X58 SLI Motherboard
- I7 920 2.66 GHz (note: I have not tried overclocking this yet an am running at defaults)
- Coolermaster V8 (note I used AS5 in a “lineâ€. This was my first time building a system and I tried to keep it to the size in the AS diagrams)
- OCZ 1600Mhz 6GB Platinum XTC (3 x 2GB) DDR3 (note: I am using the timings that the bios defaulted to and have not tried adjusting these yet)
- EVGA GeForce GTX260
- LG Lightscribe DVD Drive
- Western Digital 640GB Caviar Black
- Windows 7, 64bit
QUESTIONS
I am very new to this – am I running too much on rail #1? Is there anyway for me to diagnose the load on that?
I know that the most common problems are a bad power supply but I have one that (I think) is supposed to be pretty reliable – is there a way to test it?
I am somewhat at a loss here. Everything seemed to be working well up until this. Is it possible the DVD drive just makes that smell when it is new? Does that ever happen?
Trying to keep this on the safe side but also my time/money is limited and so I want to come up with as smart of a diagnostics plan without putting all my components at risk. It didn't take long browsing to realize that this is the perfect form to ask for help in. Thanks much in advance for any ideas!