Smell of hot electronics?

I would like to say first and foremost that I have a very good nose.

Sometimes when on my computer I get a smell like hot electronics (have it now). This is not really while playing games but while doing everyday stuff. Right now I have Windows Media player playing some local media. I have Opera open typing this reply.

The temp of the CPU seems to rise a bit when I smell this. The keyboard gets a little warm as well. CPU goes up to 60c while normally at idle it is between 40-50c.

The computer seems to work fine though. I experience nothing strange at all when this happens.

Should I be worried or is this a case of a over active nose being paranoid? My wife has smelled it before but only when her nose was about smashed into the keyboard.

 

Don't worry
I had that a bit at the beginning and it disappeared quite fast.
best

 

It's probably that. Keep checking your temperatures, they seem fine to me now though.

 

Aida lists my cpu at 65c at idle most of the time.

 

How old is the machine?

 

I've had it maybe three weeks.

 

I would say there is something wrong with your PC. If you smell something burning then something is burning. Would you continue to use your car if you smelled something burning? Get it checked out, it doesn't take much to go from smelling something burning to have a fire.

 

It's normal for a new pc

 

Well ... ' normal' might be a bit too strong a word , but sure, leaky capacitors are fairly common. Of course, they're not intended to vent, but they are designed to do so (since exploding is worse). As there are so many of the damn things, it is not that strange that one or two fail when first put to serious use. Whether that matters depends on the board's design (redundancy) and the type of capacitor; i.e., self-healing or not.

Correlation with cpu temperature is really the reverse; system's put to heavy use, so the capacitor in question is under strain. Running a stress test ought to increase venting (and smell), keep it going for a while and that'll disappear in the end (since the electrolyte has completely evaporated). Capacitor is useless then, but at least the smell will be gone ... .

Think I'd just run the motherboard bare and see which capacitor is leaking and proceed to replace it, but if AW offers repair at home; it'd take an hour tops to swap the motherboard, so ... If they don't and you'd loose it for weeks, then just wait until just before the warranty runs out and then have the mb replaced. And if, in the unlikely event this component is crucial, then the mb will fail one day and you're still good to have it replaced.

 

It can be a build up of compounds from manufacturing, they usually clean up quickly though. If capacitors were actually blowing it would be causing more much more of an issue than causing a slightly smell.