Discovery Gaming Community

Ok, so I was playing Half-Life, and it started getting laggy and the fan started whirring at top speed. I smacked it in frustration (really bad idea I know, but it was just the casing. I didn't hit anything inside, and I've never had anything happen from smacking it a little), and my monitor lost signal all of a sudden. Then, I started smelling something hot. I quickly turned the the computer off and tried to sniff out the source of the heat. It seemed to be coming from one or both of my DVD drives, so I turned the computer back on to eject my disc. The monitor still had no signal, and the disc drives wouldn't even eject. It just whirs really loud (the PSU fan) and the orange HDD light is on solid. I can't get it to do anything.
The hot smell and my DVD drives not even working is freaking me out, and Google is being absolutely no help. Do you guys have anything to suggest?
:blink::(

' Wrote:Ok, so I was playing Half-Life, and it started getting laggy and the fan started whirring at top speed. I smacked it in frustration (really bad idea I know, but it was just the casing. I didn't hit anything inside, and I've never had anything happen from smacking it a little), and my monitor lost signal all of a sudden. Then, I started smelling something hot. I quickly turned the the computer off and tried to sniff out the source of the heat. It seemed to be coming from one or both of my DVD drives, so I turned the computer back on to eject my disc. The monitor still had no signal, and the disc drives wouldn't even eject. It just whirs really loud (the PSU fan) and the orange HDD light is on solid. I can't get it to do anything.
The hot smell and my DVD drives not even working is freaking me out, and Google is being absolutely no help. Do you guys have anything to suggest?
:blink::(

Burned out CPU or graphics card...and there is no such thing as, "only smacking a little" when it comes to computers...it only takes a little.

My guess is you have an older PC and the CPU just cooked--probably clogged with dust around the cooling fan and vanes. Second likely suspect is the graphics card toasted.

Keep turning it on and off over and over again and you might hit the real jackpot and frag the motherboard too. Remotely its possible you had a raid/HD failure but I am guessing the CPU is out.

Yeah, I opened it up and the smell seemed to be either coming from my sound card or one of the the other cards mounted right next to it. By wigging the wires to the disc drives I was able to get them to eject. The disc looked fine, so I don't think it had anything to do with them now.
I just had the PSU replaced a month or so ago and they cleaned everything out, so I don't think it was dust. When I try to turn it on, the disc drives flash now, like it's trying to boot from them, so I think there's something wrong with the hard drive, and whatever card it was that was heating up.

Strange things happen at the 1-2 point...try removing the graphics card and replacing it with another. If you have a sound card keep an eye on it too and possibly remove.

If these two are out and it works ok, then you know the source. The chip top on any of these boards will be yellowed or blackened slightly if it got really hot. If these cards are shot fully they can make your board look dead and have to be removed to troubleshoot everything else.

Also check the fan directly on top of the CPU (though your description made it sound as if it was working). Make sure it spins up when the board comes on. CD and DVD trays can be popped open by CAREFULLY placing a paperclip in the little hole in front of them--with the power OFF when you do. Jiggling internal wires with the power on is like playing Russian roulette with your motherboard, psu and processor.

A couple things..

If you have a graphics card, try attaching the monitor to the onboard graphics instead. If this works, your graphics card is fried.

Do you get any signal at all on the monitor when you turn it on, even if it's just a momentary logo? Any beeping from the motherboard when you turn it on?

Do all the fans inside spin when you turn it on?

What kind of computer do you have? If you're not sure, something like "GSX 280" or "IBM" are usually visible on the front of the tower.

Definitely sounds like a bit of fried hardware... the "hot" smell you describe is something I always experience when a capacitor has burst.


edit: Also tinkerbell just wrote a large portion of this better than I did

Ok, I looked inside with my neighbor who builds computers. It looks like the heat sink on my motherboard has been loose for a while (probably got bumped when they were replacing the power source), causing my computer to be laggy lately, and the smack caused it to come the rest of the way off. The motherboard and possibly the graphics card are probably fried. So... new motherboard or new computer. Bleh.:dry:

Let's not get too hasty. If the heat sink got knocked off, the CPU is dead, completely, and absolutely. There is no such thing as a zero-cooling CPU nowadays.

You might be able to get away with just buying a new proc, but you might as well take the opportunity to get a new everything. (If you like what you had, get the same stuff, that way you don't have to reinstall the OS)

Ugh.

We're taking it to the place that replaced the PSU to see what they have to say, because it's pretty clear now that the heatsink got at least loosened by them. Hopefully it's just the motherboard that's fried because it was the north bridge heatsink, not the other one. If not, I'll probably get some crappy $400 computer, which might end up being better than the 5 year old one I have now anyway.
Thanks for the help guys.

Got it back today, turns out only the graphics card got fried. Even better news: The graphics card that fried was an upgrade, so I still had another one in my computer that wasn't hooked up. It's not as good and things are a little laggy occasionally, but I'm back in business:D
And poor.:unsure:

Good to see your problem is alleviated, but I just wanted to point a few things out...

' Wrote:It just whirs really loud (the PSU fan)

First of all...if you smell something burning, it's most likely to be on a piece of circuit, such as the motherboard itself or a PCI/AGP card, as opposed to a drive or other accessory (evidently, it was indeed a part of the graphics card that blew). The initial problem was likely to have been the PSU, judging by the quoted text above, and then your own actions or anything caused by the engineers may have worsened the situation.

The other thing I wanted to bring to your attention is a little tiny hole on the front of CD/DVD disk drives. If you find a pin small enough to fit into it, you can push it in to eject the tray, even if the drive has no power. This hole gives access to a standard contingency mechanism and should be present on all such drives.