Computer just caught fire!

ng93 · 17 Oct 2012 at 14:05

Or at least I think it did. Started smoking so I immediately pulled the power. No obvious signs of damage, never had liquid anywhere near it, any ideas what might have happened? Did find a cobweb inside, and some damp on the outside of the side panel, but the inside is bone dry :confused:

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TIA,
ng93

Energizer Bunny · 17 Oct 2012 at 14:08

Sounds pretty alarming!

Generally speaking there isn't much in a PC that should be at risk of catching fire. You don't have labels attached to any cables (or anything like that) which could have strayed onto a heatsink do you? Failing that it might be something PSU related I suppose although I can't say I've every heard of one catch fire.

Stelly · 17 Oct 2012 at 14:08

look closely at all components for any burn points, even the backside of the motherboard

Stelly

BuToNz · 17 Oct 2012 at 14:09

PSU gone pop I'd imagine, I'd suggest doing a sniff test on the inside of the case, the smell is normally very obvious. If it's the PSU smelling, order yourself up a replacement

NeoVo · 17 Oct 2012 at 14:09

Power Supplies are known to smoke/ puff when they go.

Unplug the PC and open the case up to see if you can see any visible signs of hardware degradation.

Post your full system specs.

wazza300 · 17 Oct 2012 at 14:10

mosfet maybe? they smoke a lot? have no idea

james_2k · 17 Oct 2012 at 14:16

when my motherboard exploded, a couple of the capacitors had popped. big cloud of smoke out of the top. with associated bang

Fire_fly · 17 Oct 2012 at 14:17

Inspect everything thoroughly.

Then my best guess would be to replace the PSU and go from there.

sadbuttrue · 17 Oct 2012 at 14:18

I set fire to a motherboard last month. One of the fan splitter cables wasn't attached to a fan and touched part of the motherboard. It wasn't pretty

ng93 · 17 Oct 2012 at 14:28

Full specs:

2500K (at stock) with corsair a70
6950 toxic (unlocked shaders and factory overclocked)
msi p67-gd53
antec true power 650 (though these were supposed to be good!?)
a few hard drives
corsair force 3 ssd
8gb corsair vengeance lp (2x4)

By the time I got the side panel off the smoke had gone, i think there was a tiny bit left above the hard drives but no idea if it was coming from them. Had the computer for nearly a year no problems (well quite a few F4 BSODs but a reinstall made them much less frequent). Smoke came out the top so don't think it would be the psu which vents out the back? Had a look around but can't see anything wrong, no burn's or anything.

Is it safe to try turning it back on to see what the problem is?

Scoob145 · 17 Oct 2012 at 14:28

Like everyone has said double check all your components . Hope it's ok !

Surveyor · 17 Oct 2012 at 14:39

Is it safe to try turning it back on to see what the problem is?

No.

Strip it down and check everything thoroughly.

wazza300 · 17 Oct 2012 at 14:43

look around the cpu area at the small black blocks,ive seen an msi board blow one of those before

ng93 · 17 Oct 2012 at 14:50

Looking at it now there's nothing blown on the motherboard, no loose wires (some loose sata power cables round the back but they shouldn't short?), all the cables are properly plugged in, nothing loose, shouldn't have overheated as wan't doing anything intensive and I could hear the fans working. No burn marks anywhere.

sadbuttrue · 17 Oct 2012 at 14:54

I'd look closely at the graphics card too. The VRMs on those 6950s get bloody hot. If the cooling failed I can see them smoking.

ng93 · 17 Oct 2012 at 15:02

Can't see much because of the shroud, but what I can see on it looks fine (same with the psu). Not sure what else I can check? Hard drives and dvd drives all seem fine. So does the ssd. Everything looks good :confused:

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Energizer Bunny · 17 Oct 2012 at 15:16

If you're looking at restarting I'd remove all non essential components including the gfx card

ng93 · 17 Oct 2012 at 15:21

Just had another look at the hard drives:

Take it that's the culprit? Or could this be a PSU issue?

wazza300 · 17 Oct 2012 at 15:22

^^ lookslike it,any wires near it? could be an earth/burn mark

ng93 · 17 Oct 2012 at 15:29

No wires or anything near it, the drive that was above it has a slightly burnt power connector, but doesn't look to be broken. The drive below has no marks what so ever. Just worried that it was caused by a faulty PSU, anyway to check?