Which component went pop?

barnei

barnei

barnei

Associate
Joined
27 Nov 2008
Posts
62
Hi all,

Got the upgrade bug so, in one sense, this couldn't have come at a better time. Symptoms 1-4 suggest to me that it's my SSD that's on its way out, however, symptom 5 has me puzzled; all the capacitors on the motherboard appear fine.

Can anyone shed any light on this?

Symptoms
  1. It takes ages for the drives to show up in Windows Explorer/My Computer
  2. Regular BSODs
  3. Computer freezes even when performing simple tasks, e.g. browsing the internet
  4. Computer hangs on the logging off screen
  5. A pop (not quite a bang), small amount of smoke and a strong smell occurred once.

Suspects
  • Intel X-25M 80Gb
  • Zalman 850W PSU
  • Asus P6T Deluxe.

Cheers.
 
My first thought would be to analyse the minidump files you get with the BSOD, something like BSOD Viewer.

Also, I wouldn't be suprised if that PSU was the cause. Have you attempted the paper clip test?
 
snips86x said:
My first thought would be to analyse the minidump files you get with the BSOD, something like BSOD Viewer.

Also, I wouldn't be suprised if that PSU was the cause. Have you attempted the paper clip test?
Click to expand...

Good advice. That may shed some light on the matter.

it sounds like a power supply or motherboard problem to me..
 
I should have mentioned that I can still turn my system on and boot into Windows, therefore I know my PSU still works - at least partially. Will the paper clip test be able to tell me anything more than I already know i.e. the PSU might soon fully die?

I noticed something else interesting just now: When I close down task manager it leaves an icon in the notification tray, then each time I open and close subsequent task mangers an additional icon is left.

UPDATE - This is what BSOD viewer tells me:

WORKER_THREAD_RETURNED_AT_BAD_IRQL
0x000000e1
ntoskrnl.exe
 
Last edited:
Paperclip test won't tell you anything new. Measuring the voltages will, the OCCT software has a voltage reader built in but it's not always accurate. A multimeter is your best bet or try a known working PSU. If something has gone pop I would suspect its the PSU.

Having a bootdisk is always handy for troubleshooting. Hiren or ultimatebootcd are good and full of handy tools. You can run memtest from it or run Prime95 for stress testing. If the rig fails these tests then it's nothing to do with the OS or storage drives
 
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