Typically, a PC shouldn’t feel anything; electrical appliances are made of inert materials that do not smell the smell usually occurs because the material changes state, or in other simple words, because something has burned, and as you will understand, this is not is not a good or desirable thing in a PC.
The smell of new components
Before you dive into the smell of burning, know that when the components are new Yes, they can give off a certain characteristic odor, which we call a “new odor”. Before we told you that electronic components are made of inert materials … but that doesn’t really mean they don’t use them. volatile organic compounds which are precisely the cause of this odor when the equipment is new.
For example, in a graphics card, different materials are used for its manufacture, such as fiberglass in the PCB, synthetic resin, tin solder, plastic, glue, and a long list of materials. Each of the products that have been used in its manufacture gives off a specific odor, which is accentuated when the component heats up during commissioning.
It is also possible that during the manufacturing process of a certain component, preservation methods were used which imply that over time (imagine the product was put for months in a plastic blister pack before reach your hands), the organic compounds have been evaporating and, by the time you connect it, this evaporation is increasing due to the heat.
This is quite normal and what You shouldn’t worry not at all, because the compounds are harmless to humans and the smell will also disappear after a few hours of use. Another thing is obviously the characteristic and easily recognizable burnt smell that’s what we’re going to talk about now.
Why does your PC smell like burnt?
When talking about electrical devices like the PC, the burning smell is automatically associated with the fact that something bad has happened and a component has failed, but this is not always the case. case. Imagine you have a laptop for example, which suddenly starts to give off a certain burning smell but you don’t see smoke coming out of nowhere and, in fact, if you watch the temperature, you see that it is normal. . Why does it smell like burnt then?
It may simply be that the dust accumulated inside has created a soot fluff which, with the air pushed by the fans, moved to a warmer area (for example, in the GPU heat pipes) where its organic matter started to decompose from the heat, generating that burning smell that we dread so much. However, this is not of concern as there was actually some kind of pyrolysis in which the soot broke down and was removed.
The same can happen in a desktop PC and especially in the power supply, which is why the power supply is one of the components that has the most nerds to smell the burnt at any given time. It can also happen that instead of the burnt dust, a particle or even a tiny mosquito has entered, absorbed by the airflow of the equipment, and ends up being charred in one of the points. hot equipment. This is obviously not a good thing in all cases, but it is also not something that you need to worry excessively.
Then we have the most obvious part of this: if the PC smells of burnt, it is because something burned. Of course, this is not something usual or a good thing, and if the PC starts to smell burnt and turns off then something is really wrong, but if it smells and even if the computer is still on, there are a number of things you should do and check before determining that something has gone wrong.
What if the PC starts to feel burnt?
As we have already mentioned, when the PC smells of burnt it means that something has burned down and you should definitely take action on it. The first thing we recommend that you do is that if the PC smells of burning but it has not been turned off, turn it off, open it and perform a deep cleaning inside because that way you will be able to check if there is any soot that produces this smell (and it is also sure that periodic cleaning does not hurt to promote better cooling and quieter operation) .
Take advantage and make a visual inspection of all capacitors of all components to check for swelling or perforation; If you find any in bad condition, you should change the component as soon as possible.
After a deep cleaning, reassemble everything, turn on the PC and see if it still smells. Whether or not you still smell an odor, it is essential that you install monitoring software and that you check that the temperatures operating and tensions They are within normal operating values, otherwise it could mean that something has burned out and is not working as it should.
For example, a power supply may have a problem with one of its many capacitors (which is the first component to burn out), and despite the burning smell, it may still work. Obviously, if you detect this, you should change the power supply as soon as possible, and in fact, we don’t even recommend turning on the PC if you find that a component has a bad capacitor.
