Computers Starting a Fire/Smoldering

[DiseasedDonkey]

WIth all these issues over heat dissapation etc..... I was wondering has anyone out there had a problem with their computer actually starting to smolder/even catch fire??? I think all of us have had hw burn out on us before, but has anyone had there computer go in a ball of fire?

jus' curious. Please share horror stories and what you suspect cuase said incident.

 

[Optikal]

I was putting a comp together and I'm still not sure what exactly caused it but I think it's because I had the motherboard out of the case resting on a conductive surface. Anyways, I started it up to test it out and the CPU starting smoking, and a whole lot of smoke came out of it, pretty scary, needles to say the CPU was fried, motherboard was still fine though.

 

[jamarno]

It can happen easily because power supply current limits are set for the entire computer, not individual components, and high-power components without heatsinks can easily heat up 50-70 degrees C per watt of dissipation.

Flames aren't very likely to break out because the materials used don't burn easily, not even the plastics, but charring and bad smells happen all the time.

 

[madthumbs]

I heard of the proprietary power supplies in E-machines spitting out fire and sparks.

 

[Valhalla2000]

Yes. When i was in my friend's house this summer, there were smoke coming out from his comp. Then his motherboard was dead.

 

[DiseasedDonkey]

it is interesting that with everyone oc'ing and all that the computers dont flame more often. i understand the stuff about it not burning well, but still you think someone would chime in with a blaze or two.

maybe with the newer chips and video cards we will see some incidences of this....

 

[borealiss]

i've had an iwill mainboard smoke really really badly, leaving a char mark the size of a stamp on a partially melted pcb on the mainboard. stupid me hooked up a peltier to the fan power hookup on the mainboard (yes, this is the single dumbest thing i've ever done) and fired her up. luckily it didn't effect the rest of the mainboard's operation. than i upgraded to a tnt1 and had to switch to a via chipset. it smelled like burned rubber. god that was so stupid.

 

[madthumbs]

I wouldn't worry about people OCing. If I owned an apartment building and rented to people, I would rather have an OC'er there than someone who uses their computer casually. OC'ers keep track of temperatures, tend to get good quality cooling, monitor their PC, etc.

Here's whats scary; People who leave their monitor on with a dust cover over it. People who have their computer near the kitchen where oils in the air can build up in it and smolder. People who never take the time to dust the inside of their computer. I could go on and on.

I got a 300W P/S from CompUSA because the salesman said it was AMD approved (lie) and that I would need the extra 50W for the Voodoo 5 (lie). Immediately thier brand P/S started smelling up my Apt. Within a week it had quit. I opened it to find a resistor melted, and char marks on the PCB. Before opening it, I tried to arrange a return or exchange with CompUSA explaining all this, and that they were 100+miles away. I got a reply that there was a time limit for returns, and that I would have to take it back to the store because I couldn't return it by mail.

 

[Dulanic]

I work with PCB I/O and CPU boards for Casino games.... and I have never seen one totally catch fire... althought I have seen some pretty bad cases of half the board charred black from smoke/heat..... one IC can cause an extreme amount of heat/smoke when it fries.

 

[CalebTG]

man, I was looking for a g4 cube bashing