My computer smells like burning.

UnknownSaint

So after a few hours of my desktop (Maybe 4 years old) being on it starts to give off the faint distinct smell of burning electronics. I've tried to play find-the-smell with the case open or looked for anything that could possibly be overly warm or whatever, but I can't find much. What could be going out in my computer? Help me please before I burn my house down.

Arikado

Usually the first thing to do is to turn off the computer, unplug it from the surge protector, and grab a can of air and purge of dust from inside the tower. After that inspect the fans and make sure they are functioning.

If the smell persists then it could be something else that would possibly require replacing.

UnknownSaint

I'll get on the air the second I get home. If that doesn't solve the problem, what parts on the computer would I investigate first? Power supply? Fans? Is there some sort of diagnostic thing I can get to that would show me if any hardware is operating at an unusually high temperature or something?

vonPoonBurGer

SpeedFan should be able to pull temperature information for the built in monitoring on your motherboard. It's sometimes not clear which sensor is which, though. You can also just reboot and go into the BIOS after you've had it running under load for a while. The hardware monitoring page in there should have all temperatures correctly labeled. What exactly constitutes a "normal" temperature is going to depend on your exact hardware.

I don't know about other video cards, but I know my 6600GT and 7900GT both have a temperature monitoring sensor as well. It was accessible through the Nvidia software installed with the driver. Note that many recent Nvidia cards operate at temperatures that seem insanely high, but actually aren't since the cards are designed to be more tolerant to heat. I know the thermal protection threshold on my current video card is over 100 degrees Celsius, which is way higher than what most CPUs will tolerate.

Djeet

If blowing out all the crud from the various fans, heat sinks, and nooks in your machine does not clear up the issue then I'd look to the power supply. I say that because that is the only computer component I've ever had that caught fire.