Holy Smokes, not my motherboard.

 Hi guys, I had a frightening experience the other day when my computer sent out a puff of smoke along with that lovely "frying electronics" smell.  I think it was around a capacitor on the motherboard, but I'm not entirely sure...I panicked and hit the PS shutoff before I got a good look.  I turned it back on after a bit and it has been working ever since.  I'm just paranoid now and I have to check my system every so often to make sure it's not gone up in flames.  All the caps look ok and the temps were all fine (40 C) so this has got me stumped.  By the way I'm still running my trusty old Asus A8N-SLI Premium board.    Can capacitors smoke?  Or is judgement day shortly at hand for my PC?  Thanks.

I will say keep and eye, if i would have to guess something came in contact and made a static reaction. if something would burned ur pc would not be running that is a flat out statement...

I would open the case take a flashlight and inspect the motherboard, or better yet. take everything out and look every piece and see if there is that black smoke that happens when things get burned

I would suspect your motherboard or power supply. Some power regulators are dual phase and can run fine if one goes. I would look around your motherboard for a anything that looks fried. If you can take a picture of it even better. If we can find what burned we can better diagnose the problem. If you don't find anything on your mobo take a look at your power supply. Only open your PS if you know what you are doing. Some parts still hold a charge after being unplugged.

im thinking its the PSU as well, nothing major but it could be bad if you don't do any thing. If it was the mobo i would think it would have killed the board...

Der Meister:

im thinking its the PSU as well, nothing major but it could be bad if you don't do any thing. If it was the mobo i would think it would have killed the board...

I had the same think happen to my graphics card after a drop of water fell on it. Works like a charm to this day.

These days you can find a redundant vm regulator or 2 on most boards...But from what ya stated i would think its waiting blow its chunks....Only time will tell but you should follow the advice above and look for burnt circuts

 Thanks for all the advice guys.  I've carefully looked over the motherboard and I cannot see anything that looks burnt or darkened at all.  So I guess that does point to the power supply.  I'm going to keep a really close eye on it for now and I've got an extra PS to swap in if anything else starts going/smelling again.  Thanks again. 

imAcpufan:

 Thanks for all the advice guys.  I've carefully looked over the motherboard and I cannot see anything that looks burnt or darkened at all.  So I guess that does point to the power supply.  I'm going to keep a really close eye on it for now and I've got an extra PS to swap in if anything else starts going/smelling again.  Thanks again. 

Just be careful. When cheaper power supplies go they can take other parts with them.

I certainly wouldn't leave it running unattended either.  You don't want a fire!

JeffB:

I certainly wouldn't leave it running unattended either.  You don't want a fire!

Nope Warlord had a monitor burn up a month or so back.

bob_on_the_cob:

JeffB:

I certainly wouldn't leave it running unattended either.  You don't want a fire!

Nope Warlord had a monitor burn up a month or so back.

 

 Yeah, it's not fun to have any electronics burn up.  I actually had a monitor go bad too, years ago.  I was playing a game and the image on the screen suddenly started getting bigger.  I thought I had unlocked something, but then the screen went black and it started smoking.

I really appreciate the concern about my computer.  My PS is a Corsair TX 750 W, so it's not too cheapy.  My proc is watercooled, so hey, if it burns up the tubing it'll put out the fire...Never thought of that when I installed watercooling...haha.  Just kidding, so don't worry, I'm only running it when I'm around for sure.

Sorry we couldn't figure out what it is.

bob_on_the_cob:

Sorry we couldn't figure out what it is.

 No problem at all.  It's still working, so that makes it mostly impossible to figure out.  I won't complain about that though... lol