pc issue.. should I be worried?

[Paul]

I had a similar thing happen about 4-5 yrs again, with a P4 system I had. I
brushed my arm against the case one day, and felt a tingle.

Which, I knew didnt sound right. What happened in my case, was not only was
the power earthing the case, it was also frying the CPU (the system kept
crashing), and it was screwing up the videocard. If I turned it off and
disconnected the video cable, and touched the pins, they were live

I found out what the prob was after. The earth wire had come out of the
power point, it was plugged into. Lucky for me, I got onto Intel, who
replaced the CPU for free (the fried CPU had to go back to Malaysia to get
replaced). I used a lower spec CPU, in the meantime. The replacement took 2
weeks to come back. I had to replace the mobo tho. After that, it was all
good

"kronflux" <kronflux@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:2428e750-0338-4806-890c-eb5e6cd8d330@d21g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...

okay, the subject is a little off, I -know- I should be worried.
here's the scoop.
basically I have an old pc, celeron or something here, which I was
using as a media PC, to watch my downloaded movies on my tv, with s-
video out and such.
anyway.
since around when I put it together, I was getting little shocks
occasionally from it. I don't know what it could be. every time it
happened, I got the shock from the case itself. and each time I
quickly unplugged the computer. once plugged back in, it didn't have
any problems.
recently I haven't been getting shocks at all, but just yesterday I
turned it on, and it was running for a while just idle, and I smelled
burning, and then it froze. I quickly rushed over and unplugged it,
and looked inside, and to my surprise there was a component on the
motherboard that was glowing red hot. I don't know what the component
is called, but here's a link to a picture of it, then a picture of the
motherboard to show reference as to where it is.
first I'd like to point out, part of my problem is likely dust and
dirt. but we'll get to that.
http://bayimg.com/image/bagagaaco.jpg
http://bayimg.com/image/fagakaaco.jpg

as I said, this component was glowing red hot. but! the computer turns
on just fine even now. it boots and everything.
aside from dust, what might have caused this, and should I be
concerned, once I clean it?

 

On Dec 10, 3:18 am, "Rheilly Phoull" <rhei...@bigslong.com> wrote:
not be an expensive fix.

Sams right, also no-one has mentioned to you, but DO NOT short out
the
connections where the cap was !! that would surely lead to pain
(You
would be short circuiting the power supply)

--
Regards .............. Rheilly P

Then he'd REALLY see some glowin red stuff.

G˛

 

[Gus]

I wonder if his 'red hot component' might be a surface mount LED?

the component the OP has circled in the photo is labeled as a
capacitor.

 

[bz]

Gus <gusrego@comcast.net> wrote in news:33b62e5e-b2e5-408c-92b6-
545a0d7f71ff@a21g2000yqc.googlegroups.com:

I wonder if his 'red hot component' might be a surface mount LED?

the component the OP has circled in the photo is labeled as a
capacitor.

My bad. I should have looked at the pictures. Strange that the chip doesn't
unsolder itself from the board if it gets that hot!



--
bz

please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
infinite set.

 

[William R. Walsh]

Hi!

HaHaHaHaHa...  I used to design high performance computers.
Engineers often sprinkle bypass caps all over the place for
insurance and there are always more than need be.

Very well then. I'll stand aside in light of your experience here.

However, in the hope of not making things worse, I'd be very hesitant
to suggest that someone just pull components out of a circuit and hope
it still works properly...

William

 

[kronflux]

well since the discussion here has gone on since I last commented, I'd
just like to add that the system is running perfectly fine. haven't
had a single problem with it.
checked the temperatures and such too, everything seems rather normal.
also, as I stated before, it was confirmed that it was not 'red hot'
but simply arching inside the component, so it was lighting up, but
not getting 'hot' persay. which is why it did not unsolder itself, or
blacken the area around it. I haven't turned the thing off in days,
and as I said, no problems. cheers!