Hey everyone! I was really looking forward to playing Arc Raiders this weekend when my PC suddenly shut off while I was gaming. After about 30 minutes of gameplay, I noticed a burning smell. I quickly unplugged everything and opened it up, but I couldn't find any burn marks. The GPU connectors looked fine too. When I tried turning it back on, the fans spun, the RGB lights went back to default, but it wouldn't boot, and the case light was blinking with no video output.
I've experienced some instability before, like black screens and the fans ramping up to 100% for a few minutes after booting, but it usually fixed itself after a restart. Additionally, one time my liquid cooler showed a red light, and my CPU spiked to 100°C, but I haven't had that issue again after rebooting. Just to give you an idea of my setup: an Intel Core i7-13700K, G.Skill 32GB DDR5 RAM, a Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti GPU, a Corsair RM1000x PSU, and an ASUS Z790-P motherboard. Typically, my CPU and GPU temps are around 60-70°C while gaming. Any thoughts on what could have caused this?
2 Answers
Have you tried sniffing around other components? Sometimes, a defective PSU can give off a burning smell, or maybe it's coming from a different part like the motherboard or GPU. Just make sure to stay safe while checking.
It sounds like your power supply unit (PSU) might be the culprit. You might want to give it a sniff test to see if there's a burnt smell coming from there. Just make sure not to open it up! It's common for PSUs to cause issues like this, especially if they're starting to fail.
I hope it's just the PSU! I couldn't pinpoint where that burning smell was coming from, though.
I smelled around the motherboard and GPU but didn't notice anything abnormal.