ooooo, that smell

[Kckazdude]

I just had to put a new GF4 Ti4200 in my box for a video card. Ever since then I have smelled this 'burning' odor coming from the card. Last night I took the HS off and noticed it was severley warped. After a good 2 hours of sanding and lapping it is flat. Applied a layer of AS5 to the core and started back up. THere is no corruption in games or desktop. THe odor just wont go away. This is a PNY card if that should make a difference. I never remember my first GF4 doing this. Also, isnt there a utility out there that lets you monitor video card temps?

 

[tsuehpsyde]

"Can't you smell that smell?" lmao, had to do it...

Anyway..a burning smell is NOT normal...at all...if it's new I'd return it. If it's 'new to you', i'd use with caution....and PNY cards are bullshit (imo), and that could be the cause (6800 capacitors anyone?). My friend is running a Ti4600 and I assure you, no interesting smells anywhere....all you can hope is you found the problem and it just has to get the rest of the 'burn smell' out..

As far as temps go, that's built into nVidia's panel but is only for newer cards...I don't think the GF4 series had the monitor in place.

 

[Format _C:]

"Can't you smell that smell?" lmao, had to do it...

Anyway..a burning smell is NOT normal...at all...if it's new I'd return it. If it's 'new to you', i'd use with caution....and PNY cards are bullshit (imo), and that could be the cause (6800 capacitors anyone?). My friend is running a Ti4600 and I assure you, no interesting smells anywhere....all you can hope is you found the problem and it just has to get the rest of the 'burn smell' out..

As far as temps go, that's built into nVidia's panel but is only for newer cards...I don't think the GF4 series had the monitor in place.

Heh I remember that song I'm old

 

[DiZASTiX]

*looks at PNY ti4200 and sniffs*

No smell here

Sorry to hear this, but like tsuehpsyde said, this is NOT normal...I don't think the geforce4s have any temp sensors, but I wouldn't use it until you figure out whats wrong if I were you...Good luck.

 

[inotocracy]

"Can't you smell that smell?" lmao, had to do it...

Anyway..a burning smell is NOT normal...at all...if it's new I'd return it. If it's 'new to you', i'd use with caution....and PNY cards are bullshit (imo), and that could be the cause (6800 capacitors anyone?). My friend is running a Ti4600 and I assure you, no interesting smells anywhere....all you can hope is you found the problem and it just has to get the rest of the 'burn smell' out..

As far as temps go, that's built into nVidia's panel but is only for newer cards...I don't think the GF4 series had the monitor in place.

PNY cards arent bullshit, they may stick to the reference design but I havent had one problem with em. Ive been using their cards since the Geforce 2 days. If your basing your opinion on the capicitator incident you shouldnt call it a crap company because of that-- now if you have more than one bad PERSONAL experience i'll retract.

 

[tsuehpsyde]

now if you have more than one bad PERSONAL experience i'll retract.

yepper, bad personal experience. I was starting to look at them as acceptable again hearing some good stuff about them, and I don't call EVERYTHING they make crap (have a friend w/ a 6800GT from them and it runs fine), but the capacitor thing just re-assures me my aggitation with PNY continues I also have a 256MB stick of PC133 in my server right now that's PNY...and getting that stick of ram caused me to total my first car (long story, also seperate from my PNY videocard problems). Just cringe at PNY personally, but that's just me.

 

[Kckazdude]

This just cant be my week. The fan burned out on my 9700 Pro the other day in the middle of a game. Once the artifacts started I exited the game to find a FUBARed desktop. Shut down the PC to find the HS still scorching hot and a fan that wouldnt move. Tried to mount the stock HSF on the card and pray. Didnt work, so I had to pull out this GF4. Now I have this mysterious burning odor that isnt very reassuring to me. Still have at least 2 weeks before I can shell out for a new card. Not to mention it will look pretty selfish of me to buy myself a new video card at Christmas time.

 

[tsuehpsyde]

Maybe the smell is from ur last card charring under the lack of fan? Just a guess.

 

[DiZASTiX]

...and getting that stick of ram caused me to total my first car (long story, also seperate from my PNY videocard problems).

Ok, not to go off topic, but I think we all want to hear this

 

[shade]

rma it or return it if its new.

 

[tsuehpsyde]

Okay, if you must request

It was winter of I believe 2001...Unreal Tournament Game of the Year edition was my favorite pasttime....running my Voodoo5500 AGP and a Pentium3 750 Coppermine on an Asus board (someone else built, not me). It came w/ a 45gig WD harddrive and 128MB of memory...not a bad machine at all for it's day. I have always been a power-user, and still am to this day....i do alot of shit on my computer. I read around and saw some huge improvements to be had with more memory. Researched what I needed, and went to staples and found PNY PC-133 256MB stick for like I think $50 or $60 PLUS a rebate...not sure of the exact #'s but it made it sick cheap. So I got the memory installed, and made my computer run noticably faster @ 384MB. The day after, my friend found out I had outdone his computer lol, and demanded I take him to staples to get it (he lives 15 mins away from me, and 15 mins from his house to staples...he couldn't drive). Being my UT gamer partner, I had to take him since he had the money and anything to help gaming out, I'll do. I went to go across a 4-way interstate or whatever they're called, and looked left, then right, then left again...some cars waaaaaaaaaaaay up the hill so plenty of time, so I start across the road. There's a guy at the other end of the intersection waiting to turn right. Now, if I'm clear to go across ( saw NO cars coming from the right) he was completly clear to go. So, I look again and almost shit myself to see a brand new dark red montana heading right at me. I spiked the brakes and cut the wheel as hard as I could, but to no avail as she smashed into my front-end, ripping the front cliff off and sending me willy-nilly....nothing is as scary as that, plus watching ur front-clip side away from ur car and SMASH into the median. I can't even really put to words all the emotions that get thrown at you in a situation like that...but thank God that guy was waiting to turn because if he wasn't I would've been T-boned and probably dead more than likely.

I was blamed for it, but it was a really dark day (it was like 2 or 3pm, but everyone had their headlights on). It was still fallish and no snow on the ground yet, so everything comprised of bland browns and reds. Either she was hauling ass around the bend, or her car blended in and the lack of headlights made her invisible to me at the time...either way I don't think I was entirely at fault to that...but I still look at that ram and cringe to this day lol.

I know that bitch was going well over the speedlimit tho. Stupid right-of-way auto-fault car accidents

 

[t5brick]

i've owned a few PNY products. the PC133 i got a few years back for basically free works just fine, but both the video cards, a 6800GT and 6800Ultra, would barely overclock(i know that isn't their fault) and the Ultra had an incorrectly installed RAMsink which caused artifacts after about an hour of gaming. oh, i hate them for their "lifetime" warranty, which is a joke.

the burning smell isn't normal. you might want to make sure it's not coming from something else.

 

[thesmelliestsock.]

/me sheds a tear for tsuehpsyde.

 

[DiZASTiX]

lol tsuehpsyde, sorry to hear that it happened, but that was the best story EVAR!

oh, and UT GOTY is still my favorite past time

anyways, back on topic, let's help this poor video-cardless soul!

 

[sugii]

I'll add my 2 cents. Although this didnt affect my graphics card, it did smell like crap.

I'll start out by describing my computer. I have 2 90mm intake fans on the side of my case (both of which have lazer cut grills) and a power supply with a 90mm fan on the bottom of the psu that takes the air from inside of the case and an 80mm fan (also on my power supply) that vents air out the back. I also have a window right behind my case that I open if my room becomes too hot.

Over the summer I was sitting at my computer minding my own busniess when I realized that my room was becoming really hot, so I opened the window. After about 30 minutes I loooked over to see a fairly large bumble bee flying into my room. I thought to myself "it wont go near my computer...would it?" and just as I thought that it took a b-line straight towards my side intake fan. Long story short the bee exploded into my computer (I have a window so I had front row seats to this) some parts being sucked into my processor fan and the majority being sucked into my psu. Shortly after I heard this loud *POP* and I quickly unpluged the computer. Upon closer inspection I found out the bee parts shorted out my psu. And it smelled HORRIBLE.

So I spent the remainder of that day cleaning up debris off the mother board and went out and bought a new power supply. I am just happy that it didnt short anything else out.

 

[tsuehpsyde]

lol, i'm glad someone enjoyed it lol. At least I got a tear from someone out of it I like UT:GOTY but on newer cards I get really strange effects (kind of like the gameplay skips slightly...makes it hard to play).

To the thread starter, sorry if we off-tracked ur thread. I also had a bad week last week....my DVD Burner decided it diddn't want to burn/read CDROMs anymore...would read DVD's but not CD"s so that's in the mail to newegg or at newegg..one of the two. Then the same damn day my dad called from work (i work with him but diddnt go that day, woke up sick as hell) and his computer up and died...so he brought it home from work, and figured it was either CPU or motherboard...then had to pick up my ex-gf (oh yeah, thats always a fun time) to meet up with her current boyfriend who's worked with computers 6+ years and swap out processors. Found out it was the motherboard, and I still have to get ahold of newegg about that. I originally was going to RMA it back and wait, but my dad has NO time for anything so we went to Best Buy and picked up an Abit board and installed that (thank god it worked and windows diddn't BSOD). Now I have to ask them to make it a refund instead of repair..but then I read they only repair defective merchandise which makes me think I have to send it in, get a new one, then send THAT back. So yeah, hoping all goes well there.....moral of this post is I feel for you and bad computer days. When they come, they come hard usually.

 

[tsuehpsyde]

Sugii, I've had the same problem myself but only with moths...My pretty blue lights attract them at night (how they get in my house I have no idea)...and I hear VRROOMMP as the fan eats it alive, then a verrrrrr as it spins back up to 'ready for another one' speed. Luckily moths are as 'chunky' as bees, and only fall to the bottom with their magical powder insides...makes me laugh kinda.

Wow, I'm going to hell.

 

[Kckazdude]

I think I have it narrowed down to the material they used to adhere the ramsinks on the card. Seems to be where the odor is strongest at anyway. Maybe tommorrow I will remember to pick up some batteries so I cna check the external temps on this card. Even after an hour of idle time, the heatsinks on the card are very warm to the touch. Playing any games is just scary right now. Am working now to raise some money to get a video card by the end of the week. Was browsing through the Hot Deals forum and found this gem of a deal. Figure I get the card and my son will get the games. Most people will be happy. WIfe is trying to leverage me for a cordless mouse and KB out of this deal as well.

 

[sugii]

Yeah, I get small moths all the time but nothing too large. This bee was pretty chunky and my vantec tornado did'nt like it all too much. Pain in the ass to clean up too. LONG LIVE DUST OFF!

ok I am done going off topic

 

[tsuehpsyde]

Well I'm glad to hear you've narrowed down the problem, and I second the notion of no-gaming until you figure it out...my case temp jumps ~10F or more when I game, but then again the CPU is under full load as well as my heat-factory called the 6800U. Good luck man..

On a side not, I think i need to make a thread about comptuer horror stories...although mine barely fits into that.

 

[Kckazdude]

Computer horror stories? Heh, that used to be front page news when Kyle was really pushing the limits on the AMD and Intel OC's. Seems like every week there was a news blurb about this or that MB burning or this or that proc burning. Nothing beats the DVD-ROM burning problem he had with the X-Box when it first came to market tho.

Personaly I have seen a HDD go up in flames in my box. That was a scary sight. Thankfully it was still under warranty. Now that I mention that, I think my Radeon is still under warranty.

 

[tsuehpsyde]

I fried a harddrive once, moving it in an open case (an old lay-down style one) because I finally got it working and was putting it into place. Apparently the bottom touched something that pissed it off and ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ is all i heard, and that nasty burning smell followed shortly after...that scared the living shit out of me tho...thankfully it was only an 8gig server drive and not my monster 160gig or something. Come to think of it, that's the same damn box I was moving something else around in, and my hand came in contact with the bottom solder points of an ethernet or dial-up modem...something like that...and sent a current thru my damn hand omfg that shit hurt so bad...but hey, the computer kept running fine.