Gassing Off - Motherboards that Smell?

dmauer asks: "I recently purchased what ought to have been my Dream Machine. An uber-fast dual Athlon with oodles of speedy RAM, a Geforce4, and a hard drive big enough to choke a horse (all in a snazzy aluminum case, even). So I get the thing home, set it up, and proceed to install Debian, making sure all my hardware is working nicely, etc., etc., and then I realize that there's a problem I hadn't anticipated. It smells." Usually when consumer electronics have a distinctive smell, something is wrong. Has anyone else run into such a problem, before? Assuming this isn't a electronic or health problem, what can one do to eliminate the odor from the immediate area without resorting to periodic fumigations?

Re:Smelly Athlons

[retrac]

Turn on your computer and leave it on for the first months constantly.

If your hardware will break it will be within this time. After the first +500hrs of burn-in most chips will last to the MTBF specified.

And everything you bought will be on at minimum 3 month warranty which you can return.

As for the smell, it might just be some grease or such from the installer in a hot part/supply. If after a couple days it doesn't go away get it looked at. If it really worries you, open the case and try to isolate the location down, see if you can visually find a busted cap.

LAter

Re:smells like what?

[dmauer]

It's a somewhat metallic smell. The supposition that it's epoxy or something from the motherboard gassing off due to the heat produced by the chips seems pretty likely. Anyway, it's not really the odor that's the problem: the real issue is that while it only slightly annoys me, my girlfriend has a pretty strong reaction to whatever it's gassing off, to the extent that it actually makes her feel sick, get a sore throat, and have trouble breathing, which Just Ain't Okay.

Someone mentioned getting the motherboard replaced: well, it's a dual athlon, and to my knowledge there's only one motherboard available with the appropriate chipset (the Asus board I have). Or is this something that actually might be different on two of the 'same' motherboard?

Thanks,
-Dan

Athlons cover

[brejc8]

A friend called me o month ago when he make him self a new computer and there was a horrible plastic burning smell. I picked off his heatsink to fing he didnt take the sticky protection of the top of the silicon. It was too late to scrape it off so I just let it burn away by running it without a heatsing for a while and the smell went. I DO NOT RECOMEND THIS!!! Dont cry when your cpu has popped.

Dual Athlon boards

[Outland Traveller]

FYI, I've had great luck with my dual athlon tyan board. It's going on 9 months uptime. So, there's choices out there if you want to look around.

Most electronics do have a smell when you first begin using them. The smell usually goes away after a week or so.

Possibly normal

[ctr2sprt]

Remember that these new-fangled CPUs, especially Athlons, run ultra-hot. This is also the case with graphics cards, RAM, motherboard chipsets, hard drives, CD-RWs... power supplies are asked to do more than in the past, so they run hotter and harder too. Even monitors can get really hot (feel the top of yours, I warm my hands on mine in the winter). Lots of electronic components get sprayed with various crap as the final stage of the packaging process, and after leaving your machine on for a few hours that stuff will start to burn off.

I'm reluctant to say it's normal, but I can definitely say that it can be normal. My monitor smelled like burning plastic for a week after I bought it, and there's certainly nothing wrong with it. (It probably was small styrofoam chunks that broke off the packaging material and slipped through the grille on top.) My computer smelled like "new electronics" for a week, because someone at the factory got thermal grease on the inside of the case and the heat just magnified the smell. Gave me horrible, splitting headaches too.

I think it's pretty common to encounter strange smells during burn-ins.

Gassing out components

[toybuilder]

Well, as others have already mentioned, new components will likely out gas during the initial operating period. There's various new rubbber and plastic parts, and there may be some pastes (like under the heatsink) and adhesives that will also release the "new car smell" from your computer.

The important thing is to recognize the normal out gassing from something that's burning. If the smell tastes burnt, investigate the smell right away. If you see any sooty deposits (especially the black kinds), things have overheated to a dangerous level.

Perhaps your manufacturer has not burned in your new machine as long as what had been the norm. Computer manufacturers used to talk about having "72 hours of burn in" or "5 days of burn in". So, maybe you're on the earlier part of the curve in amount of smell being released.

Possibly the Power Supply?

[delus10n0]

I've noticed that most of the power supply units I get (mostly Enermax) put out a strange odor (smokey smelling) for about the first week of usage. I've been told by Enermax that this is normal and just a "burn in" (no pun intended) period for the electronics inside.

Perhaps this is what you are smelling, and not a motherboard or CPU. I've never had one of those smell. Just my power supply.

Nope

[TheOnlyCoolTim]

To protect the thermal paste during shipping, there is a little removable plastic film over it. It is similar to the plastic bits that you peel off of a band-aid before applying it.

Tim

Re:smells like what?

[Perdo]

Turn your oven to 100 degrees F, use a thermometer to insure that is actually 100 degrees F. Prepare a cookie sheet with a half inch layer of baking soda and a half inch layer of sand on top of the soda. Place the offending circuit board component side down on the sand bed. Insure that there are no insulated wires in with it (remove the northbridge cooler). Cook for 24 hours. Raise temp to 140 for another 48 hours.

The board did not get cooked long enough at the fab to get all the flux out of the soldier. It will not last long without a good cooking. The soldier will be very prone to cracking until the board is properly cooked.

DO NOT try to accelerate the process by using higher heat. The plastic components will melt. this is normally done before the capacitors are mounted so be SURE not to exceed 140 F.

Let it cool at 100 F for 4 hours then cool overnight with oven powered off still on it's sandbed until the thermometer is reading same as ambient air temprature.

Clean Oven before and after. Use the vent fan the entire time the process is running. Failure rate should be 5-15%. Boot the board clean (no components, CPU, memory) listen for no CPU beep code, add processor, listen for no memory beep code, add memory, listen for no video beep code, and video card etc...

The sand bed is hazardous waste. Flux, while a paste at room temperature, is an acid when heated.

Re:Athlons cover

[shepd]

>It was too late to scrape it off so I just let it burn away by running it without a heatsing for a while and the smell went. I DO NOT RECOMEND THIS!!!

Neither do I or Tom's Hardware.

It takes 3 seconds to set an Athlon on fire.

Don't do this folks. Just _very_ carefully scrape it away if you screw up like this instead...

Re:smells like what?

[Jerf]

Better yet, if that's REALLY the problem (no experience, no knowlege, no judgement intended), return it and get your money back. That's a just-plain shoddy product and you should not be required to take the risks involved in following that procedure in your home (both to your health and the health of the motherboard) when you don't have the proper equipment.

It may even just be a bad batch of motherboards that was shipped out improperly processed.

Common problem

[Anonymous Codger]

Nearly all new electronic equipment outgasses for awhile, especially while running. I've noticed it with TVs, VCRs, my DVD player, stereos, and computers. I'm sure the fumes are quite toxic, like the fumes that give us new car smell - shown to be carcinogenic.

My wife is very sensitive to chemicals in the environment (yeah, smartass, I know the environment is made of chemicals, you know what I mean). Almost three years ago she bought a new Viewsonic 17" monitor. It smelled so bad when running that it gave her massive migraines. I took it to work and left it running on my development system for 6 months, and it still smelled. Then she loaned it to a friend who used it for a year and a half. We just took it back a few weeks ago and it's just about usable now.

One thing that helps is to place bags of Zeolite on top of the monitor. This is a rare earth substance that absorbs odors and chemicals in the air. We also use these in our new car. Google will find it for you.