Motherboard Overheating? Chemical Smell?

Mr Jones

Member
Hello, don't post here often as I've rarely had a problem! But over the past 2 weeks my PC has encountered problems, whenever I would update or download anything everything would start to freeze to the point it was unusable followed by a BSOD. It's gotten to the point now where it'll struggle to run for even 10 minutes, if not less. I've checked over everything and could not find the solution, I reinstalled Windows just to make sure it wasn't windows, but the problem would persist.

After giving up I decided to take my PC to a technician and he checked it over for me. He said he couldn't find any problems but there was a chemical smell coming from the bottom of my motherboard. He said it was most probably this causing the crashing. The ome year warranty policy has sadly just finished this month therefore I see no point in me directly contacting PcSpecialist about some sort of help.

Is there anyway to make sure it is my motherboard before I have to splash out for another or is there some sort of other solution? Any additional information that is needed can be provided.
(I'm posting this late at night so replies to responses may be slow)
 
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Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
The ome year warranty policy has sadly just finished this month therefore I see no point in me directly contacting PcSpecialist about some sort of help.
You should absolutely contact PC Specialist for some kind of help.

Firstly they'll still provide help troubleshooting and help to rule out other possible issues. The basic parts warranty is only 1 year but they provide lifetime hardware technical support. It says so on the warranty page :)
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/warranty/

Second, manufacturers sometimes can be flexible with the warranty period. I'm not saying PCS will be, just that you can get lucky and they'll help out beyond the limit especially if it's borderline.

Third, almost all PC components have their own warranty apart from the PCS one, and this is often longer than 1 year. Motherboards will typically be 2 or 3 years. You may be able to access this directly from the manufacturer yourself, but PCS may also be able to handle that RMA for you, if an RMA is needed. Although PCS's parts warranty period is over, Gigabyte/Asus's might still apply.

So PCS can tech support you and if there is a hardware fault they may be able to RMA your mobo for you - or you may be able to do that yourself.

What is the full spec of your system?

Have you used software like HWinfo to monitor temperatures for the CPU, the GPU, etc?

Depending on your spec, it could be worth removing everything not strictly necessary to run the PC e.g. the graphics card and seeing if the problem persists. A smell from near the bottom of the motherboard could be the PSU if it's down there. Would help to know the spec.
 
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ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
I agree with Oussebon, a 'chemical smell' is worrying and a call to PCS would be my first move.

What BSODs did you get? Was it always the same one each time, or were they different? Did you get a memory dump from any of them, if so can you post it (or a link to one) on here and we'll take a look for you.
 
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