Bought this pc, has a smell

Hi Guys,

First of all, I purchased this pc second hand recently. Was wondering if it was a good deal :-

CPU: Intel I3 6100

Ram: Corsair V16GB 2133mhz

MainBoard: MSI 150B Arctic

HDD: NO HDD

Video Card :Sapphire Nitro+ rx 480 8GB OC SR

PSU: Corsair RM 850x

Case: Corsair 400c

Cooling: Corsair Liquid CPU Cooler

7x Aero CoolDead Silent


I got it for 650$, It was apparently about 7-8 months old.

Thing i noticed was when i open the case or get up close to it, It has a smell. Not overwhelming or terrible, but i was trying to pick out what the smell was as it doesnt have the electronic type smell but was something else i had sort of smelt before.

Then i realised it smells i think like cigarette smoke / as in second hand smoke. I dont smoke so i cant be sure but i think thats what it is. Is that why when a lot of people sell items they say non-smoking household etc, I never realised smoking can actually make electronic items around you smell of it as well. I presume maybe the guy used to smoke indoors? Like i said its not that bad or terrible or anything like that, just was a bit surprised i could smell it when i put my head into the case.

 

Smoke gets in everywhere basically but its even worse in fan-forced things like computers.. What you can probably do though is wipe the inside of the case which should get rid of a lot of it.. ALso check the case fans for gunk buildup.

 

umm anyone who is on these forums, probably tinkers with their pcs hence opening up the case and working on it.

 

Spray perfume around the intake and then it'll smell like merky stale perfume/cigarette smoke, kind of like women on the gold coast

 

where is the smell the strongest...? can use a leaf blower to blow out most of the dust. smokers residue is harder to get rid off.

cant go spraying stuff on electrical components. (except for purpose made cans of compressed air. better off with an electric leaf blower.

if you wanna clean out the case and fans with damp cloth (not wet!; damp) to remove crud. have to remove motherboard and various components, completely disconnected from power obviously. dont touch any components with dampness....obviously.
common sense. i wipe things like fans with a damp cloth....

but blow out the dust first. all dry. with blower. its fast and effective.

 

Who'd have thunk that?


/whoosh.

 

I've had a few PCs like this - even my dad's used to reek of stale cigarette smoke whenever I'd work on the inside of it.

Does it have dust buildup inside? That will be the biggest "holder" of the smoke smell. Check inside and give it a vacuum/blow out depending on what you have available. Pay special attention to the PSU as that can be filled with dust bunnies and harbour a lot of the smell.

Eventually with use it will disappear but it will go much quicker if you get rid of as much dust from the inside.

 

Get the PC, unplug the power cord. Let it sit for a couple minutes just so excess power dissipates a little (not sure if that actually does anything but I do it lol)

Take it outside, take off the side panel where the components are. And with either a can of compressed air, a vacuum set to blow or even a leaf blower try to get rid of any dust.
Pay particular attention to the fans. And any dust that is being stubborn use a soft bristled paint brush to loosen it, then hit it with the air again.

This will be you.



I really cannot think of as reason why it would smell, unless something is burning or the owner used it as a easy bake oven. Who knows maybe there is dog hair or something heating up and causing a smell. But cleaning it out is what you should do.

 

I havent even turned it on, so its not heating up or anything burning. Its just like all the parts and things seem to have absorbed the smell. Its not super strong but whenever i go close to it or am working in side the case, i can smell it.

There is some dust but not heaps, It seems to have some dust filters on the top of the case which isnt like normal filter material but thicker and flexible, i might try wiping those things down as well as parts of the case where there arent any electrical parts. And the rest i will try using a blower.

Maybe i should put up some pics of it.

Also what did you guys think of the price i paid?

 

In the future don’t buy secondhand pc without smelling it first

 

Haha, Yeah I never realised why people would state non-smoking household till i came across this. Never had anything like this happen before.

 

Back when smoking was still permitted on aircraft, I had to clean the electronics before repair. Often cleaning was the repair... Some of it would come in with cm high piles of tar on it. In a few cases, that was all that was holing some of the components on the board, it had eaten through the leads...

Way, WAY back, we used a 3 stage system. Wash in water, rinse in absolute ethanol, rinse in freon. Then freon was banned & ethanol was deemed too toxic. So we went to water & isopyropyl alcohol, as it dries without a residue. Then into an oven at 80C for 30 minutes.

If you want to really clean it, take anti static precautions, (static strap, earthed surface to work on, etc), thoroughly wash in metho, (as a substitute for isopropyl it works well & is cheap), rinse with clean metho & allow to dry. If you have an oven that you can set to 70-80C, that's great for drying afterwards. Let it all cool brfore reassembling & powering up. Regardless of killing electronics for running when too hot, you won't burn your fingers while reassembling.

Note: Some things REALLY don't like solvents. The tracks in most keyboards, for example, will be washed away, just by rinsing with metho as the printed track on mylar is soluable. Normal printed circuits are typically fine & I've never had any issues with them. You can wash pretty much any electronics in water, as long as you dry it out completely before powering on. That's half the reason for isopropyl or metho, a rinse with that will remove most of the water after the initial wash. The other half is to dry without leaving a residue.

I had a friend who smoked a lot at his computer & had a CRT monitor. Turn off the lights & you could see, as well as hear the arcing from the HT lead on the back of the CRT. The ozone smell from it was another giveaway...

 

Good thing you don't have tar + dust buildup inside the PC. I've done some service to client servers and PC's in the past and my god the tar buildup in them was up to extreme levels along with the smell.

 

I bought a full build from a bloke here back in 2012 (still use most of it actually). When I turned it on and the fan kicked in, it smelled amazing, like some sort of amazing cologne or something had been sprayed inside it? No idea. I really wanted to PM the guy and asked him what cologne he wore/if he knew what was in there it smelled so nice, but I thought that would be kinda weird. lol

 

I wanna buy Cheech and Chong's old computer

 

Ewwww, and have it smell like your mums bedroom? Yeah ummm no thanks

 

Yes, it isn't just "dust" that you get from cigarette smoke, it is a slimy coating of yellow/brown gunge. It infuses everything and stains everything.

Edit: You might try some nilodor on a cotton ball in there overnight. Might help.

 

I personally just unplug the PC and then press the power button, usually drains any excess power and causes the fans to spin for a split second.

Yeah. Gave up smoking years ago.
I recently opened up a box with old computer components in it from that era... Boy did it smell musky.
Everything gets covered in a yellow film.

You should try cleaning a stoners PC. Puts a cigarette smokers tar buildup to shame.
The oil is thick, sticky and stinks and combines with the actual dust... One machine was so thick with the stuff that the motherboard couldn't pick up the GPU or Ram until I cleaned the slots and connectors with rubbing alcohol.

Then I had to have a shower afterwards as I was all sticky and gross. NEVER again.

 

i've used metho and a soft paintbrush (as mentioned above the metho or isopropyl dries real quick anyway...but i dont know whether that would damage anything. my dad used to do it and he was an electrician / computer guy...