Hi. I occasionally blow some compressed air into my PSU for light cleaning reasons. When I do, I gently use a toothpick to keep the fan from spinning while I use the compressed air. Well this time, and I can't believe I did this, I forgot to take the toothpick out. So for 2-3 hours I played games with it like this she I only even noticed Hi. I occasionally blow some compressed air into my PSU for light cleaning reasons. When I do, I gently use a toothpick to keep the fan from spinning while I use the compressed air. Well this time, and I can't believe I did this, I forgot to take the toothpick out. So for 2-3 hours I played games with it like this where the fan cannot spin. I only even noticed when I left for 5 minutes and came back and noticed there was a fairly strong somewhat burn-like or hot-smelling smell. At first I didn't think it was my computer because my temperature and performance that entire time was 100% great and as expected, but then I noticed my mistake. The toothpick didn't seem to be burned. It wasn't very deep in the PSU. Although the PSU was hot to the touch and hurt slightly when I touched it. The PSU is fairly old at around 6-8 years old already and that's why I clean it so regularly, so I'm pretty worried right now. Can anyone advise me on what I should do/check to know if I can continue to use my PSU without risk of damaging my other components or anything else? I really don't want to have to rewire everything with a new PSU... EDIT: One clarification, it never shut itself off or showed and sign of issue other than the smell and physical temperature. I manually shutdown as soon as I noticed

psu Made stupid mistake and ran with PSU very hot - Need advice

By NCSGeek
March 2, 2023 in Troubleshooting

Go to solution Solved by Godlygamer23, March 2, 2023

2 hours ago, NCSGeek said:

I ran the first like 5 minutes of Time Spy and the fan seemed like maybe it's broken.

Unless this is normal behavior- I've never looked this closely before. I doubt it though. Thoughts?

It shouldn't be doing that. The fan motor is probably destroyed now unfortunately.

Posted March 3, 2023

47 minutes ago, NCSGeek said:

That'd be more of a relief then I can express. I'm realized that in order to install a new PSU, I'd have to basically rebuild the entire PC.

I'll continue to monitor it and hopefully the smell will fade.

Thanks for all of your help/time.

Happy to help!

Hopefully it continues to work!

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