ah crap! 9860 on her last voyage

last night the laptop could not keep charging the battery. i touched the power connector right where it meets the plug-in on the laptop thinking it was not plugged in all the way and it was scorching hot. moments later the smell of burned electronics filled the room and i saw smoke rise from the keyboard!

i shut it down and took out the battery and left it on the countertop overnight. i am at work now with the laptop plugged in (without the battery in) and can still smell that burnt electronic smell, althouth not as strong as last night. power cord tip is not hot like it was last night.

hhhmm, not sure what to do. thinking of taking it fully apart but not sure what that will do....maybe to amuse myself or something. the damn laptop is a fighter alright. i never had a piece of electronics fry like this one did. it's another motherboard issue for sure. i am going to have to have to upgrade to a 9890 with new mobo and gpu for $1,000 or purchase the newer model D900C.

ggaaah! there is that burnt smell again. the ship is taking on water!

i must add that this laptop has been running almost 18 hours a day every day for the past 2.5 years and never had to rma or repair it.

 

might be time to send her to the depths...smoke rising from the keyboard sounds insane...you should have gotten video of it....

anyway, you certainly seem to have gotten your use out of it, as you have had it running for approximately 16,000 hours of use out of it...is there a particular reason you don't want to move to the next one?

 

the smoke was fairly light and it was at night time so a camcorder may not have picked it up. it was almost like a light cigarrete smoke for a few seconds.

i am reluctant to move up to the new series D900 laptops as i am waiting for quad core and 8800 series gpu, honestly. plus the older D900 series had more connections and ports with dual drive bays. the new series skimps on this connectivity in favor of sli which i think hurts clevos market as it only favors gamers and hard core benchmark enthusiasts while it leaves professional users hanging. so it is a tough decision for me.

the burnt smell is comming from the front of the laptop. i smell it from the gpu exhaust vent. something got fried, i just don't know what. i am hoping it is only something to due with the battery area (which i can live without). i would probably have to open her up and snoop around.

 

well i took it apart and found where it blew. i think it controls the battery charge or something related ot the battery. i will just the laptop without the battery it seems.

i got 2 issues when i put the laptop back together. it appears i had to re-seat the ram numerous times as it refused to boot up. and i applied some old arctic silver 3 compound. problem is that the laptop overheats and shuts down unless i run the fans at full blast. i thought i was putting better thermal compound than the old gunk that was on there but either the AS3 expired (its about 7 years old) or something aint right...

my main worry is if this thing has the potential of catching on fire or something hazardous. the part that fried is leaking electricity i believe as i can still smell it burnt.

 

One word: Owch .

About the overheating issue. Well, whatever compund you use if the heatsink is badly seated on the CPU it will do that. There must be moderate pressure of the HS on the CPU and the thermal grease must just fill in the micro gap due to the HS machining. So if there is one tiny gap between HS and CPU, it will overheat.

But, the thing is I never dissabled my laptop HS so I can't help you more... Just review your HS assembly.

 

i went out and got some generic thermal compound from tiger direct and it solved the issue. so i conclude that yes, arctic silver 3, (or any thermal compound) does expire.