So my computer caught fire.....

[Jesus_marley]

or more specifically, the video card in the computer.

It all started when I turned on the computer hoping to check my email. In addition to the healthy blue glow that my computer emits when it is running, I happened to notice a startlingly UNhealthy orange glow emanating from the vicinity of my video card. This was followed by an even more startlingly unhealthy smell of burning circuitry.

Having never before experienced spontaneous cyber-combustion, I did what any self respecting person would do. I stared at it for a few valuable seconds completely stupified as to what the hell was happening. After my brain finally registered FIRE!, I uttered numerous oaths and invocations of Gods both Living and dead (albeit using rather flowery speech) and proceeded to disconnect the power as fast as possible.

Fortunately, having successfully removed the offending piece of hardware, (and thanks to onboard video), I rebooted the computer and it would appear that no permanent damage was caused to the system as a whole. Of course now I have the perfect excuse to upgrade to a better card.
I took a picture of the traitorous card. Although it is a bit blurry (camera phone), I marked the points of interest.

 

[Umbran]

Aww, too bad. You let the Magic Smoke out!

 

[trancejeremy]

I had that happen way, way back in high school. I was taking this "Science and Computers" class, which was basically a lab class where we did experiments with various instruments hooked up to computers. This was back in the mid 80s, before things like USB ports, so all the gizmos had to be attached to the insde of the computer (Apple IIs), often just sticking pins in. Apparently I had shorted something out, because one of them caught on fire. Thankfully though, other than some smoke and a little melting, all was okay.

 

[SteelDraco]

I've let the Magic Smoke out of a system before, but it wasn't a full-fledged computer. Just my class project for a Digital Logic Design course. The power supplies we used in the class were variable power supplies, from quite small (3.3V, probably, though it's been long enough that I'm not sure) up to well above normal computer power levels - I think they went to fifty volts. I forgot to check when I plugged in my board one day, and ran the max amount of power from the supply into it. There was a nice little POP as the whole board went kaput. And yep, the Magic Smoke came pouring out.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

I did not have a video card catch fire, but I did have my ATi videocard melt one of its fans off before. I think the culprit was a combination of poor ventilation + Sid Meir's Pirates. I started getting lots of stray polygons until I took a look inside my computer one day and saw a cooling fan from the videocard sitting on the bottom of the case with a bit of visible heat warping.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Lockridge]

Wow, I've had a powerbox blow on me but not a circuit board.

What type of video card was it? It sounds like you had only just turned it on. I might expect this if you were playing a game for several hours in a badly ventilated room.