Smoke from the Motherboard!

Since the begining of this month (MAY) , I started to get "BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH or BSOD" , when I play games or other heavy duties And sometimes in idle. I re-installed XP by thinking it was an OS issue. But BSOD continued with freezes and crashes.
From the past 1 week, Whenever the computer starts, atleast 1 of the hardware won't load its driver. For eg: Videocard, Soundcard...etc. If they both load their drivers, AVG Antivirus doesn't work. Guessing that it was a virus, I tried to re-install AVG, but during the next bootup it won't go beyond the windows loading screen and simply restarts! Then I thought of re-installing XP, but during installation it won't copy some of the files from the CD to Harddisk. Tried it with another CD, didn't help! Got another CD-ROM and tried, didn't help! Finally I installed XP through network!!! And What? Antivirus won't load during start-up...Most of the softwares can't be installed as their services couldn't be started/loaded...
I couldn't take it anymore!!! I got memtest86 on a floppy and checked for RAM errors....got a hell of a lot of errors on it...I was very happy to find that and went straight to the shop to get a brand new ram. When I came back and pressed the power button the comp, It just wouldn't switch on (this is even before opening the case or putting the new RAM). I opened up the case to see what was going on inside and guess what I found??? SMOKE!!! :angry: coming from Motherboard!!!
Now Tell Me , Who Was The Real Culprit Here??? Motherboard/PSU/Memory/Harddisk/Processor/Videocard ???
Please Help!!!




Specs:
Processor: AMD Athlon X2 4400+
Motherboard: Gigabyte (GA-M55S-S3) [Nforce 550]
Videocard: Powercolor Radeon X1950 pro 512mb
Harddisk: Samsung 200Gb
RAM: Corsair 1024mb 667mhz
PSU: POWERMAN Modelno:IP-S450Q3-0 450W Output
OS: Windows XP

 

It is possible that the original problem that led to all your woes was a clogged or inoperable fan.
Dust accumulates around fan grills and if it gets totally clogged then things start to overheat. It is possible that a fan (most likely your PSU fan) stopped cooling and you fried at least one component of your system.
A thorough cleaning might fix this, but more likely by now the damage is irreparable.
Sorry.

 

Yup.
I suspect the memory may have been the original problem, or possibly the motherboard. But running a PC for an extended time when there's obviously a hardware problem is not a real good idea. But when smoke appears, it's too late. You can test the power supply with a volt meter (search Google for a how-to) and carefully examine the motherboard and each device for obviously burnt/damaged components. Capacitors exploding are a common cause of smoke, so look at the capacitors for brown/black crud leaking out, 'popped' tops on the capacitors, etc....
If the motherboard was the cause, and is under 1 year old, it might be covered by warranty. Contact the manufacturer for details.

 

I tried AVG anti-virus and had nothing but problems with it! that program messed up my system as soon as I installed it. Computer crashes, frozen everything....just like that. I uninstalled it and actually purchased Norton 360. Did all the cleaning things (de-frag, registry cleaner, removed junk files, stored all music, movies and pictures on external) Loaded Norton 360 and did a complete scan...Never had one problem yet. I do get a (this program will not respond) "ccServHst" I asked around and got a link and did some research, I guess that is a common problem with Norton. But, happy to say no more crashes yet!

The whole smoke on the motherboard thing...well might wanna start searching for a new one. If it works now...It won't work fro very longrolleyes

 

I always monitor system temps by using something like EVEREST:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

Freezes and crashes are "very often" caused by achieving an upper Temp Threshold and the PC will shut down to preserve hardware. Once you have isolated that it is indeed a hardware issue you can then begin assess the potential component (as you did with the RAM). Sadly without seeing the whole incident I cant isolate which was the potential causal agent. But it certainly seems that it was more than just the RAM!