PC Smoke

On Tue, 3 May 2016, philo wrote:

On 05/03/2016 01:43 PM, OG wrote:
There a sound level detectors for locating sound.
There are infrared detectors for location heat.
There are volt meters for detecting voltages.
There are scopes for detecting waveforms.

Are there smell detectors for locating burned components?





Yes. Your eyes

I thought it was your nose.

Michael

On 03/05/2016 18:49, OG wrote:


I have smelled that smell before.


Did you try changing your nose? Of course, I assume you still have a
nose intact.

xposting to useless newsgroups removed to avoid further trolling by OG
(Own Goal)

On 04/05/16 07:57, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Tue, 3 May 2016 11:43:52 -0700, OG wrote:

There a sound level detectors for locating sound.
There are infrared detectors for location heat.
There are volt meters for detecting voltages.
There are scopes for detecting waveforms.

Are there smell detectors for locating burned components?

Yes. I had the displeasure of locating the source of a burning smell
among a collection of immovable servers in a server farm. To make
matters worse, there was lots of cooling air flow to disperse the
smell. If there was any smoke, I couldn't see it.
So, I stuck a clear vinyl hose in my nose, and waved the other end of
the hose around

A vinyl tube in the ear is the best way of locating strange noises in
your car's engine bay too.

On Tue, 3 May 2016 11:43:52 -0700, OG wrote:

There a sound level detectors for locating sound.
There are infrared detectors for location heat.
There are volt meters for detecting voltages.
There are scopes for detecting waveforms.

Are there smell detectors for locating burned components?

Yes. I had the displeasure of locating the source of a burning smell
among a collection of immovable servers in a server farm. To make
matters worse, there was lots of cooling air flow to disperse the
smell. If there was any smoke, I couldn't see it.

So, I stuck a clear vinyl hose in my nose, and waved the other end of
the hose around the fan exit ports on the servers. That isolated the
smell to one server. I got permission to shut it down. However, when
I opened the case, I couldn't see anything obviously burning. So, I
did the vinyl hose trick again, and eventually isolated the smoke to
the power supply. I didn't want to do component level troubleshooting
so I just replaced the power supply.

Somewhat later, I bought am "air quality monitor".
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/crud/Nikken-AQM.jpg
It's quite sensitive and will easily detect the smoke from a burning
component. That came in handy when I noticed that something smelled
like it was burning in my palatial office. I waved it around to sniff
the various likely culprits and eventually isolated the smoke to the
APC BackUPS XS-1000 in the photo. Notice the bar graph showing tilt.

Here's what's inside the Nikken AQM:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/Nikken%201394%20Air%20Quality%20Monitor/
Inside IR dust scattering sensor:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/Nikken%201394%20Air%20Quality%20Monitor/Nikken-AQM-08.jpg


--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Tue, 3 May 2016 16:27:37 -0400, Michael Black wrote:

On Tue, 3 May 2016, philo wrote:
Yes. Your eyes

I thought it was your nose.
Michael

If your nose runs, and your feet smell, you're built upside down.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

In article ple.org,
says...

On Tue, 3 May 2016, philo wrote:

On 05/03/2016 01:43 PM, OG wrote:
There a sound level detectors for locating sound.
There are infrared detectors for location heat.
There are volt meters for detecting voltages.
There are scopes for detecting waveforms.

Are there smell detectors for locating burned components?





Yes. Your eyes

I thought it was your nose.

Michael

Years ago a colleague had a pimple on the end of his nose which he
claimed made it much more sensitive and discriminating for detecting
overheated components...

Mike.

A vinyl tube in the ear is the best way of locating strange noises in
your car's engine bay too.

I already have a stethoscope for listening to mechanicals.
Used it to isolate a noise under the hood.


--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

On 05/03/2016 04:27 PM, Clifford Heath wrote:
On 04/05/16 07:57, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Tue, 3 May 2016 11:43:52 -0700, OG wrote:

There a sound level detectors for locating sound.
There are infrared detectors for location heat.
There are volt meters for detecting voltages.
There are scopes for detecting waveforms.

Are there smell detectors for locating burned components?

Yes. I had the displeasure of locating the source of a burning smell
among a collection of immovable servers in a server farm. To make
matters worse, there was lots of cooling air flow to disperse the
smell. If there was any smoke, I couldn't see it.
So, I stuck a clear vinyl hose in my nose, and waved the other end of
the hose around

A vinyl tube in the ear is the best way of locating strange noises in
your car's engine bay too.



yep that's the old trick I used to balance the dual SU carburetors on my
'59 Triumph

On Tue, 3 May 2016 11:43:52 -0700 "OG" wrote in
article

Are there smell detectors for locating burned components?

Yes. They are called "smoke detectors" and you probably have several in
your house alread!

snark off

On 4/05/2016 3:49 AM, OG wrote:
Quad Core Desktop Windows 7 PC been running for several days.
Today plug and unplugged USB drives to make a copy to USB Drive.

Started the copy and the screen went blank and the room filled with
smoke. Smelled like burning resistor (I think). I have smelled that
smell before.

Turned off the PC power.
Turned on the fans to get the smoke out.
Smoke detectors did not alert.

What are typical failures to look for?

Please give suggestions.
First I need to figure out how to get the cover off.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

Check the smoke Detectors in your house. with that much smoke they
should have gone off.

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Maurice Helwig
~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Wed, 4 May 2016 15:48:55 +1000, Maurice Helwig
wrote:

Check the smoke Detectors in your house. with that much smoke they
should have gone off.

It's not the quantity of smoke, it's how long the PC continues to
smoke that makes household detectors go off. I have a smoke detector
in my office and home shop. Neither has ever been triggered by
transcient smoke signals. Figure on about 15 minutes for ionization
and 3 minutes for photoelectric:
http://whnt.com/2012/07/16/smoke-detector-fail-a-taking-action-investigation/
Anyway, a smoke detector is useless for finding the source of the
smoke, such as a hot component in the PC. For that, you would need a
smoke locator such as an IR camera.


--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

snip
yep that's the old trick I used to balance the dual SU carburetors on my
'59 Triumph

AKA as garden hose. Cheaper than a stethoscope.

X


Garden hose is too wide, just a small tube will do

Interesting facts wrong but its ok
most good smoke detectors like first alert the only brand i use i have the
combo detector both ionization and photoelectric hard wired with battery
back up unit.
But even my battery only ionization unit that is directly over the pc went
off once when a test power supply blew a resistor and the smoke set it off
before i could even get to the window to open it to vent the smoke out of
the room
how fast they react ALL DEPENDS on 2 Things AGE OF UNIT all units should be
replaced EVERY 10 YEARS. in fact in my state and city it's a code
requirement.
Second is brand of unit if you get the cheap 8 dollar one at the dollar
store yes it wont react as good as the brand name first alert that costs you
20 or more dollars.
that is a proven fact.
But the 8 dollar one will go off if you boil water on the stove the better
unit wont


--
AL'S COMPUTERS
"Jeff Liebermann" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 4 May 2016 15:48:55 +1000, Maurice Helwig
wrote:

Check the smoke Detectors in your house. with that much smoke they
should have gone off.

It's not the quantity of smoke, it's how long the PC continues to
smoke that makes household detectors go off. I have a smoke detector
in my office and home shop. Neither has ever been triggered by
transcient smoke signals. Figure on about 15 minutes for ionization
and 3 minutes for photoelectric:
http://whnt.com/2012/07/16/smoke-detector-fail-a-taking-action-investigation/
Anyway, a smoke detector is useless for finding the source of the
smoke, such as a hot component in the PC. For that, you would need a
smoke locator such as an IR camera.


--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On 5/05/2016 3:57 PM, Andy wrote:
Interesting facts wrong but its ok
most good smoke detectors like first alert the only brand i use i have the
combo detector both ionization and photoelectric hard wired with battery
back up unit.
But even my battery only ionization unit that is directly over the pc went
off once when a test power supply blew a resistor and the smoke set it off
before i could even get to the window to open it to vent the smoke out of
the room
how fast they react ALL DEPENDS on 2 Things AGE OF UNIT all units should be
replaced EVERY 10 YEARS. in fact in my state and city it's a code
requirement.
Second is brand of unit if you get the cheap 8 dollar one at the dollar
store yes it wont react as good as the brand name first alert that costs you
20 or more dollars.
that is a proven fact.
But the 8 dollar one will go off if you boil water on the stove the better
unit wont


We had smoke detectors in the control room at work that would activate
the fire alarm when the boss would puff on his pipe. If they did not
then they were replaced Those were the days before smoking was banned in
all buildings and workp laces.

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Maurice Helwig
~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Thu, 5 May 2016 01:57:07 -0400, "Andy" wrote:

Interesting facts wrong but its ok

Nice diplomacy, but they're either facts, or they're wrong. Can't
have both.

most good smoke detectors like first alert the only brand i use i have the
combo detector both ionization and photoelectric hard wired with battery
back up unit.

The combo units are best. The photoelectric detectors are faster but
ionization detectors are more sensitive. The combination also
decreases false alarms as a real fire will trigger both, but chemical
and condensation problems will only trigger one or the other.

But even my battery only ionization unit that is directly over the pc went
off once when a test power supply blew a resistor and the smoke set it off
before i could even get to the window to open it to vent the smoke out of
the room

Egads. How much smoke did this resistor generate? What physical size
resistor? When I get a resistor too hot, it usually makes a small
puff of smoke before it blows. Unless it were wrapped in an oily rag
or the resistor was unusually large, there's not enough material in a
small ( 1/4 watt) resistor to produce much smoke.

how fast they react ALL DEPENDS on 2 Things AGE OF UNIT all units should be
replaced EVERY 10 YEARS. in fact in my state and city it's a code
requirement.

Yep. However, the problem was not delay time or sensitivity. It was
that many battery powered smoke alarms were just sitting there with
dead batteries. Replacing the battery once per year was considered a
major imposition to many homeowners. To solve that problem, the
manufacturers were required to install use a non-replaceable Lithium
battery, in trade for requiring the homeowner to buy all new battery
operated smoke detectors.

Second is brand of unit if you get the cheap 8 dollar one at the dollar
store yes it wont react as good as the brand name first alert that costs you
20 or more dollars.
that is a proven fact.

Well, I prefer Kidde brand to First Alert. The main reason is that I
wanted a photoelectric detector with built in carbon monoxide
detection ability. I also wanted something that would not false on
kitchen cooking and my wood burning stove. I picked the Kidde Model
P3010K-CO ($40) for the house and shop:
http://www.kidde.com/home-safety/en/us/products/fire-safety/smoke-alarms/p3010k-co/
Ask me in about 8 years and I'll let you know how well they work. I
tested one with a galvanized pail full of newspapers. About 4 minutes
for the alarm to sound. So far, no falsing from normal cooking or the
woodburner. However, when I accidentally set fire to a yam in the
microwave, it set off the alarm in about 1 minute after I removed it
from the oven:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/drivel/slides/burned-yam.html
In both cases, the house was full of smoke before the alarm finally
went off.

You might be interested in these stories. The first is from 2007 and
is very much out of date. Yet many people still have similar old
smoke alarms. Newer alarms are allegedly faster to respond:
"Deadly Delay"
http://www.wthr.com/global/Story.asp?s=6552929
Notice that the fastest response was 16 minutes. See Part 2 at:
http://www.wthr.com/global/Story.asp?s=6554435
Test results
Test #1
First Alert dual sensor 18:00
First Alert photoelectric 23:38
First Alert ionization 33:45

Kidde ionization 27:16
Kidde dual sensor 28:50
Kidde photoelectric 29:30

Test #2
First Alert photoelectric 16:21
First Alert dual sensor 16:38
First Alert ionization 42:10

Kidde photoelectric 33:30
Kidde dual sensor 34:30
Kidde ionization 38:39

In 2012, the station continued the smoke detector campaign and
testing:
http://whnt.com/2012/07/16/smoke-detector-fail-a-taking-action-investigation/
The final result AFTER smoke was present:
Ionization: 17:00 minutes
Photoelectric: 2:48 seconds
Much better, methinks.

But the 8 dollar one will go off if you boil water on the stove the better
unit wont



--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558