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overheating issues?
The first chunk of paragraph is basically how my computer got to be the way it is now through my (regretfully) lack of concern for it. My main questions are in the second paragraph/part.
My younger cousin plays the Sims 2 and all of its expansions on a secondary hard drive on my computer. She's been complaining about random reboots and such, although I wasn't so worried about it because it was an older hard drive and about to crap out on itself anyway. So the game, including all of it's expansions, is like 8-10 gigs, not including all the mods and crap that she's downloaded for the game. Yesterday, the hard drive completely fried and killed not only itself, but I'm pretty certain it really hurt some other parts of my computer as well. The area smelled a little smokey when I bent down to turn the computer back on for her, so my first reaction was to rip out all the cords and open the case. Nothing looked damaged - I spent a good hour or two taking out some of the parts so I could get a better look at everything. I rebooted my computer and it quickly went through some sort of error screen too fast for me to read and when everything was done and loaded, some errors popped up showing that I was apparently missing some "key" files or components. So far, my computer runs just fine and it doesn't seem like I really needed those "key" files, althrough I will wipe my computer clean and reinstall everything soon, just in case.
So is it my hard drive's fault that my computer smelled smokey when it fried, or is it overheating issues? Is it even possible for a secondary hard drive to damage some "key" files? I was under the impression that when a hard drive died, it just died along with everything that was stored on it, but it wouldn't necessarily harm other components of the computer as well. Just to put this whole mess into perspective, my computer has pretty good specs and can run AoC smoothly at its highest settings. If it is an overheating issue, does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should upgrade to or install to help? I have a very extensive fan-cooling system that I'm pretty fond of because water + my computer scares me, but I know the next step up would be to upgrade to a water-cooling system. How much would it cost to upgrade to an internal water-cooling system, and is it easy to install? How often do internal-cooling systems leak? Would an external water-cooling system be a better upgrade, or can they not hold the temperature down when playing high preformance games?
Thanks in advance 
Comments
You really have told us nothing about your system. Any hardware part failing can cause a multitude of problems. My concern with the smokey smell is that it usually involves the mobo, procesor, vid card or PSU.
Dunno so much about the hard drive. Then again, saying you have an "extensive cooling solution" really doesn't tell us anything.
Post your system specs, your case, what fans you have, psu, everything.
I am not a professional but it sounds like your cooling is perfectly fine. To be honest, it sounds like an issue I had a while back with a faulty power supply. I'd be playing a game and it would be fine, and an hour into it, the whole thing would randomly reboot. Over time, the reboots became more and more frequent, until it would stay on barely 30 seconds and reboot itself. It's possible that your power supply dropping power suddenly (or sending extra power inadvertently) could damage parts of your hard drive, but if the hard drive itself were faulty you would have much more serious problems.
Before you rush out and replace it though, how much power does your current power supply push out?
First paragraph doesn't matter so I'm not going to really comment on that.
Secondly, Hard drives can go "bad" in a lot of different ways, and depending on what its doing will depend on whats actually wrong with it. If its whining, being loud, or grinding then its probably the arm, if its just moving slowly it could be something simple like a few bad sectors. If the drive is overheating usually it will give you a blue screen error. I don't believe I've seen a hard drive actually overheat to the point of smoking before though but I won't say it can't happen --- --- especially with older hard drives.
I could say that the power supply may have had a fault, so smell that, see if it smells like something burnt out. If it still turns on it could be something simple like the PSU fan, you don't *need* it but it sure helps alot.
More then likely what I would think would be something on the Motherboard though. Usually components on the motherboard can go out piece by piece (such as USB ports, sound connectors, PCI or video boards) and the like -- but look for blown capacitors on the motherboard to really be sure. They may look a little rusty, some mishapen, or some could even be black. I've seen parts of boards go out and people barely take notice until they realize their USB ports in the front aren't working or their PCI sound card stopped working.
Very rarely would a hard drive going out actually create any other problems in other components. I've never actually heard of it happening before, usually if something were to cause the HDD to go out such as a power surge, that would be considered a cause. Never have I seen a slowly dying HDD take the Mobo out with it.
As for water cooling your system, you should post your system specs, otherwise I can't really say that your system should even warrant that type of cooling.
Thanks for some of the responses. I have an 850w power supply, I think, but I'll definitely check into it when I get a chance. Damage to the motherboard was actually my first and foremost concern, although I'm not a great computer expert and I probably couldn't tell if it was less than obvious anyway. Also, apologies for the lack of specifics in the origional post. I was pretty certain it was either the hard drive or the cooling system, but I guess I was wrong. I have a friend looking at it now, so I still won't be able to post specs, but much thanks to the people who are trying to help anyway
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