i think its pretty commonplace for people to leave their computers on all the time these days, with power saving modes and what-not. i've done it for years. but i was sitting at my computer last week, and all of the sudden thick white smoke started pouring out of the back of my LCD. granted, it was a pretty old LCD, at least 5 years anyway. i immediately unplugged it and got it out of the house and it didnt intensify, but it shook me up quite a bit. if i was in the living room watching TV with my son, or cooking dinner, or anywhere other than in the room when it happened, i might not have a house right now. this is probably (hopefully) a rare occurrence, but you might want to think twice about leaving your machine on all the time, as it could quickly turn to disaster. the upside is, i now have a fucking giant 22" widescreen that was on sale at newegg, upgrading from a 15" standard, hehe. i bought the old LCD secondhand, and i cant find a brand or model number on it anywhere to give specifics to look out for, but i think a general heads-up might be in order.
True. I agree, no one should leave there pc on all the time. If there overclocked very high, there producing so much heat it hard to cool them. I think you should always turn off your pc when not in use. It needs time to cool and rest. Plus it saves on that electric bill. I know sum1 here who never logs out of msn. Which means there pc must always be on. Though he probably uses ice cream to cool his. LOL Thats a joke to my good friend.
Sounds like you had quite a lucky escape there, glad everything was as ok as it could be, that could have been a lot worse as you say. Do you have your pc plugged in to a surge protector? Hopefully when your monitor started smoking it would have tripped the surge protector. I don’t leave my pc on 24/7 however I do leave it on standby sometimes and my laptop is on standby 24/7 when not in use, it does make you think about it though when reading your story. I’m sure you will enjoy your 22” Monitor! I remember going from a 15” to a 19” widescreen, I found that amazing! Then i went from a 19” to a 22” and that was even more amazing!
it was plugged into a surge protector, it did not trip the breaker though. and the monitor was working just fine as it was smoking, so i dont know what that says about its electrical input. if it had gotten worse, it might have tripped the breaker, but it all happened in a period of about 10 seconds.