New adaptor is a strong smell normal?

[Guest]

Hello,
I am travelling and in a small town, and my IBM laptop's adaptor quit working. I went and got a new adaptor from an electronics shop, which was not meant specifically for my computer, but the guy checked out all the voltages and currents and said it would be fine, and put a chip into the adaptor for the right voltage. I am now using it, but the adaptor fan is running and really noisy, and it smells weird. I don't know if I would really call it burning - it just smells strongly of something chemically/plastic/electronics...

 

[buwish]

It can be tough to tell if the adapter is junk or if it is just burning off some of the "top coatings" as I call it, i.e. if you've ever gotten a new electronic device, it may smell somewhat odd at first, but after awhile the smell is gone. If the fan is really cranking though, it might be that it cannot handle the chip/voltages the tech inputted and is slowly frying.