Odd smell coming from my new activated carbon/HEPA air filter, help please?

just bought an AllerAir Vocarb 5000. It says it's ready to go on arrival, so I plugged it in and turned it on TURBO (says to do this for a few minutes when introducing it into a new room, to readjust the air currents)..... Anyway, after around a half hour of having it running, I began to smell, and rather strongly, some unknown odor - and my eyes began to burn, slightly, though I also had the fan on, and won't dismiss the possibility that dust was simply being dispersed into the air and that is what was agitating my eyes. But anyway, is the smell OK and not harmful? Oh, and, when I first turned it on TURBO, I was kneeling right in front of it, and it blasted my face with air. There's no hazardous particulates that mighta been ejected out and onto my skin or anything from it, is there? Is there even anything harmful that might possibly be coming out of the air filter?