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PSU catching fire

Nkw820

Did a new build on the weekend. Only kept my original graphics card. I used all the new supplied cables that came with the new PSU 

 

Finished the build on Saturday. I ran it through a few rounds of memtest. No dramas. 

 

Installed windows, installed the drivers and then let it run overnight to download some games. No dramas

 

Sunday morning I jumped on, played some FPS and a flight sim in vr. Again no dramas. 

 

On Monday after work. I set up a download and was about to head out for a run, when I noticed a bad smell and then saw large amounts of smoke coming from my computer. 

 

At the time the machine was at idle (had been for about 40 minutes) in the windows desktop. I was able to turn the power off before it killed it's self.

 

Looking at the exterior of the PSU it looks like the damage was relatively isolated to the pcie & sata port (the cables are stuck in there) and the CPU and motherboard capable seem to be unscathed.

 

Anyone had this problem before? 

And ideas on what the problem could be?

 

 

BUILD

CPU 10700K

MBOARD MSI MPG Z490

MEMORY  Gskill ripjaws v

GRAPHICS GTX1080

M.2 Samsung 970

PSU corsair rm850x

 

Currently waiting on a response from corsair for an RMA request. 

1E6EE199-D0EF-4D93-A896-3A3E0830F758.jpeg

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4 minutes ago, Nkw820 said:

Anyone had this problem before? 

 

No, that's very abnormal. RMA ASAP, see if you have any damages, run a few benchmarks. 

 

5 minutes ago, Nkw820 said:

And ideas on what the problem could be?

 

sounds like blown caps. 

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1 hour ago, The Sloth said:

 

sounds like blown caps. 

LOL.  No... it doesn't.

 

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1 hour ago, Nkw820 said:

Did a new build on the weekend. Only kept my original graphics card. I used all the new supplied cables that came with the new PSU 

 

Finished the build on Saturday. I ran it through a few rounds of memtest. No dramas. 

 

Installed windows, installed the drivers and then let it run overnight to download some games. No dramas

 

Sunday morning I jumped on, played some FPS and a flight sim in vr. Again no dramas. 

 

On Monday after work. I set up a download and was about to head out for a run, when I noticed a bad smell and then saw large amounts of smoke coming from my computer. 

 

At the time the machine was at idle (had been for about 40 minutes) in the windows desktop. I was able to turn the power off before it killed it's self.

 

Looking at the exterior of the PSU it looks like the damage was relatively isolated to the pcie & sata port (the cables are stuck in there) and the CPU and motherboard capable seem to be unscathed.

 

Anyone had this problem before? 

And ideas on what the problem could be?

 

 

BUILD

CPU 10700K

MBOARD MSI MPG Z490

MEMORY  Gskill ripjaws v

GRAPHICS GTX1080

M.2 Samsung 970

PSU corsair rm850x

 

Currently waiting on a response from corsair for an RMA request. 

1E6EE199-D0EF-4D93-A896-3A3E0830F758.jpeg

Exactly what cables are "burnt" and what do they say on the sides that plug into the PSU?

 

@Corsair Nick:  You should get the customer ticket # so we can FA RMA this.  I've never seen this before.

 

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8 minutes ago, jonnyGURU said:

Exactly what cables are "burnt" and what do they say on the sides that plug into the PSU?

 

@Corsair Nick:  You should get the customer ticket # so we can FA RMA this.  I've never seen this before.

 

The 2 cables on the left of the photo are 3 connector SATA. The other burnt cable is pcie 8 pin. 

 

I'll have to let you know what's on the side of the cables when i finish work.  

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33 minutes ago, jonnyGURU said:

LOL.  No... it doesn't.

 

Your a PSU expert but 

 

Quote

when I noticed a bad smell and then saw large amounts of smoke coming from my computer. 

 

Sounds like a PSU Cap exploding, smell and smokes are a dead giveaway. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b7mjukhTyQ 

 

 

what do you think is the cause of it then? 

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1 minute ago, The Sloth said:

Your a PSU expert but 

 

Sounds like a Cap exploding. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b7mjukhTyQ 

 

Probably should have mentioned it before bit it was black smoke. And there was no audible hiss or pop. 

 

Dont know much about caps exploding or if the produce a certain type of smoke.

 

Cheers 

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2 minutes ago, Nkw820 said:

 

Probably should have mentioned it before bit it was black smoke. And there was no audible hiss or pop. 

 

Dont know much about caps exploding or if the produce a certain type of smoke.

 

Cheers 

it has happened before to this person, just replace the PSU. Hope nothing else is damaged. 

 

 

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24 minutes ago, The Sloth said:

Your a PSU expert but 

 

Sounds like a PSU Cap exploding, smell and smokes are a dead giveaway. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b7mjukhTyQ 

 

 

what do you think is the cause of it then? 

Yes. Caps smoke when you apply too much voltage.  But OP said the smoke and "melting" is on the DC connectors.

 

He didn't say it was shooting out of the back of the PSU.

 

And your Reddit link is irrelevant because the person that posted that never confirmed it was a capacitor.  Only a bunch of people that suggested it might be a capacitor.

 

I know you're trying to help, but if you don't actually know, you shouldn't confuse the situation with a bunch of speculation.

 

 

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23 minutes ago, Nkw820 said:

The 2 cables on the left of the photo are 3 connector SATA. The other burnt cable is pcie 8 pin. 

 

I'll have to let you know what's on the side of the cables when i finish work.  

What did you have plugged into those SATA/PATA connectors?  Your parts list doesn't include anything that would use SATA/PATA power.

 

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12 minutes ago, Nkw820 said:

 

Probably should have mentioned it before bit it was black smoke. And there was no audible hiss or pop. 

 

Dont know much about caps exploding or if the produce a certain type of smoke.

 

Cheers 

Doesn't sound like a blown cap, @jonnyGURU is right.

Also looking at the image i can clearly see a burn mark in the area of the SATA connector.

Just now, jonnyGURU said:

What did you have plugged into those SATA/PATA connectors?  Your parts list doesn't include anything that would use SATA/PATA power.

 

It really is a mystery,whatever was connected to SATA probably holds the answer.

A PC Enthusiast since 2011
AMD Ryzen 7 5700X@4.65GHz | GIGABYTE GTX 1660 GAMING OC @ Core 2085MHz Memory 5000MHz
Cinebench R23: 15669cb | Unigine Superposition 1080p Extreme: 3566
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13 minutes ago, jonnyGURU said:

What did you have plugged into those SATA/PATA connectors?  Your parts list doesn't include anything that would use SATA/PATA power.

 

Sorry forgot about that. 1 Samsung ssd & 1 wd 2.5 hard drive 

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7 minutes ago, Nkw820 said:

Sorry forgot about that. 1 Samsung ssd & 1 wd 2.5 hard drive 

Hmm.. nothing unusual.  Very strange.

 

And the cables were "pinched" anywhere?  Like between a side pane and motherboard tray, for example?  Have you checked the cables for any damage?

 

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7 minutes ago, jonnyGURU said:

Hmm.. nothing unusual.  Very strange.

 

And the cables were "pinched" anywhere?  Like between a side pane and motherboard tray, for example?  Have you checked the cables for any damage?

 

I also think it's worth to take a look at the SATA connector itself (both sides),disconnect it if possible and look for anything out of the ordinary there (It's possible that parts of the connector are melted which might make it difficult to remove)

A PC Enthusiast since 2011
AMD Ryzen 7 5700X@4.65GHz | GIGABYTE GTX 1660 GAMING OC @ Core 2085MHz Memory 5000MHz
Cinebench R23: 15669cb | Unigine Superposition 1080p Extreme: 3566
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1 minute ago, jonnyGURU said:

Hmm.. nothing unusual.  Very strange.

 

And the cables were "pinched" anywhere?  Like between a side pane and motherboard tray, for example?  Have you checked the cables for any damage?

 

Good question, I havn't pulled off the back panel yet to check. I'll do that after work and let you guys know. But I do think it would be unlikely to be the cause as there is a reasonable amount of room in the case behind the motherboard tray and I imagine damage to the cables would have happened with in the first few hours after the stress was put on. 

 

The case is a corsair carbide 400c. still has the rubber grommets between the front and back of the tray.

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2 minutes ago, Vishera said:

I also think it's worth to take a look at the SATA connector itself (both sides),disconnect it if possible and look for anything out of the ordinary there (It's possible that parts of the connector are melted which might make it difficult to remove)

I'll have a look after work. I tried to remove one of them yesterday but it has melted inside. 

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If I look at the connectors closely, it look like they aren't fully seated.  You could see a ~1/8" gap between on the 24-pin connector, and the latch on the Peripheral and SATA cable isn't latched behind the modular connector.

 

If you have a connector that's not fully seated, it create resistance, when in turn can cause enough heat to burn the connector itself.

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5 minutes ago, quan289 said:

If I look at the connectors closely, it look like they aren't fully seated.  You could see a ~1/8" gap between on the 24-pin connector, and the latch on the Peripheral and SATA cable isn't latched behind the modular connector.

 

If you have a connector that's not fully seated, it create resistance, when in turn can cause enough heat to burn the connector itself.

I tried to take the CPU and 24 pin out to compare it to the pcie cable after the fact. 

 

They had been all fully seated when I built it on Saturday 

 

 

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5 minutes ago, Nkw820 said:

I tried to take the CPU and 24 pin out to compare it to the pcie cable after the fact. 

 

They had been all fully seated when I built it on Saturday 

 

 

I clearly see a gap with the SATA connectors,they have burn marks.

 

A PC Enthusiast since 2011
AMD Ryzen 7 5700X@4.65GHz | GIGABYTE GTX 1660 GAMING OC @ Core 2085MHz Memory 5000MHz
Cinebench R23: 15669cb | Unigine Superposition 1080p Extreme: 3566
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15 minutes ago, Vishera said:

I clearly see a gap with the SATA connectors,they have burn marks.

 

Agree.  You can clearly see the gap. Also, the clips aren't latched either. 

 

I just got done showing this to my daughter last week when finishing up her build.  If you can pull on the cable and it pops out of the connector, it's not fully inserted.  These look like, if they weren't melted, the would pull out if you yanked on them.

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Vishera said:

I clearly see a gap with the SATA connectors,both have burn marks.

 

maybe from when I was trying to pull them out after the fact. But still they where seated correctly when it was built. 

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1 hour ago, Nkw820 said:

maybe from when I was trying to pull them out after the fact. But still they where seated correctly when it was built. 

If you got them that far out, then they should pull the rest of the way out.

 

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1 hour ago, jonnyGURU said:

If you got them that far out, then they should pull the rest of the way out.

 

The top SATA and the PCIe are stuck 

 

Was able to get the bottom SATA out, looks like it was only secondary damage from the top SATA and PCIe. 

2 hours ago, jonnyGURU said:

Agree.  You can clearly see the gap. Also, the clips aren't latched either. 

 

I just got done showing this to my daughter last week when finishing up her build.  If you can pull on the cable and it pops out of the connector, it's not fully inserted.  These look like, if they weren't melted, the would pull out if you yanked on them.

 

 

I think the clips maybe effected by the heat.

 

3 hours ago, Vishera said:

I clearly see a gap with the SATA connectors,they have burn marks.

 

It was probably a bad photo, but the ports them selfs have moved because of the heat. 

 

 

CD438E1B-27B9-4481-9FE7-6C8C18A29971.jpeg

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This is what it looks like inside. 

E8321D3E-EBD9-48CD-857D-9B1CE92CE076.jpeg

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