HARD DRIVE ON FIRE?!

[Javier Ewe]

A week ago, i got my new system and managed to put in my previous hard drive which had windows 10 on it. Everything worked fine. I ran some benchmarks, overclocked my graphics card then turned off my system and went to sleep.

 

SYSTEM:

Intel Core i7-3770 CPU

CRYORIG H7

10GB DDR3 (Crucial and Team)

AcBel E2Power 470 power supply (recycled from previous build)
Biostar TH61A

Western Digital Black Caviar 1TB (WD1001FALS) 7200RPM hard drive

Zotac GTX 970 4GB (powered by 6 pin and dual molex to 6 pin)

LG Optical Drive

 

A couple days later, I turned my system on and it just went straight to the BIOS, the WD drive did not appear on BIOS, so I tested other hard drives I had in hand, Samsung Spinpoint F4 2TB (HD204UI) and Samsung Spinpoint F4 1.5TB (HD154UI). WD and 204UI were not spinning but you could feel that the drives were getting hot. 154UI, on the other hand was spinning until I heard an electrical noise. I turned off my system. After consulting the forum, someone suggested that it could be a voltage problem from the power supply and I should get a new one. I did not have money to buy a new one but after a couple days, I decided to try the power supply from my other computer, a Headway PS-450W. Both the power supplies i tested are crappy ones i know and i have already purchased a Corsair CX750M, but anyways WD and 204UI would not display on the BIOS and did not boot and 154UI on the other hand started smoking from the SATA power part. There was also a small spark, I immediately turned off my power supply. There was a strong burnt smell afterwards. Is it possible that my previous power supply just killed like $170 worth of hard drives by overvoltage? Is there something I should try? Also note that since the start, my LG optical drive has been working fine but Windows installation media could not detect any hard drives. In fact, I'm currently on a Live distro of Linux working from my new computer. Note that I also tried removing RAM sticks, using different graphic solutions (GTX 970, GT 210, ATI 2400 and Integerated graphics) with no luck. :((

 

Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

[LooneyJuice]

This also sounds like pinched cables or a short of some sort. The trouble with crappy PSUs is that if there's a short in the system, and the resistive load increases, the PSU will still keep pumping until something actually burns (singed sata cables are pretty common in these cases). On the other hand, a relatively good PSU will in fact shut off after a certain threshold to avoid this kind of damage. I'm no Johnny Guru, no electrician, but yes, chances are, even if you made a mistake with a connection, or if there was a faulty cable somewhere, a better PSU would have cut out prior to any real damage. If there's an HDD with clearly visible damage, I wouldn't mess with it. Other drives that seem fine you will have to test after you get the new PSU in your hands. 

 

Also, I don't wanna be that guy, but I'd rather take a hit to system performance than use a flaky PSU.

[bigneo]

Does bios not have purge setting to kill power if something is wrong? Sounds nasty experience

[0x1e]

11 minutes ago, bigneo said:

Does bios not have purge setting to kill power if something is wrong? Sounds nasty experience

Bios wouldn't have a clue about a sata, molex or GPU power surge.

They are not connected to the motherboard so the bios has no way of monitoring them. So it's all down to the PSU to manage itself.

 

I would say, but don't quote me, because you're using molex to six pin power you're overloading that rail.

Molex was never designed to deliver over 75 watts. So the power you're drawing is putting stress on the rest of the PSU and now your sata ports are suffering for it.

 

That's just my guess tho.