EVGA PSU lit my house on fire! ?

[Maverick182]

Does anyone have any idea why my 1 year old EVGA 450W power supply went up in flames while my computer was in sleep mode?

If it helps the specs of the computer was: 

-asus rog strip b450-f mother board 

-1050 TI graphics card

-gen 2 ryzen 3 cpu

-16g ripjaw 3200 ddr4

- Corsair 460x RGB

-all stock coolers, nothing fancy, nothing overclocked

 

BTW the computer ran fine for 3 months before the fire

I want to build another PC id just like to know why this happened and if I should be worried about building another pc or buying a prebuilt. (used LTT videos for instruction on building) 

 

[lewdicrous]

Probably a short

[emosun]

show this to evga so they pay for your house first

[FloRolf]

holy hell. if that's real than you gotta tell EVGA and your insurance.

[Pixel5]

how do you know it was the PSU and not another component?

 

also you should get your breakers checked out, if that was a short it should have tripped the breakers.

[Maverick182]

Insurance took the entire set up as evidence, fire inspectors confirmed it was the power supply. Is this common??

[Bananasplit_00]

some of the lower end EVGA PSUs are pretty crappy with the protections, but really tell EVGA and your insurance company

[emosun]

1 minute ago, Maverick182 said:

Is this common??

no , tell evga , show them the fire report , get the word out , watch them scramble to cover their asses

[Sakkura]

Which EVGA 450W model? They have a few different ones, some are rather low quality.

 

As for switching to prebuilts, that's not going to help your chances. One of the places they like to cut costs is on the power supply, increasing the risk of problems.

[mariushm]

My guess is a component on the high voltage side of your power supply failed shorted (normal behavior being to fail as if it's no longer in the circuit) overheating and eventually going up in flames.

Can't tell from the picture but based on the dark area, it feels like the mains cable also burnt out, and the insulation of the mains wires burnt out as well.

 

Your power supply is in a metal case, so the fire should not expand to the rest of the case normally, unless it went through the modular connectors.

 

// components that could have failed  ... the mains filtering components like X2 capacitors, common mode chokes, main capacitor,  diode or mosfet involved in active pfc circuit (if psu has any)

[Maverick182]

7 minutes ago, mariushm said:

My guess is a component on the high voltage side of your power supply failed shorted (normal behavior being to fail as if it's no longer in the circuit) overheating and eventually going up in flames.

Can't tell from the picture but based on the dark area, it feels like the mains cable also burnt out, and the insulation of the mains wires burnt out as well.

 

Your power supply is in a metal case, so the fire should not expand to the rest of the case normally, unless it went through the modular connectors.

 

// components that could have failed  ... the mains filtering components like X2 capacitors, common mode chokes, main capacitor,  diode or mosfet involved in active pfc circuit (if psu has any)

the entire cable connecting the PSU to the wall was burnt to a crisp

[Shreyas1]

11 minutes ago, Maverick182 said:

the entire cable connecting the PSU to the wall was burnt to a crisp

You don't use a surge protector?

[SALEEN961]

32 minutes ago, Maverick182 said:

...my 1 year old EVGA 450W power supply went up in flames...

I have 3 EVGA PSUs running in my house, which 450W model did you have fail?

[mariushm]

16 minutes ago, Maverick182 said:

the entire cable connecting the PSU to the wall was burnt to a crisp

Figured as much. Probably the fuse inside your power supply also failed to blow and protect the mains cable and the copper wire inside the mains cable behaved like the filament of an incandescent bulb, going hot and melting the insulation until the copper wire eventually broke from melting.

Your house fuse should have caught it and trip.

 

Here's an exaggerated example:

 

 

2 minutes ago, Shreyas1 said:

You don't use a surge protector?

 

Surge protector wouldn't have helped with this. Surge protectors catch spikes and other accidental stuff, not shorts.

[Jurrunio]

It depends on what EVGA model you're looking at.. Their W lineup is shit, All B series but B2 are not what you'd expect, G1 sucks and I forgot is it G2 or G3 that has protection mechanisms that don't work. EVGA might make good graphics cards (aside from the exploding 1070s and 1080s which are most likely a bad batch of capacitors), but their rep in power supplies is full of holes.

 

 

[seon123]

Which model? B1, BV, BT, BR or B3? Or some other model that I've missed?

[Maverick182]

3 minutes ago, seon123 said:

Which model? B1, BV, BT, BR or B3? Or some other model that I've missed?

90% sure it was a BT I got from Newegg

[IsaacThePooper]

12 minutes ago, Maverick182 said:

90% sure it was a BT I got from Newegg

Yeah those are the more low-quality ones, still should've caught on fire like that.

[Hi P]

This is scary wtf

[Stefan Payne]

9 hours ago, Maverick182 said:

90% sure it was a BT I got from Newegg

That's a pretty low quality PSU.

And one of the reasons to go for a good quality one because stuff like this happening is less probable.

[LienusLateTips]

9 hours ago, Maverick182 said:

90% sure it was a BT I got from Newegg

that's a shit psu you've got there.

[Tech_Dreamer]

@STRMfrmXMN  :

[Tech_Dreamer]

Definitely contact their PR & address the issue , especially if it's under warranty & you have the purchase bill of proof. definitely contact insurance & see if you can get any coverage.

[AntiTrust]

call a lawyer theyll be falling over each other to take your case

 

damn thats scary af, 

[intertan]

were you using just the provided cables? no molex to sata power adapters? or anything similar