This has really happened yesterday though not the entire computer. :ashamed:
Yesterday night I was watching a video on the rig and suddenly something inside the cabby burst into flames. Thankfully I usually keep my cabby open so things like that should be quickly apparent, but thing is that like with any half decent gaming rig, there are a tonne of led's on all sorts of hardware blinking inside and a new kind of light is not quickly noticed. However the light I noticed was more intense and there was smoke and smell of burnt plastic. So a Milli second after I noticed the light, I realized some thing inside has burst into flames and quickly switched off the computer. It was a good thing as that minimized the damage. If the cabby had been entirely closed, I don't know if I would have noticed it before the entire computer burst into flames.
Today I took my time to analyze what went wrong. Obviously it was not the motherboard since the flame was not near the motherboard and the motherboard directly visible to me in its entirety since the cabby was open. It has to be somewhere near the HDD's. I hoped against hope that my 1TB WDC Black was not involved since i keep all my download's there although there is nothing too important (I always keep redundant copies of important stuff). It turns out that it was the this very drive that was involved. I had used the molex to SATA power adapter that came bundled with the drive. Apparently, the connector was somewhat of a loose fit and came off a bit to the side due the forces on the cables involved when you have 5 HDD crammed in your cabby. the connector shorted and started heating up. The plastic of the connector burst into flames and left telltale signs on the hdd as well (which would be enough to void warranty). The hdd connector and a bit of the PCB on the underside was affected although there seems to be no major damage that affects the usability of the drive. I did not want to take any chances, so I given it to Amarbir so he can test it and replace the connector if required.
Personally I have always thought that the power connectors (and even the data connectors) on these SATA drives are a really bad design. Without a firm grip between the connector and cable and the poor design of the connector on the hdd side, they are easy to come off, easy to break, easy to short and what not. This incident shows the kind of damage that can happen due to poor design of these connectors and cables. Would really suggest people keep a regular check on the status of their HDD power connections.
PS: I have already reassembled the rig and everything else is working well. Typing from the same rig. Too bad I was hoping I would get a reason to convince myself to overhaul the entire rig (and get that Hex Core)
Oh well maybe its not such a bad thing to be able to still use this rig.
Yesterday night I was watching a video on the rig and suddenly something inside the cabby burst into flames. Thankfully I usually keep my cabby open so things like that should be quickly apparent, but thing is that like with any half decent gaming rig, there are a tonne of led's on all sorts of hardware blinking inside and a new kind of light is not quickly noticed. However the light I noticed was more intense and there was smoke and smell of burnt plastic. So a Milli second after I noticed the light, I realized some thing inside has burst into flames and quickly switched off the computer. It was a good thing as that minimized the damage. If the cabby had been entirely closed, I don't know if I would have noticed it before the entire computer burst into flames.
Today I took my time to analyze what went wrong. Obviously it was not the motherboard since the flame was not near the motherboard and the motherboard directly visible to me in its entirety since the cabby was open. It has to be somewhere near the HDD's. I hoped against hope that my 1TB WDC Black was not involved since i keep all my download's there although there is nothing too important (I always keep redundant copies of important stuff). It turns out that it was the this very drive that was involved. I had used the molex to SATA power adapter that came bundled with the drive. Apparently, the connector was somewhat of a loose fit and came off a bit to the side due the forces on the cables involved when you have 5 HDD crammed in your cabby. the connector shorted and started heating up. The plastic of the connector burst into flames and left telltale signs on the hdd as well (which would be enough to void warranty). The hdd connector and a bit of the PCB on the underside was affected although there seems to be no major damage that affects the usability of the drive. I did not want to take any chances, so I given it to Amarbir so he can test it and replace the connector if required.
Personally I have always thought that the power connectors (and even the data connectors) on these SATA drives are a really bad design. Without a firm grip between the connector and cable and the poor design of the connector on the hdd side, they are easy to come off, easy to break, easy to short and what not. This incident shows the kind of damage that can happen due to poor design of these connectors and cables. Would really suggest people keep a regular check on the status of their HDD power connections.
PS: I have already reassembled the rig and everything else is working well. Typing from the same rig. Too bad I was hoping I would get a reason to convince myself to overhaul the entire rig (and get that Hex Core)
Oh well maybe its not such a bad thing to be able to still use this rig.
