My PC caught on fire today

J

Japster

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My power supply died and I bought a new power supply (Themaltake 450W) from a reputable online shop. Do not really want to mention the shop as they are not at fault here. So I plug in the PSU only on the mobo, did not plug any of my hard drives. Tested the PC and it started up. So I go and plug in all my hard drives etc, close the case and start the pc, after a while I started smelling something burning, looking around for it I see a flame inside my PC through the side panel window. I jumped switched of the power, since the PC was still running during this time that it was on fire.

So on closer inspection I see that the fire was started by one of the SATA power connectors that was connected to my one drive. Bad thing is that it melted the whole connected where you plug in a SATA power connector on the drive so my drive is not messed.

What I would like to know, is if it is in any way possible to replace the burned connector part of the drive, I assume I will have to replace the whole PC Board on the drive and that is fine. It was a cheap drive, I'm concerned about the stuff on the drive that I lost, as a lot of my work is on that drive. Does anyone know a company that replaces these boards in the JHB area.
 
Japster said:
My power supply died and I bought a new power supply (Themaltake 450W) from a reputable online shop. Do not really want to mention the shop as they are not at fault here. So I plug in the PSU only on the mobo, did not plug any of my hard drives. Tested the PC and it started up. So I go and plug in all my hard drives etc, close the case and start the pc, after a while I started smelling something burning, looking around for it I see a flame inside my PC through the side panel window. I jumped switched of the power, since the PC was still running during this time that it was on fire.

So on closer inspection I see that the fire was started by one of the SATA power connectors that was connected to my one drive. Bad thing is that it melted the whole connected where you plug in a SATA power connector on the drive so my drive is not messed.

What I would like to know, is if it is in any way possible to replace the burned connector part of the drive, I assume I will have to replace the whole PC Board on the drive and that is fine. It was a cheap drive, I'm concerned about the stuff on the drive that I lost, as a lot of my work is on that drive. Does anyone know a company that replaces these boards in the JHB area.
Click to expand...

In Johannesburg you can use CSSI, but they are hellishly expensive.... http://www.cssi.co.za/
Rather use Southbit in Cape Town... a fraction of the cost! http://www.southbit.co.za/
 
@Garyvdh, thanks. I see on the southbit site they do data recovery, I wonder if a person cannot just replace the pc board on the hard drive, then it saves the whole data recovery process.
 
Take clear picture of the label on the hdd so one can see al the details & also post a picture of the connector.
 
Thanks Gary.

Japster, unfortunately you cannot just swap the PCB, if it were that easy we wouldn't be in business :) Each PCB has data on it unique to the drive it was manufactured with.

Would you like to send the drive in for us to assess and quote? We give a MyBB discount too and can arrange courier collection if need be.
 
Japster said:
@Garyvdh, thanks. I see on the southbit site they do data recovery, I wonder if a person cannot just replace the pc board on the hard drive, then it saves the whole data recovery process.
Click to expand...

Ja no, it's not that simple. See the reply from Southbit themselves. They have the tools and the knowledge to do it.
You and I are like elephants with fine china when it comes to these things.
 
@Southbit I will get back to you, thanks for the info.
@Ponder will take photos tomorrow and post them, I'm not at the PC that had the problem at the moment
 
Happened to a mate of mine with a brand new corsair psu. The sata power connectors were wired incorrectly. 3 brand new hdd burst into flames. Corsair took the psu back, transferred cash to him for the psu and hdd drives. About 3 years ago. Funny thing is, I think it was a modular psu so problem with the cables not the psu itself.
 
Thermaltake 450W There is your problem.....I don't know how many times it has been mentioned to pass on thermaltake...

It may not be an issue with wiring, it may be an issue with the PSU it self, these cheap units have bare min protection in place, some times the protections don't even work.What could have happen is these PSU's are double forward design, and as such 5 volt and 3 volt is derived from the 12 volt.

It's been proved before, PSU issues especially on cheap units, to bypass, protection circuity and supply lethal amount without shutting down to protect both the PSU and components.

The fact that a fire broke out means that protections were not working, or missing entirely, even in the event of incorrect wiring the PSU should have shutdown immediately not just kept on running.

Even more concerning is that the Fuse didn't blow, which it should have under this circumstance.If faulty wiring isn't the cause I would pay closer attention, as it may have done far more damage then what would be immediately apparent, it a safe bet that you should swap and replace other HDD's in that system as well, as well as spend a good deal more money on a PSU.

Should be interesting what were the system specs, how many HDD's any did you need to use and molex to SATA power adapters ?
 
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