Corsair, their surge protection and a fryed PC.

[Andeh13]

Can someone explain to me how this is meant to work & why it didnt work for me?

A few months ago i ordered this computer for myself. Amoung others things i got a Corsair HX520, 2 sata powered HDDs and a sata powered CD drive. This is along with an old stye power'd HDD i already had and would use as a spare/gash drive.

Ever since then iv struggled with room in my case, the corsair PSU came with 2 sata power cables, each cable with 2 connectors on. Due to the 3 sata power'd devices i have i had 2 use both cables. All these wires along with an 8800GTS ment cable management was a nightmare & my air flow was almost non-existant.

Now, a week ago i had a clear out and attempted to re-arrange the cables, without much luck. As a shot in the dark i sent corsair an e-mail explaining my situation and asking if they had any sata power cables that had more then just the 2 connectors, to help my cable situation. To my suprise, within a week one had been sent out, a 4 connector cable.

I fitted this cable a few hours ago, sorted the rest of the cables out and turned my PC on. Immeditately there was a pop & a smell of burnt plastic. I turned the PC off immeditaley only to find my CD drive and both HDDs connected to the new sata power cable had all fryed.

Now, material wise im not too worried, they were all covered by warrenty & i hope to get them replaced sometime over the next week (would this be covered under warrenty?). Whats on them is the pain, one HDD was a 500gb and was 98% full, majority films and the rest music. The other 250gb was my main HDD with the OS, works, games and then an overfill for films & music. This was about 80% full.

What i want to know is how did this happen? Shouldnt the 'surge protection' have kicked in or is that only protection from surges from the mains wires? Should i speak to corsair? and if so do i have a right to ask them to pay for my data recovery & replacements, or does the fact that they gave me this cable in goodwill enough to prevent me complaining? Or at the end of the day is it my fault i didnt check to see if the cable could handle the load?

cheers guys

[IAmATeaf]

Are you sure you plugged in the cable the right way round at the PSU end? This kind of popping would occur if the 5v and 12v lines were transposed. Put some pics up of the cable and of it and your existing SATA power cable connected to the PSU so that we can have a look. Also any form of surge protection wouldn't protect against the above.

[Thorsson]

Nightmare. The HX620 comes with 3 SATA connectors, 2x3 and 1x2. Notice no 4. I think your first step has to be to contact Corsair, it's hard to see how the fault can lie anywhere but with them - it's pretty certain that your HDD/OD warranty doesn't cover the situation.

[Andeh13]

Fraid no camera, but tt was all plugged in correctly. The old 2 connector sata had a thin bar connector, consisting of a 5 vertical pins and a latch, whilst the new 4 connector sata cable had a group of 6 pins, with a latch. Just like the GPU power cable.

There was no other way of plugging it in.



This isnt my exact PSU, i have the 520watt, but the connections are the same. In blue is where i plugged the [surge causing] 4 x sata cable, red the [normal use] 2 x sata cable.

[r_j_k_p]

i think your circled blue ones are for pci-e power connectors.
maybe that would have caused the boom?

[Thorsson]

And the 4 connectors to SATA looked just like the ones on your other cables?

[Andeh13]

The fact corsair supplied the cable, which came with that connector though? I was suprised initially, but presumed they had done it because of the extra power that would be required for more devices.

I will take a picture of the cable now, just need to track down & install all the software first.

[Blitzen]

Now, material wise im not too worried, they were all covered by warrenty & i hope to get them replaced sometime over the next week (would this be covered under warrenty?).

I doubt they are covered by warranty as it was the PSU that fried them.

The parts themselves werent actually faulty.

I think the connector you circled in blue is the PCI-E connectors btw.

[IAmATeaf]

Well the blue circled connector only supplied ground and 12v so no red (5v) or orange (3.3v) cables.

I think you really need to post some pics of the cable, so old SATA cable, new SATA cable and also a pic pf the PCI-E cable showing the connectors that go into the PSU and the SATA connectors on the cable themselves.

[Andeh13]

Apologies for the quality, my camera phone is all iv got.

Iv taken a few pictures of the 2 cables side by side.

The 5 pin line is the 2 sata power cable, that works. The 6 rectangular pin one is the 4 sata connector cable that caused the problem. It has the same connector as the PCI-E power cable.

There is also a picture of my PSU there, you can see the PCI-E power connector for my graphics card (bottom right), and you can also see the empty 6 pin bay where i plugged the sata cable in, the very bottom left connector bay.

[moogle]

thats weird, why would the pci-e slot be used to power normal pc parts

[peterb]

My initial thoughts are

The cable supplied was for a different model PSU or someone made up a special to help you (lot of effort) not realising what the implications were. If you put 12v on the 5V drive electronics connectors, a "pop" is a very likely explanation.

But difficult to tell without examining the cables in detail.

Were they supplied from within the UK or shipped from the States? Might be worth contacting yellowbeard.

[RoBe]

here's yellowbeard's profile
HEXUS.community discussion forums

[Andeh13]

They were sourced from the US AFAIK, so that might be the problem. Could be a clash somewhere inside the PSU over their 110v and our 240V.

Sent Yellowbeard a PM & a link to this thread.

[Thorsson]

It's hard to see from the photos, but does that 6-pin connector have one that's "unwired" (in the photo the middle left doesn't appear to have any cable inside)?

[IAmATeaf]

The pics don't make things any clearer to be honest, they need to be in focus and close ups of the wires going into the actual sockets.

I still don't see how it's possible to get 5v and 3.3v from the dedicated PCI-E sockets on the PSU, I think this is the reason why things went pop.

EDIT: This is the pinouts of the connector that plugs into the vid card Pinout of the PCI-Express Power Connector so 5 of the 6 wires are used for 3xGND and 2x12v leaving only 1 which is normally not connected, so unless this unconnected pin is supplying 5v it just doesn't make sense.