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Seared Cables: Journey's End
Professor Snugglesworth
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Amazing how I encountered yet another mishap in an attempt to add an extra hard drive. Today I purchased an extra 500gb Seagate hard drive, as per a good Best Buy deal. I turn off the PC, unplug the outlet, install the SATA cables as needed. Before closing up, however, I notice a spare tiny 4 pin connector coming from my PC Fan (which also houses all other cables that connect to my DVD-RW and whatnot). In a rather retarded display of "I think this goes here", I attach the spare mini cable to four pins on my motherboard, all by itself.
Once I turn my PC back on, a ton of smoke starts coming out of the tower. In just two seconds of panic I turn off the PC and unplug the cable, then open up the tower. The mini cable had been melted, likely the result of me plugging it where it shouldn't go. I used my can of compressed air to douse away the smoke and try to "cool" off the motherboard. I then use some gray tape to tape up the loose wires from the seared connector, then give the PC an extra 10 minutes unplugged. I turn it back on, and miraculously everything is running as normal.
But now I'm cautious, and I need advice of what I should be doing or shouldn't be doing next. The seared cable was never connected to anything, and it's been taped to the side without touching anything, but I wonder if tape alone will keep things safe. I thought about cutting the seared wire, but wasn't sure if that would cause further problems. I'm also constantly watching and touching my PC tower, to see if it's hot, but it's been an hour and a half since the incident and everything appears fine, with two exceptions.
One, my power light won't go green. Not a big deal, but I'm curious why that happened when it was nowhere near the seared cable. And two, perhaps my imagination, but I get a small wiff of burnt wire in the air. Maybe it's on my hands or clothes, although I did shower after.
I would just like to know if there's anything I should do at this point, hardware checks or so forth.
Once I turn my PC back on, a ton of smoke starts coming out of the tower. In just two seconds of panic I turn off the PC and unplug the cable, then open up the tower. The mini cable had been melted, likely the result of me plugging it where it shouldn't go. I used my can of compressed air to douse away the smoke and try to "cool" off the motherboard. I then use some gray tape to tape up the loose wires from the seared connector, then give the PC an extra 10 minutes unplugged. I turn it back on, and miraculously everything is running as normal.
But now I'm cautious, and I need advice of what I should be doing or shouldn't be doing next. The seared cable was never connected to anything, and it's been taped to the side without touching anything, but I wonder if tape alone will keep things safe. I thought about cutting the seared wire, but wasn't sure if that would cause further problems. I'm also constantly watching and touching my PC tower, to see if it's hot, but it's been an hour and a half since the incident and everything appears fine, with two exceptions.
One, my power light won't go green. Not a big deal, but I'm curious why that happened when it was nowhere near the seared cable. And two, perhaps my imagination, but I get a small wiff of burnt wire in the air. Maybe it's on my hands or clothes, although I did shower after.
I would just like to know if there's anything I should do at this point, hardware checks or so forth.
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If I've got the layout of your case right in my head, you just melted your front panel board. Assuming the power button still works there won't be any serious adverse effects.
Also, a memory diagnostics tool said there was a hardware problem detected, but it doesn't say what it is. I looked at system info and everything is still listed (graphics card, RAM, etc), but is there a way to find out what problem, if any, there are? Or could it just be referring to the front panel board you mentioned?
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The front panel has the power and HDD LEDs, the power and reset buttons, and the PC speaker. I don't know what cable you plugged in where, but I'd guess you hooked up the PC speaker cable to a case fan plug. This wouldn't cause any serious damage I think.
However, you might be talking about the floppy drive power cable or something else. Without pictures there's no way to give a very accurate diagnosis. I wouldn't worry about it if the system seems stable.
I'm mostly worried about that error detection from the memory diagnostic tool, and I'm very frustrated it didn't say exactly what the problem was. Again, everything seems to be in working order, maybe I could run a PC game just to double check, but I'm still worried that things are okay NOW, but might eff up some time down the road.
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Those are the USB/audio pins. I don't think any of those have enough power to cause smoke. Was the cable you connected to it one of these, or something else?
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You connected a power cable to your USB pins.
You connected a power cable to your USB pins.
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It feels like you've had more than your share of hardware issues in the past few months. Maybe it's time to pay a-fucking-ttention to what it is you're doing with your machines. If you don't know what a random cable does and where it is supposed to go, you don't plug it in. You pull out the manual that came with your board and read it.
In the end all I think you've done is to effectively fry that portion of your board. Your power and hdd lights aren't going to be working, and any USB that was supposed to be running off of those pins isn't going to work either. Though since you mention that you're getting errors in a memory diagnostic tool you've very possibly given the other components of your machine a nice, friendly shock as well.
But yeah, basically: Plug random cable onto random plug > short circuits, power surges > a lottery of damage ensues which may just be isolated to some non-vital USB plugs for front-panel USB ports or it might've caused unknown surges across the whole motherboard doing damage to who knows what.
I killed an entire motherboard by plugging a fan that needed too much power into an actual case fan power connection on the motherboard. It was the right connection, just the wrong type of case fan. The computer repair guy we took it too got a replacement motherboard and promptly did exactly the same thing
i guess what im trying to say is learn to read...
Someone should report this for awesome.
IF YOU DO NOT KNOW WHERE A CABLE SHOULD BE PLUGGED INTO, DO NOT PLUG IT IN UNTIL YOU FIND OUT. READ THE FUCKING MANUAL.
I don't know how much more plainly it can be said than that. You should not be fucking with things you don't know how to fuck with. I'm all for learning about how to build computers, and more computer knowledge in general, lord knows that we need more of it, but learning things usually involves reading instead of just randomly plugging things in and blowing them up.
that was the power supply
which often contains fans though!
So just now I took some pictures of the inside, if perhaps that will provide a clearer picture over my broken computer terms.
First, here's the seared cables I mentioned, now taped up and hopefully not causing any further problems.
Here's where the cable originated from, which as you mentioned before, would be the power supply (fan included).
Here is where I plugged the cable to. Directly to the right of it is the power switch (which as I said before, no longer lights up). The pins aren't labeled on the motherboard, but on the manual it says F_PANEL, which would be (surprise) the front panel.
So yeah, stupidity all around. But right now more than anything I want to try and find out what damage has been done, and if this affected anything important on my PC. Nothing seems out of the ordinary so far. I ran a PC game in full optimal settings, watched some movies, tried the DVD trays, same old. But I'm still concerned from that memory diagnostic test. Someone mentioned using Memtest86, but I simply can't get the damn thing to run despite using PowerISO to burn it on a disc.
Let's say, worse case scenario something was permanently fried. Would it be just the motherboard that's affected, in which case another swap and/or repair and/or replacement from the manufacturer would fix things? Or is it possible my other devices (RAM, Graphics card, etc) could have been affected as well? If it's the former, I may replace it just to be on the safe side.
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the only way to find out is to test, well guess... everything
That being said, you most likely won't encounter any issues with your system, today. you might have caused long term damage to your Power supply, where it may work fine today, but it may die 3 weeks from now, or 6 months from now. you most certainly fried the pins you plugged it into, and possibly more. Again, you may not notice it today, but there is likely some underpinning damage that you won't see right now. And if you plug anything into those pins, it's probable that they just won't work, possible that you could fry it.
Honestly, I've never seen someone plug a fucking power cord into something like that before, and I don't think anyone else here has either, so we're really just all guessing as to what the long term effects could be.
you do realize that you need to boot memtest off a cd right? F11.... after you restart your computer.....
do you want some links to wikipedia or can you figure out the simple stuff yourself?
NVM
Like has been said, when you apply high voltage currents to random areas of your motherboard it's anyones guess as to where that current might go and what damage it could do. I thinkyour options are either build or buy a completely new computer or keep using this one and wait and see if anything goes wrong. If anything starts malfunctioning, you can probably assume that it has something to do with this entertaining escapade.
That's because this is twice in a month that he's done it.
ooh wheres the other one, i gotta see it now!
Bent processor pins cause issues? News to me!
If that phrase makes you go "Ok, and?" you shouldn't be building PCs.
Applying power to places its not supposed to go is a REALLY BAD IDEA. Best case you kill part of the PC, worst case you cause a fire and melt the entire thing- and maybe your PC room.
yea, that's the one.
hahaha, i read that. didnt make the connection.
now hes gonna be all
but maybe he can send his mobo back AGAIN and say it just stopped working.
Maybe Snuggles just has the shits.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
Snuggles, do yourself a favour and grab an LED key-chain light and just leave it with your PC. It's a really handy thing for reading mobo text. I have one with a little magnifying glass (it's for examining minerals) that I love to no end.
You plugged a floppy connector into the motherboard, so basically you fed some voltage through your system in a way that it wasn't expecting. When you do that, the voltage is going to end up going to one of three places: components, resistors, or back up into the power supply.
Looks like your power supply is good. Some BIOS' let you check the real voltage going to each of the rails and you can see if something is way out of skew, though realistically they're never right on (especially the 12v.) Your system runs so I don't expect that happened.
You can usually spot a broken resistor with a visual inspection of the board. If you're gaming and not crashing, you probably haven't lost any or haven't lost any that are required for components you use.
Component wise, the most fragile part is pretty much going to be memory (well, a CPU would cook under the voltage from a floppy too, but we know that didn't happen.) You said you'd been told by some software that you had a memory issue, and who knows, could be you do. Could be you did before any of it happened. Could be your test software is misreporting something like an unoptimal BIOS setting as a memory fault.
If you can't get memtest to work, I'd try the sisoft sandra memory benchmark (you can use the burn-in module under tools, and have it only test your memory.) It would probably be a good idea to do the full burn-in suite just to ensure system stability. If a memory burn in works fine, and game benchmarks don't crash, you're probably in the clear damage wise, or close enough that it doesn't matter.
Best luck, and don't sweat the small stuff. The only advice I'll offer you is that if you buy something and know everything about it, you seldom end up doing anything to it that breaks it (or at least you know the risks involved.) Be enthusiastic about your hardware. Sounds like you more or less are already.
But yeah, I know I messed up this time, even though you're laying it on me a bit much.
Here's some possible good news though. I ran another memory diagnostic and it said no errors detected. I won't breathe a sigh of relief until a month or two passes, but again there's no immediate problems.
That said, I will ask in Best Buy if they could do a check up of all my stuff to see if any errors are present, but not before getting an estimate.
"Ok, and?" refers to "what will happen as a result", not "what does that mean"? I know it's a fuckup, I wasn't questioning that part.
Most helpful post so far, and without the wallowing shame I'm feeling from the rest of you. The test said no errors a second time, but I'll try that benchmark you mentioned as well. System info still reads 4gb of RAM, so that should be okay as well. I'm still very cautious but hopefully I'm past the worst of it.
That keychain light sounds handy, where can I get one?
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I think the crux of your problem is that you seem to be relying on Best Buy as the source of "expert advice" rather than something more intelligent, like, say, the PA Tech subforum, or even a reasonably intelligent hamster.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
now that was totally un necessary.
the guy fucked up, he knows it. We're being hard on him, mostly because we didn't think anyone was capable of doing that, and his in ability to actually read manuals/instructions.
He probably won't do something quite that stupid again, and I hope he understands that he has to learn to read instructions before doing something he has no idea about again.
Bitch about Best Buy all you want, but I simply don't have the means (or know-how) to inspect everything on my own, save for the diagnostic tool and the Sandra software that I'll be trying right now. If the latter says everything's okay than there's no need to have anyone else take a look, but if it reports a problem, and no one here can say how to fix it, then I really don't have a choice here.
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honestly, the best buy people have no more, actually no, they probably have less, knowledge than the community here. They just have scripts, and contacts to the manufacturers. They actually generally google the problems themselves, and if they say they "fix" a hardware issue that's under warranty, it's usually that they just call in the warranty on the part, get a replacement, and do the switch for you.
The main point is you learn your components. You realize that anything coming from the PSU gives power when connected, and if you didn't see any comment to connect it in your manuals, it's best left to not connect it. Less is more when you're building. I'm glad you're taking the initiative to learn it, kudos.
You can find an LED light at most dollar stores, or electronics stores probably including best buy, ones with magnifying glasses aren't quite as easy to find but are still dirt cheap when you do.
http://www.qualitychinagoods.com/with-magnifying-glass-keychaink1glass-p-1032.html
Here's an online link with pictures just so you know what you're looking for (you can get them on ebay for a couple bucks too.)
It can be difficult to do trial-and-error troubleshooting (the easiest and most reliable kind for people just starting out on really learning that side of a computer) if you only have one system available to work with. If you've got a couple hundred extra dollars lying around and a spare hard drive or other components, it can be worth building yourself a second system if you have any genuine use for a second computer. Having a machine around just to troubleshoot is a bit expensive. But if you wanted an excuse to build a home theatre computer for example, and use it as a remote hard drive, well there's a good one.
I'm lucky as I build systems regularly and keep two gaming rigs running (partly as I have a couple friends I partner with for PC games, partly as an excuse to test AMD-ATI/Intel/nVidia's respective components of the generation.)
edit:
online resources are definitely a good thing for computers. The system-building community is pretty close and, being that it's such a quick way to get tech support for the most troublesome issues, pretty vocal too. This sub-forum is a good place for general computer knowledge, and there are some people who know ins and outs well enough to be helpful. The hardforum is a good place to go (by no means the only good place) if you want to keep up on the ins and outs of hardware in the same way that the PA forums kind of keep a reader up to date with what's going on, right this nanosecond, in gaming. But if you don't find that sort of thing interesting, it may very well not be for you.