HELP!!!!! Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 caught on FIRE!!!

[HollowRopes]

I bought the motherboard about a week ago, got a 2500k and played around a little bit with it, I was playing Stalker: Call of Pripyat and the computer goes out. So I turn it back on and there's like this fucking FLAME coming up between the outskirt (with the onboard stuff on it) and that black heatsink that's right by the big CPU heatsink.

This was about a 2, 3 foot flame, this wasn't a fucking spark. The motherboard doesn't look too bad, there's just a black spot right there inbetween those spots I mentioned.


Anyone know what I should do besides contact Gigabyte directly?

Edit: This made the whole house smell like an electrical fire the whole night and next day, it was awful.

 

[abekl]

I get the feeling we're not hearing the whole story.

 

[HollowRopes]

You can see my previous posts on the other boards when I first got the board and I was asking questions about it all the way up to this point.

Whole Story: 2500k was at 5GHz (?)

 

[ShadowVVL]

A.Someones trying to kill you!!

B. Your high

C.Cat pist on it

or D.God hates you.

but just rma it and get a new board that fixes everything

 

[rbk123]

Put a little duct tape on the burned spot to hold the capacitors together. Should be good to go after that.

I wouldn't worry about it until the flames get to 6-7ft.

 

[HollowRopes]

All of the above, I'm sorry to say.

The actual 2-foot flame that came straight up from the board was actually the most scenetic part, it was ridiculous. It was almost like a torch.

But yeah. RMA of course, just thought I'd like to share.

 

[ShadowVVL]

well i guess it is possible

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1568282


I always figured motherboard to be fully fire retardant.

 

[HollowRopes]

Well another reason I'm making a big fuss is because it smelt really bad, I mean for the minor damage that it did, the burnt electrical smell was the worst.

 

[HollowRopes]

I'll get some photos of the actual board tomorrow but the part of the board that caused this is in the yellow area:

It's really almost the only part that's black and burnt, everything else surrounding it is still fine. But you can tell from the back of those black heatsinks and the back of the onboard dash, they were scorched by the flame, so you can tell there was a big explosion.

 

[GrumpyMan]

Well as hot as it's been in Texas this year, I wouldn't be surprised if we all go up in flames.....107 predicted for this weekend, oh my......

 

[HollowRopes]

I just laugh when I look and see "Ultra Durable" on the side of those black heatsinks and then think of that damn flame, it was almost some three stooges style stuff.

 

[ShadowVVL]

lol indeed, kinda sucks though its a nice looking board.

i had high hopes for gigabyte since asus pissed me off with all the issues Ive had with their p67s

maybe try a elites group?

 

[HollowRopes]

I keep calling Gigabyte and even though it says they opened an hour ago, the phone message says they're closed.

It gives me a chance to leave a voice message and I've left three messages so far with my phone number and description of what happened, so hopefully these people will wake up soon. I was actually wanting to talk to someone about this rather than just RMA the board, because like I said this was like a torch.

 

[HollowRopes]

I took that black heatsink off and it's a mess under there, that's where it all happened. It's basically a row of mosfets (I think) and two of them are just melted on some Chernobyl type stuff, no kidding.

So yeah, I guess it was one of two of those little mosfet things under that black heatsink?

 

[ShadowVVL]

yeah you might have just got a bad board.

 

[HollowRopes]

I need one of those little protection CPU cap things, the thing they tell you to never lose and to trust with your life.

I seriously need one because I had sent mine off on an eBay transaction on another board. Can these things be bought anywhere?

 

[Rvenger]

Reminds me of everytime I used a gigabyte board... Newegg should just refuse to sell them to me because they get them back everytime!

Yeah, you should be able to RMA that no problem because it could of burned your house down if you had left it on unattended. Gigabyte wouldn't want that reputation.

 

[DougoMan]

So maybe I won't get this board afterall.

Reminds me of everytime I used a gigabyte board... Newegg should just refuse to sell them to me because they get them back everytime!

It's funny because every Gigabyte board I have ever had, and I have had a lot, has broke.

Yet it is still the only brand I buy. I guess it never bothered me too much since they have a 3 year warranty and are very quick to send me another broken board to replace the broken board I send them.

 

[HollowRopes]

This was my first Gigabyte board as well, I have always been an ASUS (and Microstar (MSI) back in the day) and I had a feeling something was going to go wrong.

I'll have some photos up before I RMA it.

The underside of the black heatsink has a narrow strip of thermal padding and it's all scorched up, and the side of the heatsink itself is scorched up alone.

The mosfets, I'm assuming, that were lined up under that black heatsink were melted and melded and and all kinds of weird looking shit that I can't even explain, it's was all electrically destroyed and produced a VERY bad smell that still lingers today (this happened last night).

 

[CarpeDiem99]

Ouch. This also seems to affect ASUS P8P67 Pro motherboards as evidenced in this thread: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1596733

 

[HollowRopes]

Looks almost like the same type of thing, just on a different side of a different board. It was like puddles of hallucinogenic melted parts, it looked pretty cool but it smelled (smells) so bad.

 

[bankster55]

were you or were you not at 5.0GHz?
Pray tell what voltage you were at?
Inquiring minds want to know

 

[ShadowVVL]

Ive never had any issue with gigabyte or asus until socket 1155.

 

[gevorg]

OP, can you give more details on your build? PSU and graphic card in particular.

Also, do you remember what voltage/OC settings you had in the BIOS?

 

[MadScientist]

Overclocking gone bad??? What vcore were you running at 5 Ghz? A CM 212+ can't handle this load.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2187483