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Help with power connector to motherboard

D

Deskstar

Golden Member
I need a bit of electrical help in figuring out what has caused what appears to be a short and melt down of 4 pins at the main motherboard connection for my power supply cable. The white plastic is black, has a nice odor of burning electrical apparatus, has melted the last two pins outlets on the connection and two additional pins in about the middle of the connection.

I have just replaced the power supply and everything still works, at least for now. But is this a power supply issue or a motherboard issue or what?? Can I tell what caused this by identifying the pins that shorted out?

x0
x0
00
00
/0x
00
0x
00
00
00

The above is a rendition of my connector after pulling it out. The "x" indicates a burned up pin; the "0" indicates a clean pin.
Any advice appreciated while I rush to build a new machine and off load data.
 
Those are the 5 volt pins. It's unlikely that a short caused the problem, the PSU would have switched off or blown a fuse.

The most likely explanation is that there was a poor contact between the mobo and the PSU connector leading to overheating of the connector because of the very high current. It's impossible to tell which side of the connector was at fault. However, your damaged motherboard is almost certainly going to give poor contact in the future. Prolonged use may damage the connector on the PSU.

More modern motherboards supply the CPU from the 12V line, dramatically reducing the currents needed to be delivered by the ATX connector and lessening the risk of failures such as these.
 
Thank you; of interest is that the tech at Antec-Inc which makes my power supply says that my motherboard (Tyan Tiger S2460) is known to have "problems" with the power draw. I will have to switch motherboards and power supplies. Fortunately, I am running again (no mobo damage other than melted plastic in the ATX connections holes). But, I cannot risk another meltdown like this.

 
this is interesting as a post mortem

scenario: traces too thin on MB and burn out one by one heaping more current on remaining pins?
- but the board still works w new PSU?

scenario2: oxides on power connector cause poor conductivity and heat?

what else?
 
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