Question On the dangers of modular power supplies and mixing cables - or "fire in the hold"!

[VirtualLarry]

I know that this has been mentioned, but for those of you who haven't heard yet, DO NOT MIX MODULAR PSU MODULAR CABLES BETWEEN BRANDS OR DIFFERENT OEM MFGS OF THE SAME BRAND! Therein lies peril. As in, actual sparks, fire, flames, etc.

This happened to a friend of mine recently.

He came to me last year, his EVGA 600W (80Plus White) PSU that I used to build his gaming rig failed.

So I put in a Rosewill Capstone (80Plus Gold, Japanese caps, 5-year warranty), thinking that it would be a better PSU.

He diagnosed it as dead a few days ago, after his PC shut off unexpectedly, using the paper-clip trick (purple and black wires, I think, or maybe green and black, basically, PS_ON and GND).

So, instead of calling me up, and asking me what to do, he thought that he could handle this himself, which, you know, I applaud him for doing, and he went and bought a new shiny-new modular PSU of a different major brand.

He replaced the modular cables that he previously installed, for the ATX12V, ATX 24-pin (mobo cable), and the GPU (PCI-E cable). Unfortunately, he did not replace the HDD / SATA power cable. *@ THIS IS A BIG MISTAKE, but he didn't know @*

So when he powered on, BOOM! SPARKS! FLAME! HDD DESTROYED. (*Ok, haven't looked at it, but he most likely burned his HDD board at a minimum.)

What have we learned? DO NOT MIX MODULAR CABLES. NO MATTER HOW PRETTY YOUR CABLE-MANAGEMENT LOOKS AT THE TIME, NOR HOW MUCH HASSLE IT MIGHT BE TO RE-STRING THE CABLES. SRSLY. FIRE IS NOTHING TO MESS WITH, ON YOUR PC.




---

Corsair and EVGA should put a "Surgeon General"-type warning on their PSU boxes and / or PSU labels:

This Power Supply should only be operated with the included modular cables. Use with other brand or mfgs cables may result in fire and/or destruction of equipment. Don't say we didn't warn you!

Also, why hasn't the "SFF Committee" or the "ATX SPEC guys" (I think Intel is responsible for ATX specification?), come up with a STANDARD for PSU-side connectors for modular cables? There's a REASON we have STANDARDIZED Molex, SATA, Floppy, and PCI-E cabling, etc. Why not standardize both sides of the cables???

 

[EXCellR8]

I would argue that if cables are rated for the same power transfer then it's probably fine. I would also argue that there may have been another cause for the fire... such as forcing a SATA power into a CPU/PCIe slot onto the PSU or something. Hard to do, but not impossible, especially for an inexperienced builder--but that's how you learn, unfortunately.

I actually fried one of my GTX 980's that way a few years ago; I think I put a HDD/SATA power adapter in thinking it was another PCIe, or something like that, and the result was my shop smelling like electro-burnt toast for a week.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I would argue that if cables are rated for the same power transfer then it's probably fine.

No, it wouldn't be fine. There are some TechTubers that go into detail about this. GamersNexus (Steve) did an involved video, in which he showed that with a lot of testing both cables with a DMM and some notes, that you could tell if one modular cable was wired the same as another one. BUT YOU CAN'T INTERCHANGE DIFFERENTLY-WIRED ONES, WHICH MOST ARE.

That's why we need standards for this sort of thing, so that the most that we would have to worry about is the wire gauge and the current capacity.

 

[DustinD]

I little light up plug in tester for sata and other ports would be nice to have for professional builders or repair people. Something like what we have for 120volt outlets. That way miswired or intermittent open circuits could be found more easily. You could plug in the tester and flex the cables to see if anything changes.

 

[ch33zw1z]

This seems like common sense, but still I guess needs to be said. Don't mix them lol

 

[mv2devnull]

True.

However, is it common sense to assume that two seemingly identical connectors are different?

Hence, needs to be said.


Now, having assembled more than one computer there are now left-over cables, and less than pedantic storage of them over the years means that I must assume them all be useless and dangerous.

 

[Furious_Styles]

No, it wouldn't be fine. There are some TechTubers that go into detail about this. GamersNexus (Steve) did an involved video, in which he showed that with a lot of testing both cables with a DMM and some notes, that you could tell if one modular cable was wired the same as another one. BUT YOU CAN'T INTERCHANGE DIFFERENTLY-WIRED ONES, WHICH MOST ARE.

That's why we need standards for this sort of thing, so that the most that we would have to worry about is the wire gauge and the current capacity.

Agreed. I even made the mistake of trying to (temporarily) use a SATA power cable from my SS in a friend's new PC I was building. Both modular SS PSUs. The SATA cable melted (not the power cable amazingly) and nuked that HDD. Whoops!

 

[IronWing]

Timely thread, I just saved the cables from my dead computer in case I needed them for my new computer. I guess we get so used to cables being mix and match that we've lost the idea that different manufacturers would connect them up differently. In fact, the only time I can think of in the past twenty five years I had an oddball cable was a special cross over CAT5 cable used for system migration. It looked just like a regular CAT5 until you read the markings. Before that, it was straight vs crossed serial cables back in the DOS days.

 

[DigDog]

so .. ah heck.

@VirtualLarry


Turns out i accidentally thrown out half the cables to my modular EVGA G2, and now im looking at the prices for a new set on the official website .. mammamia!

Now, i see people sell cable mods for this, so *somewhere* there must be a set of specifications as to what cables fit this model, right?

Anyone have an idea of where i can find this? (or where i can just buy cheap cable replacements?)

 

[sao123]

My Corsair Power supply does have such a warning, though it was only the black cloth bag the cables came in itself... on that bag it says USE ONLY WITH CORSAIR AX850 POWER SUPPLY.

i will note that not only is cross vendor a problems... cords by the same company for different product lineup may also end with the same result.
Here is a lovely chart to guide you.

PSU CABLE COMPATIBILITY

www.corsair.com

 

[BoomerD]

I have a pretty good assortment of cables left over from my Corsair HX620 PSU. BUT, I know there's no "industry standard" for cables and how they connect to PSU's...so I won't even consider using them with a different power supply.

 

[DigDog]

i did some digging and it turns out that with EVGA pretty much all the P series and G series (and more) use the same cables. It's not really an issue of what voltage they carry, but rather what pin has which cable.
Bitfenix has some reasonably (kinda) priced replacement cables.