PSA: Floppy drives don't like it when you don't connect the power plug correctly

[MichaelD]

Spent $1K on my new rig. Put it all together. Hit the power button.

*pop-pop-pshhhh!!*
/smell smoke

:Q

I yanked the plug out of the PS. I said "Oh man! WTF!!?? I KNOW I put it together correctly!" I guess not.

Following the smoke with my nose, I wind up at the floppy drive...been in this case for probably 8 years now in about 10 different systems...wtf?

Instead of CORRECTLY plugging in the power connector, I plugged it into just the right-most two pins. I think that sent 12v thru the 5v pins. The PCB on the bottom of the floppy was burned and the little cover over the motor popped off.

The system is OK though! Seems that no other damage was done. I could've fried the PS and everything else, but nothing went wrong. I'm sure it wasn't healthy for the PS, but it appears to be fine. (Antec TP2.0 550, btw)

After building tens of systems over the years, I feel like such an @ss for making a simple mistake. I got lucky though.


Cliff Notes
Attached power plug to floppy drive incorrectly and blew the floppy to pieces. New PC OK, though.

 

[compuwiz1]

Rookie move!

 

[BoomerD]

Heh...that's almost as bad as when I somehow plugged in the cable from my sound card to the "break-out" board backwards...fried that sucker QUICK! fortunately, it didn't do any damage to either the sound card or the panel, but I did have to pay thru the nose for a new cable from Creative...(it only LOOKS like a 40 pin IDE cable...)

 

[Shawn]

I did that a long time ago. luckily it only killed the floppy drive and PSU. Everything else was ok.

 

[MichaelD]

Yeah, I am still a little worried about it...but I ran benchmarks for hours yesterday and left the PC on overnight and all was good. :thumbsup:

 

[Shawn]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
Yeah, I am still a little worried about it...but I ran benchmarks for hours yesterday and left the PC on overnight and all was good. :thumbsup:

When I did it, the plastic on one of the wires had melted off exposing most of the bare metal. Tons of black smoke also came out the back of the psu. It was only on for maybe 2 seconds too. I'm sure it would have caught fire if I did not pull the plug as quickly as I did. This was back in the AT days though where the power supplies were turned on by a switch. I don't know if this would have happened with a modern ATX PSU.

 

[MichaelD]

I thought I smelled smoke coming out of the PSU, but that was probably just smoke being pulled thru by the PSU's fan. The floppy power plug wires look OK...the PSU doesn't smell burnt anymore and the voltages all look good. *shrug*

 

[Vegitto]

I'm glad everything's okay .

 

[neutralizer]

Damn, floppies are always so unreliable.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: neutralizer
Damn, floppies are always so unreliable.

LOL! Normally they are pretty reliable when you plug them in correctly.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Z0MGN00BZ0R!

 

[marvdmartian]

I only ever (luckily) screwed up putting the pins in on a motherboard usb connector, and fried a Lexar 128mb jump drive when I plugged it in there.......POP! (little wisp of smoke)

But yeah, you can get some pretty spectacular effects when you screw up like that. I often times look at things I did with my first computer build, and shudder......like splicing into a floppy drive power cable to run my ccfl's......with the good old electrical tape covering the bare wires! :roll:

By the way.....what's a floppy drive?? :laugh:
(I assume you need it for old stuff you still have on floppies??)

 

[j00fek]

pooned by teh pwr supply

 

[Old Hippie]

Originally posted by: BoomerD
Heh...that's almost as bad as when I somehow plugged in the cable from my sound card to the "break-out" board backwards...fried that sucker QUICK! fortunately, it didn't do any damage to either the sound card or the panel, but I did have to pay thru the nose for a new cable from Creative...(it only LOOKS like a 40 pin IDE cable...)

I bought two just in case I did it again.