PSUs and overheating/malfunctions.

[Coldkilla]

My cousin just bought his first 'frankenstein' pc. But guess who built it? You guessed it, me.

I was getting the parts together and went trough a whole slew of errors and failures I was going near crazy. Then after a few more tests, the system began to literally go up in smoke. The very second I began smelling this horrific smell, I unplugged the computer. After some testing, the CD Drive, the hard drive had burn marks on the ports/connectors.

Luckly the GFX card hadn't burned but I haven't yet had a chance to disassemble his PC to the extent of actually replacing motherboard and/or components to the motherboard.

My question: Can a DOA power supply cause havok on a new PC? Do standard warranties cover this type of damage? (Overall generalization if its specific to the company).

He bought this on Newegg and received it 4 days ago. Any chance of getting a 100% refund? If newegg does offer services for DOA PSUs and the componets they distroyed, is it better to ask for a refund and then buy new parts in order to not have to wait weeks on end?

His PSU: Corsair 520 Watt

He also has:
-5 Fans
-A new ATI HD48070
-LED Display for all 5 fans (takes up 2 CD Drive slots)
-A cigarette lighter.

When I told him about this PSU I had no idea about the fans, the cig lighter or the LED display... Do those take up a lot of power and could those things have caused this problem to begin with?

 

[mpilchfamily]

So he has one of thiose cig lighters for the PC. Those are bad and if you use them for lighting sigs you are puling more power then is ment to go threw them. They are mainly form car chargers. Good chance it messed up the PSU. But Newegg should give him the RMA as long as he keeps them thinking it was faulty out of the box.

 

[Coldkilla]

I ended up using that exact PSU on my system, using all of his cords (excluding the SATA cables), it worked perfectly fine. My system booted and it worked flawlessly. Then I connected some more components of mine and used more of his cables - turns out after some tests... and distorying my hard drive as well - the SATA cables were the culprit...

Anyone know why this happened? Are sata cables different from one another? I thought they were all the same...

Anyways, since his Motherboard, DVD Drive, and hard drive are down... anything I should say to Newegg in particular? Would saying that the cords that came with the PSU caused the computer to overheat and basically 'die'?

Any information is appreciated... oh and if it helps, his RAM, Video card, and his PSU (excluding SATA cables) work perfectly fine - in fact im using them right now with my motherboard, dvd drives, hard drive and cpu. I haven't tested his CPU as its really snug together with his heatsink/motherboard and am unsure if his PSU problem could have made it all the way over there.