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What the hell caused this? [PICS]

I

imported_Phil

Diamond Member
Can someone please have a look at these pics for me? I need to know what caused this damage (bottom-right of mATX motherboard)- could it have been caused by a cheap PSU?

Personally, I think it unlikely as it's too far away from the ATX connector (which is free of melting signs or burn marks), and it's nowhere near the voltage regulator components.

Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3
Picture 4

Any thoughts?

Cheers! 🙂
 
Dang, it's like looking at a car wreck! :Q I wonder if that capacitor is fudged at this point. Pop it off and see if it's leaking out of the bottom. It's possible the mounting screw made contact with some of the traces and caused a short.
 
Looks like something metal made contact and shorted somethng out. Possibly when you sealed up the case, you pinched some wires b/t the metal sides?

Does the mobo work? I wouldn't risk frying the CPU/memory/videocard...if they aren't already done for. I wouldn't use that board anymore, even if it did work.
 
Looks like a short to me too. Maybe a screw fell down there and shorted the board out to the case at that point?
 
Thanks for your input guys. It's not actually my machine, it's a customers at work who's apparently going to be arguing with Head Office if the board isn't replaced under warranty.

Of course, apparently the warranty conditions, i.e. do not install unauthorised parts yourself or your warranty is void do not apply to him.

So, I'm interested to see if you guys think this is negligence, or just "one of those things".
 
Originally posted by: DopeFiend
Can someone please have a look at these pics for me? I need to know what caused this damage (bottom-right of mATX motherboard)- could it have been caused by a cheap PSU?

Personally, I think it unlikely as it's too far away from the ATX connector (which is free of melting signs or burn marks), and it's nowhere near the voltage regulator components.

Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3
Picture 4

Any thoughts?

Cheers! 🙂
Click to expand...

As for my expert opinion, I believe what happened to your board is what us technical professionals like to call "something bad happened." Don't do it again.
 
Originally posted by: deathkoba
Probably a bad board. You should get it checked out.
Click to expand...

You think? 😛


Anyway, it's not my board, I'm just having fun getting the guy to tie himself in knots worrying that the crappy weighs-less-than-a-gnat's-fart PSU has broken his mobo 😀
 
I wouldn't expect their to be any high-power circuits near the south bridge and BIOS circuits, so it's unlikely that it was a faulty peripheral or other component of the board. Indeed, most of the burnt components are very small, suggesting that they are signal control components, not power control.

However, the damage is extensive suggesting a direct short-circuit of the power supply. As the edge of the board appears to have take the brunt of the damage (pic 4), this may well be the source of the fault. The capacitor and BIOS chip look intact, suggesting that they were not the cause of the problem - for a faulty component to cause damage of this severity I would have expected destruction, almost beyond recognition, of the offending component.

Internal to the motherboard are a ground plane, and a power plane - these are very thick pieces of copper foil which connect direct to the PSU and carry power all around the board - my guess is that faulty mounting of the board put excessive pressure on the edge of the board, causing the planes to short together causing this extensive damage. Possibly a screw was misplaced and impinged on the edge of the board.
 
Originally posted by: Mark R
I wouldn't expect their to be any high-power circuits near the south bridge and BIOS circuits, so it's unlikely that it was a faulty peripheral or other component of the board. Indeed, most of the burnt components are very small, suggesting that they are signal control components, not power control.

However, the damage is extensive suggesting a direct short-circuit of the power supply. As the edge of the board appears to have take the brunt of the damage (pic 4), this may well be the source of the fault. The capacitor and BIOS chip look intact, suggesting that they were not the cause of the problem - to cause damage of this severity, I would have destruction (almost beyond recognition) of the offending component.

Internal to the motherboard are a ground plane, and a power plane - these are very thick pieces of copper foil which connect direct to the PSU and carry power all around the board - my guess is that faulty mounting of the board put excessive pressure on the edge of the board, causing the planes to short together causing this extensive damage. Possibly a screw was misplaced and impinged on the edge of the board.
Click to expand...

Wow. PhD in EE? :Q I feel honored just to have perused such a detailed and well-written reply! Can I have it tattooed on my chest? 😀
 
it looks to me like someone held a cigarette lighter to the board edgewise. look at the smoke pattern in pic 4 plus the placement of the damage. it really looks to me like an external heat source caused this. anotrher possibility is a screw wedged between the board and case.


if you have an old junk board and case, adjust a lighter's flame to high and see if you can replicate the same burn/soot pattern.
 
Originally posted by: DopeFiend
Can someone please have a look at these pics for me? I need to know what caused this damage (bottom-right of mATX motherboard)- could it have been caused by a cheap PSU?

Personally, I think it unlikely as it's too far away from the ATX connector (which is free of melting signs or burn marks), and it's nowhere near the voltage regulator components.

Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3
Picture 4

Any thoughts?

Cheers! 🙂
Click to expand...

w00t a fire! There was somthing like that once at IBM where someone had a burnt knackered laptop and this was due to the soup that he had spilt all over it 😀
 
MichaelD: Thanks for that, pretty much confirmed what I was thinking. Damnit, was looking forward to tell him that his crappy PSU smoked his board 😀

Shad0hawk: Yeah it looks like that, but remember that if something catches fire on a vertically-mounted motherboard, it's going to "flame" upwards- creating the pattern you see.

Sadly, investigation using an eyeglass and very bright lights revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

Bah.
 
In the first pic, is that the PSU near the mobo mounting board? I would look to see if the wall outlet he was using is reverse polarity or the wiring inside the PSU. Perhaps he was doing something dumb like using a 3 to 2 prong adapter on his computer. In which case, take him out and shoot him before he has a chance to spread his nasty genetic material.
. IAC, it's obvious that something capable of carrying substantial current got too close to ground. But from your pix it's hard to tell which was supplying the current source and which the ground. It might have been just that the edge of the mobo got jammed against the PSU chassis bridging some layers within the board itself. Good luck fingering it out.
..bh.
 
Originally posted by: DopeFiend
MichaelD: Thanks for that, pretty much confirmed what I was thinking. Damnit, was looking forward to tell him that his crappy PSU smoked his board 😀

Shad0hawk: Yeah it looks like that, but remember that if something catches fire on a vertically-mounted motherboard, it's going to "flame" upwards- creating the pattern you see.

Sadly, investigation using an eyeglass and very bright lights revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

Bah.
Click to expand...

that is true, but what led me to believe that is not so much the vertical pattern but rather that the damage seem to orginate from the outside edge of the board where there are no circuits. plus if that much juice went through it to burn there should be popped or swollen capicitors.

was there a standoff under the board?

i work at a comp shop too, basically they way i would call it would be based on the relationship i had with the customer, if he is a "good" customer i would replace the board, if it is a customer that is a "bad" customer i would be highly skeptical.
 
Originally posted by: Shad0hawK

that is true, but what led me to believe that is not so much the vertical pattern but rather that the damage seem to orginate from the outside edge of the board where there are no circuits. plus if that much juice went through it to burn there should be popped or swollen capicitors.

was there a standoff under the board?

i work at a comp shop too, basically they way i would call it would be based on the relationship i had with the customer, if he is a "good" customer i would replace the board, if it is a customer that is a "bad" customer i would be highly skeptical.
Click to expand...

Yeah, there were standoffs- you can see them in the first pic, which is taken looking down towards the bottom of the case.

Anyway, I'm highly skeptical 90% of the time, so this is just a daily continuation of that (I detest refunding stuff 🙂).
 
it looks to me like someone held a cigarette lighter to the board edgewise.
Click to expand...

You have never seen a tantalum capacitor flame out before! 🙂

The further the fault is from the PS, higher resistance allows the power supply to stay online and the resultant heat (square of current times resistance) produced will easily produce this kind of damage.

I saw similar damage to the center of a board from a floppy cable that was sliced and the grounds came in contact with the back of a video card.

Cheers!
 
I agree with Mark.

It's definitely not the capacitor (you can see that both its shielding and leads are unburnt, you can see solder that melted and re-solidified on the screw-mount, but the solder on the capacitor remains unscathed). And it's certainly not the BIOS chip, that wouldn't be able to generate enough heat to do that much destruction even if it was completely buggered.

You can see where the edge of the board expanded, which means that the heat probably originated inside the board itself, which explains why there is no apparent offending component.

The board is done for. And I wouldn't trust that BIOS chip either.
 
Originally posted by: mobobuff
I agree with Mark.

It's definitely not the capacitor (you can see that both its shielding and leads are unburnt, you can see solder that melted and re-solidified on the screw-mount, but the solder on the capacitor remains unscathed). And it's certainly not the BIOS chip, that wouldn't be able to generate enough heat to do that much destruction even if it was completely buggered.

You can see where the edge of the board expanded, which means that the heat probably originated inside the board itself, which explains why there is no apparent offending component.

The board is done for. And I wouldn't trust that BIOS chip either.
Click to expand...

You're, IMHO, entirely correct about it definitely not being the BIOS chip. My thoughts exactly when I saw the customer-written self-diagnosis in the "Fault" field on our booking sheet. Someone needs to stop letting cutomers fill them in themselves :|

Anyway, if it was the chip, then I think the label would have burnt up too 🙂
 
i agree with Mark above, obvious short circuit, either due to excessive stress caused by overtightening the screw at that location or the perhaps the guy left a screw behind the mobo as he was mounting it and was too lazy to remove the mobo again to get at it, thinking it would fall out when he sat the case upright. but it didn't fall out (all the way?) and/or he forgot about it and 'oops' happened.

as stated above, the severity of the damage, location, as well as the markings, pretty much indicate a short circuit at that location. I would say there's a 95% chance it was his fault. but of course customers are always right...
 
Originally posted by: Shad0hawK
it looks to me like someone held a cigarette lighter to the board edgewise. look at the smoke pattern in pic 4 plus the placement of the damage. it really looks to me like an external heat source caused this. anotrher possibility is a screw wedged between the board and case.


if you have an old junk board and case, adjust a lighter's flame to high and see if you can replicate the same burn/soot pattern.
Click to expand...

That's what I was wondering - guy trying to get a free motherboard, maybe a newer model, for free by making it look like an accident. But the inside of the case is damaged too - most people looking to get a minor upgrade for free, by way of warranty fraud don't have that kind of attention to detail.
 
Originally posted by: DopeFiend
i work at a comp shop too, basically they way i would call it would be based on the relationship i had with the customer, if he is a "good" customer i would replace the board, if it is a customer that is a "bad" customer i would be highly skeptical.
Click to expand...

Yeah, there were standoffs- you can see them in the first pic, which is taken looking down towards the bottom of the case.

Anyway, I'm highly skeptical 90% of the time, so this is just a daily continuation of that (I detest refunding stuff 🙂).[/quote]

actually what i was getting at was a standoff under the board but not lined up with a screwhole(although i have never seen damage that bad from it), novice system builders do it all the time...that and putting on heatsinks backwards. one guy even brought in a system with no boot/video/fans and he had the motherboard screwed directly to the case with zero standoffs!

even then though a direct contact short from a standoff does usually not fry the board, only if it arcs. i have seen standoffs under the board keep local devices from working that they were located near- ps2 ports, ide controller..etc. then work fine frequently after the offending standoff is removed.

anyway it seems to me the vendor/manufacturer most likely will not replace the board so if you do replace you will probobly have to eat it. 🙁 they most likely will come to 3 possiblr conclusion

1. sabotage
2. faulty installation.
3. outside source of extreme voltage.

all 3 of which is reason for them not to replace the board, and these would work for you to. that soot came from an open flame.

gnight! 🙂
 
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