And then there was smoke............

[virokka]

I recently purchased a number of items with which to build a new PC. Among these was an Asrock ConroeXFire-ESATA2 i945. I came to build the PC yesterday everything went fine. But when I turned on the PC there was a moment as it started up then the smoke started coming out of the PC and the computer turned off.

I powered down everything and took the PC back apart - the motherboard had scorch marks and a burning smell coming from one of the transistors. Obvoiusly this is broken and does not work now but I was wondering if this is simply a faulty motherboard or if I had done something wrong like have too much in the system with my PSU

Rest of the PC:

C2D E6300 + Arctic 7 Pro
2GB Memory DDR2 667
ATI 1900XT 512mb
36GB Western Digital Raptor
160GB Hitachi HDD
Audigy 4

The PSU is a Hiper Type M 480W

So what do you guys think and is it likely any of the other parts are fried I dont have any way of testing them

Thanks

 

[Criminal89]

What it sounds like to me is that it was just a poor quality component on the motherboard. I work as a PC technician and I have really been suprised at the number of motherboard vendors that are starting to skimp on the components that are used on their motherboards. I know it is not exactly the same issue, but I throw away motherboards everyday that have blown capacitors from a short period of use. These motherboard brands I deal with are: AOPEN, DFI and Machspeed.

 

[JonathanDeane]

Sounds like it was just a bad mobo to me (if it was your PS then I think with that you have it would power up just fine but when doing some 3D games it might hiccup a little... its just so close to power req. of all that good hardware !!!) 100% RMA that mobo and pray it didnt take anything with it Best of luck and may the IT god help you !

 

[virokka]

Ok so I have contacted the company (scan.co.uk) and I am waiting for a reply to be able to RMA

I have also bought the HIPER 580W modular Type R I have read some reviews and I feel that this will be a decent PSU - plus I have had a good experience with Hiper and this seems like a good step up

When Scan get back in touch I am going to ask if I can upgrade to one of the 965 mobos

Now I have read narrowed it down to 3 choices the Abit AB9, ASUS P5B (or P5B-E) or Gigabyte GA 965P-DS3

all 3 seem like good boards so it may come down to layout and price unless anyone knows anything specific that would sway it

I also read a lot of comments that say these boards have problems with IDE connections for Optical drives I don't know if anyone can shed any light on this or have any experience

Thanks a lot for your help

 

[papi4baby]

DS3 if you have memory that uses 1.8v . if not you might have problems booting up. Also i think the PS you had was good enought.

 

[derek2006]

I don't think the DS3 has that memory problem anymore. I think they fixed with a bios update. But don't take my word for it.

 

[papi4baby]

Yeah but you never know what bios your getting, is like a guessing game, uuu i wonder if it will boot up???? which bios uuuu :lol:

 

[Finny]

I recently purchased a number of items with which to build a new PC. Among these was an Asrock ConroeXFire-ESATA2 i945. I came to build the PC yesterday everything went fine. But when I turned on the PC there was a moment as it started up then the smoke started coming out of the PC and the computer turned off.

I powered down everything and took the PC back apart - the motherboard had scorch marks and a burning smell coming from one of the transistors. Obvoiusly this is broken and does not work now but I was wondering if this is simply a faulty motherboard or if I had done something wrong like have too much in the system with my PSU

Rest of the PC:

C2D E6300 + Arctic 7 Pro
2GB Memory DDR2 667
ATI 1900XT 512mb
36GB Western Digital Raptor
160GB Hitachi HDD
Audigy 4

The PSU is a Hiper Type M 480W

So what do you guys think and is it likely any of the other parts are fried I dont have any way of testing them

Thanks

Holy Sh!t thats crazy !

I consider anything besides Gigabyte,ASUS and Abit to be cheap untrustworthy Mobos!

I have had 3 Abit mobos (Some P3 based one,A Nforce 3 NF7-S and a Nforce 4 KN8U) over the last 7 years and they are still going strong and havent burn up like a white chicks butt in the midday SUN!

(Like the Pun ?)

Get a Good Mobo

Like a Abit AB9-Pro

 

[lowlifecat]

I recently purchased a number of items with which to build a new PC. Among these was an Asrock ConroeXFire-ESATA2 i945. I came to build the PC yesterday everything went fine. But when I turned on the PC there was a moment as it started up then the smoke started coming out of the PC and the computer turned off.

I powered down everything and took the PC back apart - the motherboard had scorch marks and a burning smell coming from one of the transistors. Obvoiusly this is broken and does not work now but I was wondering if this is simply a faulty motherboard or if I had done something wrong like have too much in the system with my PSU

Rest of the PC:

C2D E6300 + Arctic 7 Pro
2GB Memory DDR2 667
ATI 1900XT 512mb
36GB Western Digital Raptor
160GB Hitachi HDD
Audigy 4

The PSU is a Hiper Type M 480W

So what do you guys think and is it likely any of the other parts are fried I dont have any way of testing them

Thanks

You let the magic smoke escape! Everyone knows that computers run on magic smoke.

if you see the magic smoke coming out of your computer then you've let it escape! your computer will no longer work.

one way to keep he magic smoke in your computer is to keep it away from water. magic smoke apparently really hates getting wet and will escape if you try.

 

[levicki]

1. Is there any chance that you inserted your memory stick(s) wrong way into the mainboard?

2. Some PSUs have 2x 6-pin PCI-e connectors where one of them is not actually meant for powering PCI-e cards -- it carries 3.3V instead of 12V and Vcc and GND are swapped. Hopefully you don't have and haven't plugged one of those into your video card?

3. How about the CPU? Have you put it in properly? Hopefully you haven't rotated it by 90 or 180 or 270 degrees? It has notches so that is pretty hard to do but one can never be too carefull.

4. Maybe just a bad mainboard?

5. Power surge?

6. PSU gone bad and fried the rest?

 

[buzz_X]

I recently purchased a number of items with which to build a new PC. Among these was an Asrock ConroeXFire-ESATA2 i945. I came to build the PC yesterday everything went fine. But when I turned on the PC there was a moment as it started up then the smoke started coming out of the PC and the computer turned off.

I powered down everything and took the PC back apart - the motherboard had scorch marks and a burning smell coming from one of the transistors. Obvoiusly this is broken and does not work now but I was wondering if this is simply a faulty motherboard or if I had done something wrong like have too much in the system with my PSU

Rest of the PC:

C2D E6300 + Arctic 7 Pro
2GB Memory DDR2 667
ATI 1900XT 512mb
36GB Western Digital Raptor
160GB Hitachi HDD
Audigy 4

The PSU is a Hiper Type M 480W

So what do you guys think and is it likely any of the other parts are fried I dont have any way of testing them

Thanks

Holy Sh!t thats crazy !

I consider anything besides Gigabyte,ASUS and Abit to be cheap untrustworthy Mobos!

I have had 3 Abit mobos (Some P3 based one,A Nforce 3 NF7-S and a Nforce 4 KN8U) over the last 7 years and they are still going strong and havent burn up like a white chicks butt in the midday SUN!

(Like the Pun ?)

Get a Good Mobo

Like a Abit AB9-Pro

Hi,

The only motherboard manufacturer I've had consistent results with is Abit. The only exception was when Abit used a Via south chip, since they are known crap.

I purchased an Asus N7N8X and it turned out to be an overrated piece of crap. It would not allow me to change any settings on the Bios, a well documented defect with those motherboards.

Then there was the Gigabyte GA-7VRXP that came so highly reviewed right here at Tom's. Boy, what a piece of crap! I disconnected the motherboard to change it from one case to another - using all precautions - and it suffered Bios corruption ----> on BOTH bioses !!!

Right now my 2 dependable and steady motherboards are Abit NF7's. They have both been running overclocked for about 3 and a half years with nary a whimper.

 

[pat]

I recently purchased a number of items with which to build a new PC. Among these was an Asrock ConroeXFire-ESATA2 i945. I came to build the PC yesterday everything went fine. But when I turned on the PC there was a moment as it started up then the smoke started coming out of the PC and the computer turned off.

I powered down everything and took the PC back apart - the motherboard had scorch marks and a burning smell coming from one of the transistors. Obvoiusly this is broken and does not work now but I was wondering if this is simply a faulty motherboard or if I had done something wrong like have too much in the system with my PSU

Rest of the PC:

C2D E6300 + Arctic 7 Pro
2GB Memory DDR2 667
ATI 1900XT 512mb
36GB Western Digital Raptor
160GB Hitachi HDD
Audigy 4

The PSU is a Hiper Type M 480W

So what do you guys think and is it likely any of the other parts are fried I dont have any way of testing them

Thanks

I think that the motherboard was grounded to the case (looks like a mounting post placed where there was no hole for the screw (or was there any mounting post???)). Or you inserted a connector backward. I would first make sure that this is not another user error or that the case don't have a defect that make it touch the motherboardor any other component that draw power from the motherboard (such as case fans,..) are in good condition.

Then you could put the blame on the hardware. I've worked with Asrock, ECS and even PCChips motherboard, and while they may not have the same level of quality than big brand, their product have always proven reliable if coupled with good power sources.. Usually, when you buy budget motherboard, you sometime also buy budget PSU... while getting a higher priced motherboard usually make you get better parts.

 

[bga]

I came to build the PC yesterday everything went fine. But when I turned on the PC there was a moment as it started up then the smoke started coming out of the PC and the computer turned off.

You are probably experiencing a typical "Burn in" problem. The vast majority of electronic faliures happen in the first 48 hours of operation. Thats why good system builders let new systems "burn-in" by letting them work 48 hours continuously before delivering them to the customer.
Hopefully the short hasn't damaged other componets.

 

[niz]

Well, you did buy an X fire. you got what you asked for

 

[valis]

I think the power supply could be the component at fault.

here is a section from the conclusion of a review done by extremeoverclocking.com :

Now, on to the bad part. When attempting to overload the PSU and force it to shutdown from an over current situation, the OCP circuitry did not kick in. Instead the voltages just kept dropping, and the current draw peaked around 880W (measured at the AC plug). In theory a PC would not attempt to draw that much current, but you never know what could happen in a faulty situation. As a result of the failed over current attempt, I think either the field transistors or Schottky rectifiers might have been damaged.

http://www.extremeoverclocking.com/reviews/cases/Hiper_TypeR_480W_7.html

perhaps this is what happened ? perhaps you had an inadvertent short or something like that, no OCP kicked in, and it fried the mobo. i'd be careful about using that PS in the future... but you never know, could have been the mobo, a mislaid wire, anything really