Could this have damaged something?

[maxamus]

Hi, i was connecting a molex - 2x fan power connecter and the 2 fan power connectors touched together and sparked, my computer then shut down. Luckly it booted back up ok. Does the PSU have some fail safe that kept my components alive or was it just luck. Also even though i do not notice any damage at this moment did it weeken anything? thanks.

 

[maxamus]

Thanks for the super helpful comment..

 

[maxamus]

Thanks, i was not looking forward to upgrading again, only just got this rig put together a month ago

 

[Lord-Ilpolazzo]

Of course you can connect fans while the computers on, just dont let anything short, but you would have tp try prety hard to do that! In answer to your question it's almost certainly fine, PSUs have many protection mechanisms to prevent damage due to shorts, in the event of a short they turn off to protect themselves, and that is what you observed. As soon as they turn on again they are fine, you have to try prety hard to actually break one..

 

[maxamus]

Awesome.. i uasually hot swap everything, lol.. i just wasent expecting the two ends to touch together. They are pretty crap because you can change which pin you put the cable on to change the voltage going to the fan (the pins do not have shielding on), and it touched with the other adapter

 

[manicmalki]

Most PSUs do have a breaker built in. I would assume yours does to but I wouldent want to test it. Good to know yours worked.

 

[jsc]

Actually, PSU's do not have a circuit breaker built in.

The good PSU's have a circuit that detects overloads (a short circuit is basically the ultimate overload) and then, in order, does a hardware reset to protect the computer and electronically shuts the PSU down to protect itself.