Asus P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 + accelero xtreme 7970 short circuit

[dubbydub]

Don't know if this is the right forum for this, anyways:

I just finished my P8Z68, 2700k and HD7970 build and was going to use the accelero xtreme for extra gpu cooling. I've sleeved everything (a w850ax psu + all wires from hard drives and fans in a ft-02). A lot of work, but I was finally done today. I test started the computer after connecting all the psu wires and everything went ok. All fans started and everything looked fine.

But then I was going to install the accelero xtreme. I wanted to remove the extra 3-pin wire that's daisy chained to the 4-pin wire on the cooler. But first I recrimped the 3-pin wires (to test the crimping before doing it to the 4-pin wire). I then hooked up the 3-pin connector to one of the cpu fan connectors on the mobo. Problem is that when I turned on the power to see if the accelero wires was working (without actually having connected it too the gpu) I heard a "pop" and I smelt smoke. Seems a chip thingy on the motherboard short circuited. I now need to get a new asus board.

What happened? Did the Accelero cooler short circuit the motherboard by not being connected to the HD 7970 when I tested it? Or was it that I used the cpu fan connector? I'm hoping to get another motherboard fast, but I don't want to short circuit that one too? Can I remove the 3-pin connector and use only the 4-pin (remove the daisy chain)?

Is it likely that some of the other parts in the PC (ram, cpu etc.) was damaged by the short?

This really sucks.

 

[elel]

I don't know what came in the package with your cooler, so I'm not quite clear on what you're all doing. Do you mean that the cooler has a standard 4-pin female fan connector on the wire coming out of it, and this then goes through a 3-pin adapter in case you don't have a 4-pin header available? If so, what do you mean by 'crimping' the connectors? In my experience, the connectors are always already attached to the wires, and there should be no need to manually crimp on the connectors. Are you modifying you wiring? I may be able to give some suggestions once I get this figured out, but I can't really speculate until I understand whether you're attaching your own connectors or using pre-built cables.

 

[dubbydub]

http://imgur.com/Dxs3j

Here's a picture of the Accelro wire. I removed the white 3-pin connector (circled to the right) and replaced it with a bigger, black 3-pin connector (circled to the left). I cut the wires going in to the original connector and recrimped, and used the black replacement connector.

My plan was to remove the 3-pin adapter completely (for the asthetics) but I wanted to test if I could recrimp the wires even though they were very thin.

I connected only the (new) 3-pin adapter to the motherboard and turned on the power. Pop and smoke.

The wires going into the 3-pin adapter actually got fried off. So it seems the short circuit originated there.

 

[dubbydub]

Quick update.

I see that my HD7970 has a 4-pin connector itself. I guess I'm supposed to connect the Accelero fans to that connector.
But why did the motherboard short curcuit? Did the accelero fans pull too many volts (or something like that)?

 

[elel]

Very good, I see what's going on now. Yes, you're right that it was your crimped on 3-pin connector which short circuited. Short circuits draw tons of current (voltage doesn't matter) and get very hot. That's what burnt off the wires, and since the current passes through all parts between the short circuit and the power supply, the part on your motherboard also got hot and exploded. If I was you, I'd test plugging into the 4-pin connector on the GPU *after* you've fully removed the remains of your 3-pin connector. The advantage of using the connector on the GPU is that you fans will spin at a rate proportional to your GPU temperature, rather than at full speed all the time. And you might test your motherboard to see if everything but that fan header still works. You might get lucky. Also, I don't see why this mishap should have damaged your processor or RAM, though I can't say 100% for certain. I did something similar to one of my motherboards, and everything is still working.

 

[dubbydub]

Thanks for the replies elel!

I RMA'ed the motherboard and got a temporary one while it's getting repaired/replaced. I do think it was just the fan header that got blown out (everything else seemed to work after restarting the pc) and hopefully the cpu/ram etc. is unharmed.