24pin ATX connector melted into Socket!

Arcane

Arcane

Arcane

Soldato
Joined
19 Aug 2005
Posts
4,174
Location
Ealing, London
I've been getting flaky performance lately, to the point where it was BSODing, not restarting without BIOS Reset etc. The culprit seems to be;

IMG_0793.jpg


Notice the burnt pins on the 24 pin connector and the melted plastic in the socket. I've ordered a new PSU but am hoping I can clean melted plastic out of the mobo socket perhaps with a scalpel? Anyone done this before or got any suggestions?
 
tweezers/scalpel would probably be the best choice - if its still stubborn you could try heating up say the tweezers with a lighter and try to accurately 'loosen' it
 
Well, I've had a go and had limited success, it's such a small area to get into that I ended up using a pin and magnifying glass to see what I was doing, it's a little better but nowhere near perfect. Looking around the web it seems to be a common problem when the PSU is overloaded by high end video cards, which would make sense as i've been testing out water cooled 470gtx SLI and overvolting them. The PSU is (was) a Coolermaster CM850, I thought it'd be up to the job.:confused:

I suppose the real issue now is do I try out the replacement PSU on the existing motherboard or get another one?
 
If it was me, I would determine if it was PSU or Mobo.

If something is causing that to melt I would be concerned.
Are your PSU and mobo under warantee? If so I would return them.
If not do some testing and see what is causing it.
Problem is that you don't want a fire risk.
 
Two 470GTX's on a CM850? Thats one overloaded PSU, especially since uve been overclocking/over volting. I think thats what caused it. Especially with your i7 rig. You should change your PSU to one in the KW range to handle that kind of power/load.
 
I've just received a new PSU, an Enermax Revolution 1250w, that should be man enough for the job, :D. Now it's just whether I risk it an see if the mobo is ok or bin it and get another, the thought of spending another £200 is too much to bare.
 
Harpss1ngh said:
Two 470GTX's on a CM850? Thats one overloaded PSU, especially since uve been overclocking/over volting. I think thats what caused it. Especially with your i7 rig. You should change your PSU to one in the KW range to handle that kind of power/load.
Click to expand...

GTX470_SLI-75.jpg


GTX470 SLI showing a total system draw of 541W. You have to have some serious kit connected to it to put it over 850W....
 
You can also get this if there's simply a bad connection between the PSU connector and mobo, causing arcing which results in a build up heat and the plastic starts melting.
 
I put the new PSU in last night. For some reason windows had corrupted so I reinstalled it and got a lot further down the line.
I could clock the cards and pass furmark xtreme Burn test for 30 minutes, 850 core on both cards which I was very happy with.
However, I keep getting an issue where the PC screen goes blank, sits there for about 10 seconds and then restarts, this is at stock clocks, on the desktop.

So, new PSU, clean Win7 install and still issues, I'm thinking the motherboards hosed?
 
Arcane said:
I've just received a new PSU, an Enermax Revolution 1250w, that should be man enough for the job, :D. Now it's just whether I risk it an see if the mobo is ok or bin it and get another, the thought of spending another £200 is too much to bare.
Click to expand...

Maybe contact ASUS? They might offer a testing service for a fee, that way you could be sure that the motherboard was at fault.

As far as I can see it is either the motherboard or the PSU at fault. My money would be on the PSU due to it being a coolermaster, but it could just as easily be the board.

I'd disable auto restart if you haven't already.

System Properties > Advanced System Settings > Startup and Recovery {Settings} > Untick "Automatically Restart + Overwrite any existing file"
 
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Thanks, I'm not sure whether to RMA it or just cut my losses, reading up seems to give conflicting reports as to it being the fault of the motherboard or the PSU, no harm in trying I suppose.
 
If its any consolation I wouldn't have been happy running a motherboard with that king of damage to the connector, not worth it. RMA it, blame the motherboard and then sell the replacement on the mm to recoup your outlay!
 
Arcane said:
Thanks, I'm not sure whether to RMA it or just cut my losses, reading up seems to give conflicting reports as to it being the fault of the motherboard or the PSU, no harm in trying I suppose.
Click to expand...

It is worth a go for the sake of the postage. I mean it might take a while as I suspect the retailer will want to post it back to ASUS for testing, but I wouldn't write the board off outright.

They may even be able to repair it for a fee if they deem it not to be covered by the warranty.
 
Threads a bit old but I just had the *exact* same thing happen to my PSU.

Specs are:
Q6600 CPU
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3P
SLI 2xGTX 470's
Corsair AX850

Image here: http://i1098.photobucket.com/albums/g374/Negcreep69/melted12v.jpg

The set up ran for about 9-10 months like this without issue.

I took it apart and found the 12v pins melted with melted plastic left in the motherboard. After a clean up I now have it all running on a Thermaltake Toughpower 700watt PSU with 1 GTX470 and all seems fine.

Well that kind of points the finger at the PSU wouldn't you think?. I have tried to return it to Overclockers but have been informed that my warranty is void due to 'physical damage' even though the PSU is less than 1 year old. It is now looking like I will have to send it back to Corsair in the Netherlands. So I'm looking forward to the postage costs there! Thanks guys!

I have had a good read about this fault and it seems that its fairly widely reported with the latest generation of high power graphics cards and with many motherboards and PSU's.
No-one seems to know exactly where the fault lies but EVGA have release some sort of power booster cable that feeds power from a molex connector into a spare PCI-E slot.

See here:http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=749507&mpage=1&print=true

There is however no indication that this adapter solves the problem. Although many have bought it for that purpose.

I really would like to know what is going on here in order to prevent this from happening again. I just bought a fan controller to reduce the load caused by multiple case fans on the 12v pins but I still don't know if it will be enough.
 
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Strange one in your case Negcreep, your system would be drawing a signifigantly less amount of power than Arcane's i7 rig, particularly as he was overvolting the gpu's. Im also running sli gtx 470's, i7 920 @4.2ghz, my total power draw in game is 630w ono, furmark hits 740w ono. Psu is a corsair hx 850w.
 
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