Capacitor caught fire! (MSI GTX 950)

kostasvl

kostasvl

kostasvl

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Graphics card caught fire because of leaking water block!

Photos of the aftermath: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AuvM2DDqq-A1hYg0tfyj7LMUVKhdFQ

UPDATE: it's most likely the AIO cooler that's leaking! See below.

The card was barely two months old. I was just browsing twitter, when I saw a white flash from the top grille of the tower. I also heard a hissing noise and smelled something burning. Everything kept working fine. I shut the PC down anyway, and checked everything with a flashlight. I didn't spot anything wrong. Next time I turned it on (a mistake, I know :)), within minutes, the same show repeated, with added sparks off the back of the case and a LOT of smoke. It lasted only 2-3 secs, and the PC turned off by itself. You've seen the aftermath... The awful smell took half a day to clear!

I'm lucky that the motherboard has that plastic cover all over. The fire could have damaged the actual PCB of the motherboard. It seems I got away with only the burned cover, and some permanent(?) black marks on the white heatsinks of the RAM chips... Everything is so new as well, arghh.

I did a full comparison with my backup and it found a few corrupt files. It's possible this is an older problem, but... scary.

Ironically, the capacitor itself seems to be ok. At least externally. I don't know what was inside it, but it might be empty now. I'm probably still breathing the burned contents of it to be honest... It seems the damn thing somehow fell down quickly and escaped the worst of it.

Thanks MSI... At least the seller issued an instant refund and a prepaid return label. This card was going to be temporary anyway, keeping the slot warm (pun intended!) until the 1080 Ti arrives. I think I'll stick with the embedded Intel graphics until then.

If I've learned anything... I should have taken the entire PC apart when I had the chance, and examine everything much more closely. Even if I wouldn't have found anything, I could have then started plugging things back in one by one, with the disks at the very end!

Now I understand why Asus likes to advertise the fact that their capacitors are made in Japan. :)
 
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That's unlucky. :eek:

I would contact MSI and ask them to replace your now damaged motherboard, as a result of their graphic card. It might be working fine, but there is no way I would be happy with any scorching caused by their component.
 
kostasvl said:
white flash from the top grille of the tower. I also heard a hissing noise
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The hissing is interesting, because the third pic shows what looks like liquid marks on the PCB of the card, around that area. As does the bottom-right corner of the CPU water block, in the first pic.

If there's another explanation for those marks, then it could be any juice from the capacitor, but you also mentioned the capacitor ironically looks ok. I'd make sure the water block is not cracked and leaking.
 
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Danny75 said:
The hissing is interesting, because the third pic shows what looks like liquid marks on the PCB of the card, around that area. As does the bottom-right corner of the CPU water block, in the first pic.

If there's another explanation for those marks, then it could be any juice from the capacitor, but you also mentioned the capacitor ironically looks ok. I'd make sure the water block is not cracked and leaking.
Click to expand...

Holy crap, you are right!! The Predator 360 is leaking! :mad: OMG. No wonder the capacitor was fine. The fire (or whatever) happened on the graphics card's PCB right above the capacitor, melting the soldering, so of course it fell and it's basically intact...

God damn, and I thought I shouldn't skimp and buy cheap on anything *except the graphics card!*.

I bought the Predator from OCUK, so they'll be hearing from me first thing! Do you guys think I'm entitled to compensation for any and all damage? MSI are completely innocent, it turns out, so I'm obligated to contact the other retailer and... return the refund money? I don't know - first time for everything.
 
Sounds very exciting, not seen components being melted out of holes by short circuits before.

Just see where your CS report takes you first.
 
Looks like the o-ring on the cpu block has failed. Wasn't this the reason they did a recall on the Predator? Myself and a couple of others on here had the O-rings fail on out EK Supremacy blocks around the same time. Hopefully they will cough up for a new gpu and probably the motherboard as well. If the motherboard fails at some point and you have to RMA it then Asus will most probably reject it due to the damage.
 
I finally received compensation for the damaged components today. The replacement they sent me (rev 1.1D this time) has not leaked so far. I check it every few days :).
 
That's a nasty occurrence right there... Great post though, lovely pics and video!

Congratulations on the compensation! Do you have any grand plans?

It's a great advert for the 'armour' or whatever you call it those boards have... it could have been a lot worse!
 
dingleweed;30480804 said:
Congratulations on the compensation! Do you have any grand plans?
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It was a net loss for me. We only agreed on an amount that would cover the cost of replacements, and they actually sent me a bit less! Of course, there's no compensation for the grief they caused me. Anyway, at the next sight of trouble, I'm dropping the whole watercooling thing, so they sure lost me as a customer.

The grand plan has always been to buy a 1080 Ti :). By March, I hope I'll be convinced that the Predator won't leak again, so I don't mind waiting. I was planning to link the graphics card to the loop to make it less noisy, but... NOPE! :)
 
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