Computer caught fire

Smoogels · 2 Mar 2013 at 13:37

Well, what a event.

A month or so ago I got a Bitfenix 120mm spectre pro fan but never really found a nice place for it. Today I decided to install it. What a mistake.

I screwed it in and plugged in all correctly (from my previous experience of installing fans with no problem) and turned on the power. Instantly, piles of smoke bursted from my computer filling the room and suffocating me. I managed to quickly turn the power supply off before a fire occurred. Looking through the smoke I saw a very menacing red glow, the wire from the fan has somewhat melted.

My computer seems unharmed and appears to work fine. The fan wire dragged over existing cables in my system and now they have burn marks over them along with a tiny mark on my motherboard. I am unsure what caused this problem, i,'m aware on how to install a fan, but I guess it's possible to be a user error or just a faulty fan. Not only am I a fan out, my system has a few scars.

The fans wire has basically melted with the copper wire exposed. I plugged it in the right slot and it was not caught in anything

Considering the fan is a month old, but just plugged in today, would it be worth requesting a refund?

Thanks

Edit: Now when I turn my computer on there is a burning smell (fan is removed, of course). Would this be the left over plastic/wire or the damage it done to my PSU cables or motherboard?

Smoogels · 2 Mar 2013 at 14:20

Thanks for the post. I bought this from Overclockers so I think it might be worth checking in the customer service area to see what they say before contacting Bitfenix.

dacads said:
hmm similar thing happened to one of my fans I smelt & saw some smoke, although it wasn't directly powered from PSU, was using a spare end from another fan I think. Did you have it setup in a similar way?

It was plugged directly into the motherboard

The previous fan in this slot was fine though

Smoogels · 2 Mar 2013 at 18:37

I'm confident I plugged it into the right port. I'm aware where a system fan header is and as soon as I unplugged the old fan, I plugged this one in.

Such short circuits sound dangerous if that's the case :O In the space of a few seconds the wire was 'red' and smoke filled the room

Smoogels · 2 Mar 2013 at 18:54

Coolasmoo said:
Im guessing you attached the 2 pin cable

It does sound similar, however I never unplugged the 2 pin from the "loop" it's plugged in by default. The only part that was plugged into my computer was the 3 pin motherboard connection, which sadly is the wire that burned out

Smoogels · 2 Mar 2013 at 22:21

Gibbo3771 said:
Most modern tech has stuff in place to prevent this, I have never seen a short circuit cause combustion before and I am the kind of person that loves to set **** on fire.

Sounds like some sort of fault, probably internal cable or bad build.

Most things just tend to burn a little, go bang and thats it. Never ever ever does anything just "catch fire", sure it can happen but the motherboard should have noticed a rapid drop in fan RPM if it was connected to the motherboard and shut it down, if the mobo has a "fan failure shutdown" feature.

Still, sounds like an experience and a half, gotta laugh after it really as long as no one was hurt ofc :S

I have had a good chuckle now, just can't get rid of that awful smell

I managed to shut down the computer in a few seconds, so maybe the motherboard was a bit slower? I'm not sure, hard to see past all the smoke that arose.

dacads said:
Here's an "image" I managed to get when I experienced it

The fan cable looks pretty similar to that sadly