Smoking DS3

[Mattus]

So I built my C2D system a week or two ago with a Gigabyte DS3, an E6300, X1800XT and some of that Geil ultra low latency RAM. Got the whole lot together in the case, plugged in and powered up.

For a few seconds it seems to be booting first time - fans and drives power up and I think it got to the POST beep. Then the PC suddenly powers down. Poking my head into the case, I'm greeted by the smell of acrid smoke curling from underneath the motherboard - it seems to be coming from somewhere near the 24-pin power connector, there's quite a lot of it, and it stinks.

Crapping myself, I yank the power lead from the PSU. I'm certain I've blown the motherboard, and pretty worried that it might have taken out my RAM/CPU/GFX as well. So I unscrew everything and take the board out of the case. There're no obvious signs of damage on the front or the back of the board, so I decide to reassemble the system outside of the case, on an anti-static bag - and it boots fine.

Try it all in the case again, and again it runs with no problems. The system's now been running 24/7 for at least a week under 100% CPU load (Folding), and isn't exhibiting any signs of lasting damage whatsoever.

Anyone have any clues to what I managed to do? The board was well supported in the case by the stand-offs.

 

[schumi84]

Could one of the stand offs have been shorting on the case, then when you reseated the mobo for some reason it was in a slightly different position and so stopped the shorting?

Glad you got it sorted though, always a heart in the mouth moment when building a new rig and something like that happens.

 

[vincent1989]

sounds smilar to my 1st build, i was using totally different parts to you though, case and PSU from antec sonata II and a sapphire pure element skt 939 mobo, i plugged it all in correctly (had already been tinkering around with a couple of my uncles old P3's so i knew how to plug it all in ) pressed the power button, it powers up, then i can smell smoke, switch of at the wall, checked everything, no short against the case, all connections fine, tried again, worked perfectly.
everything lasted fine for another year till the PSU went, and im happy to say thats the only thing that has (touches forehead)

i have no solution, it just seems were luckier than the people who have to RMA their entire computer

 

[IAmATeaf]

Could be related to the problem that many have reported with Gigabyte mobos, that is where the PSU connector doesn't securely fit, some have reported that if they wiggle the connector the mobo will power off and the solution seems to be to check the PSU mobo connector and 1 or more of the pins will seem wider then the others resulting in a poor connection. Difficult to explain and I have a Gigabyte mobo and had no probs with it but worth checking.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Could one of the stand offs have been shorting on the case, .

i think thats exactly what was happening, i use those tiny washers that are supplied to mount under the motherboard to prevent the shorting.