Question GALAX 4070 Ti Super ARGB Sync Cable Burnt My Motherboard’s Header

[degimkenan]

System Specs:

• GPU: GALAX GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER SG 1-Click OC
• Motherboard: MSI MAG B650 Tomahawk WiFi
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7900
• RAM: G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB 2x16GB 6000MHz CL30
• PSU: Corsair RM850e
• Cooling: Lian Li Galahad Trinity II Performance
• Case Fans PWM: Bottom 3 daisy chained, rear 2 daisy chained into SYS_FAN connectors on MB
• Case Fans ARGB: Connected via Zalman Z-Sync ARGB Controller
• Case: Lian Li O11 Vision Black

Yesterday my final components arrived and I built my PC. Connected the ARGB sync cable that came with my GALAX 4070 Ti Super SG 1-Click OC GPU. This cable has a 5-pin connector that goes into the GPU and a 3-pin 5V ARGB connector that should go to an ARGB header (either on the motherboard or an ARGB controller).

What happened:

First Attempt:

• I initially connected the ARGB sync cable’s 3-pin ARGB connector to my Zalman Z-Sync ARGB controller.
• When I pressed the power button, the PC tried to start for less than a second—some fan lights turned on briefly, and the fans barely started spinning before everything shut off except for the RAM lights.
• The system refused to turn on.

Second Attempt (Without the ARGB Cable):

• I unplugged the GPU power cables and ARGB sync cable and removed the GPU.
• The system booted successfully without the GPU installed.
• Then I reinstalled the GPU and plugged in its power cables, but left the ARGB sync cable disconnected.
• The system booted fine.

Third Attempt (Connecting to Motherboard Instead of Controller):

• I thought maybe the ARGB sync cable should be connected directly to the motherboard instead of the Zalman controller.
• So, I plugged the 3-pin ARGB connector into my MSI B650 Tomahawk WiFi’s 5V ARGB header.
• I turned on the system, and immediately, I saw a small fire and smoke coming from the motherboard’s ARGB header.
• I quickly shut everything down.

Current Situation:

• After waiting a bit, I removed the ARGB sync cable entirely and powered on the system.
• Everything seems to be working normally now—the system boots, and Windows runs fine.
• However, the motherboard’s diagnostic LEDs show a red light (CPU error) and yellow light (DRAM error) for a few seconds on startup, but they eventually turn off, and the system operates as expected.

My Questions:

1- Does this confirm that the issue was in the GALAX ARGB sync cable?

• First, it prevented the system from booting when plugged into the Zalman controller.
• Then, it fried my motherboard’s ARGB header when connected directly.
• Is it possible that this cable was faulty out of the box?

2- Could my motherboard be damaged beyond just the burnt ARGB header?

• Since the system boots fine, I assume the rest of the motherboard is OK, but I’m afraid to run stress tests.
• How can I check if the PCIe slot, VRMs, RAM, or other components were affected?

3- What should I do next?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

 

[Lutfij]

1| Hard to say, perhaps you hooked up the cable in the wrong orientation on the GPU side? I'm ruling out the connector being plugged in the wrong way on the motherboard's end since they are keyed to go in a certain way, due to the missing 3rd pin.

2| You might want to inspect the rest of the board around the ARGB header. It might very well be an isolated area of the board with the ARGB controller. If you notice abnormal behavior moving forward, then you can recall this incident and that's when you need to replace the motherboard. Unless you're adapt at replacing/desoldering and resoldering components on a board(which would also void your warranty).

3| Stress test the GPU and see if that's not shorted. The reason I say shorted is due to the fact that I had something similar happen on an ECS H67H2-M Black Edition motherboard whereby the S/PDIF coaxial output was wired according to the pinout on the motherboard manual, by yours truly. After a while I smelt something burning and the wire I'd fabricated for the S/PDIF coaxial output had melted/warped beyond recognition. I then learned what a dead short/an electrical fire is...which is +5v going straight to ground hence why I think you wired the harness for the GPU end the wrong way. If the harness is keyed to go in a certain way on the GPU, then it's likely the GPU's pinout was wrong, the harness was wired the wrong way from the factory or the pinout on the motherboard is wrong.

I later refabricated the S/PDIF coaxial output cable keeping in mind which pin was +5 and which one was ground. ECS was of no help since their tech support kept telling me to refer to the manual. I had to resort to telling them that I landed in this mess due to your motherboard manual.

Further reading;

https://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/uu9026/why_does_running_positive_5v_pin_straight_to_a/

 

[degimkenan]

1| Hard to say, perhaps you hooked up the cable in the wrong orientation on the GPU side? I'm ruling out the connector being plugged in the wrong way on the motherboard's end since they are keyed to go in a certain way, due to the missing 3rd pin.

2| You might want to inspect the rest of the board around the ARGB header. It might very well be an isolated area of the board with the ARGB controller. If you notice abnormal behavior moving forward, then you can recall this incident and that's when you need to replace the motherboard. Unless you're adapt at replacing/desoldering and resoldering components on a board(which would also void your warranty).

3| Stress test the GPU and see if that's not shorted. The reason I say shorted is due to the fact that I had something similar happen on an ECS H67H2-M Black Edition motherboard whereby the S/PDIF coaxial output was wired according to the pinout on the motherboard manual, by yours truly. After a while I smelt something burning and the wire I'd fabricated for the S/PDIF coaxial output had melted/warped beyond recognition. I then learned what a dead short/an electrical fire is...which is +5v going straight to ground hence why I think you wired the harness for the GPU end the wrong way. If the harness is keyed to go in a certain way on the GPU, then it's likely the GPU's pinout was wrong, the harness was wired the wrong way from the factory or the pinout on the motherboard is wrong.

I later refabricated the S/PDIF coaxial output cable keeping in mind which pin was +5 and which one was ground. ECS was of no help since their tech support kept telling me to refer to the manual.

Further reading;

https://www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/uu9026/why_does_running_positive_5v_pin_straight_to_a/

That’s actually a good point, thank you so much for your response. The GPU-side connector could be inserted in both orientations and I did try both.

When plugged into the Zalman Z-Sync controller in one direction, the system would try to power on but shut down immediately. Then when I found it was because of this cable, I flipped the cable on the GPU side before plugging into the motherboard.

• If the first orientation was correct, then it should've worked with the controller and system should've started normally.
• If the first orientation was wrong, and the correct one was when I flipped before I plugged into the motherboard, did my first attempt on the controller damage the cable and then it burnt the motherboard because of that?

And moving forward, I already installed Windows and some drivers. Except for MB red and yellow diagnostics lighting up at the start for a few seconds, it seems to be working fine. I'm sorry for asking the same question again which you've already answered. Should I run stress tests and if nothing comes up I can assume ARGB header on the motherboard was the only thing that was damaged and I can safely continue using the PC? I think I can observe voltages during the stress tests via HWMonitor or something but I won't be able to tell if something is wrong with my current knowledge on the matter.

If there was damage beyond the ARGB header, and there were damage beyond that on the motherboard, if stress tests are fine can I assume no other components are damaged? And if the motherboard is damaged now, would it hurt other components or if there's something wrong, would just the motherboard stop working and just replacing that solve the problem?

Again, I'm sorry for asking probably same questions I already asked. And thanks so much for you patience.