Graphics Card Fire

[ShEsHy]

My friend bought a used motherboard (ASUS P8H61/USB3), CPU (i5 2400), GPU (ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II) & RAM (2x4GB Corsair XMS 1600 MHz cl9) a couple of days ago.
Everything went well at first (assembly, installing Windows, drivers, games...), but today, while playing SWTOR, his GPU apparently caught on fire, spewing out a cca 20 cm flame.
I haven't yet had a chance to examine it first hand since it's midnight here, but judging by the pictures it's quite easy to see that something went wrong.
The question now is, what caused it? A quick look on Google said the possible causes could either be the PSU (Corsair TX650, which has been present since before the new components arrived, powering a HD 4870 with no issues), or the GPU.

Here are some pictures:



Has any of you every seen a fire st this location on the GPU and/or knows what would cause it?

P.S.
Please note that nothing was overclocked, all power connectors were plugged in,..., it was just a normal PC setup that burst into flames.

*Edit*
Apparently this happened precisely when he set the graphics in SWTOR to maximum.

 

[P1nnacle]

I would guess that it was an overdraw of power through the PCIE bus. It very well may have been caused by a surge or short in the PSU, Corsair's TX650W is a single rail PSU, so a short could have caused an overload on the 12V Rail. If this is the case, I doubt your CPU survived.

 

[Mousemonkey]

One of my 560Ti's went up in smoke when a fan failed but it was the VRM's at the back of the card that burst into flames.

 

[vrumor]

This is why buying used PC hardware is a risky venture at best. You are potentially buying someone elses problems. If the warranties are still valid, RMA the motherboard and GPU at the very least.

 

[bignastyid]

The only time I have ever seen a computer throw a fireball it was coming from a cheap PSU. It looks like it started is where the pci-e ports 12v power is and if it arced or shorted it could have cause this. My guess's would be a faulty pci-e port, faulty video card or the card was not fully seated.

 

[ShEsHy]

I would guess that it was an overdraw of power through the PCIE bus. It very well may have been caused by a surge or short in the PSU, Corsair's TX650W is a single rail PSU, so a short could have caused an overload on the 12V Rail. If this is the case, I doubt your CPU survived.

I'll see if I can get my hands on components to test the CPU, but if it still works, does that mean the PSU wasn't the cause?

The only time I have ever seen a computer throw a fireball it was coming from a cheap PSU. It looks like it started is where the pci-e ports 12v power is and if it arced or shorted it could have cause this. My guess's would be a faulty pci-e port, faulty video card or the card was not fully seated.

So, that short part of the PCI-E connector is where the power goes through the GPU to the MB?

 

[P1nnacle]

I would guess that it was an overdraw of power through the PCIE bus. It very well may have been caused by a surge or short in the PSU, Corsair's TX650W is a single rail PSU, so a short could have caused an overload on the 12V Rail. If this is the case, I doubt your CPU survived.

I'll see if I can get my hands on components to test the CPU, but if it still works, does that mean the PSu wasn't the cause?

The only time I have ever seen a computer throw a fireball it was coming from a cheap PSU. It looks like it started is where the pci-e ports 12v power is and if it arced or shorted it could have cause this. My guess's would be a faulty pci-e port, faulty video card or the card was not fully seated.

So, that short part of the PCI-E connector is where the power goes through the GPU to the MB?

No, the PSU could still be the cause and the CPU was just lucky. The front part is for the PCIE Power from the motherboard.

 

[smeezekitty]

Looks like a +12v short that burnt both the GPU and the motherboard pretty bad

 

[smeezekitty]

Looks like a +12v short that burnt both the GPU and the motherboard pretty bad

 

[ShEsHy]

So, would you guys suggest a new PSU as well, just to be safe?