Hard Drive Sparked

[GTXFerrari]

Hello everyone, im pretty new to these forums and fairly new to pc building just built my first pc in august. I have a Samsung 840 pro 512GB all configured with my os and most used applications. I bought an internal hdd about a month ago and i went through 4 western digital drives from various retailers that just did not work. They would not show up in device manager or in my bios. The last 2 hard drives i have gotten have been a little more of a problem though. When i connected the sata power and fired up my pc these drives literally sparked up almost looking like they caught fire! (i have a 900D so i had a pretty good view of it) Then after i unplug my pc quickly i can smell a nasty burnt smell. On the 1st of the 2 that did this there was no external evidence but i was too scared to try it again so i immediately sent it back for rma at newegg since this drive was only received that day. The replacement for that one that i received was a little more visual tho, i again attached sata power and data to the back up the drive then i went to power it up and it did the same thing again... this time i decided to try a different sata power cord (the one connected to my dvd drive) again when i fire up my pc the hd as well decides to literally fire up, this time i could see clear visual evidence that this thing caught on fire the pcb has a black spot now. So basically i don't know where to go from here and do not know how to trouble shoot this. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Jus in case here are my system specs
Intel i5 4670k 4.4 stable
Asus ROG Hero LGA 1150
2 GTX 780 reference (mild overclock)
corsair 1600 4x2 ddr3 memory
corsair ax 760
samsung 840 pro 512gb
corsair h100i

ive run stress test for 24+ hours (prime, heaven, memtest) and my system is stable no crashing or no error in memtest.


here is a picture of the hard drive sorry its kinda blurry i took it with my phone

http://i.imgur.com/41AaAnM.jpg

 

[bassejepsen]

Well, even tho you used the power core, which worked with you DVD driver, it is possible that the DVD drive is just more robust, and can handle a higher voltage.. Can you measure the voltage inside the power cable?

If i understand you right the replacement, was an other model, which would exclude the possibility of a bad batch of hard drives.

 

[chrisso]

It sounds like a bad 12v rail. I would replace the power supply unit before it cooks the entire
components list.

 

[GTXFerrari]

Well, even tho you used the power core, which worked with you DVD driver, it is possible that the DVD drive is just more robust, and can handle a higher voltage.. Can you measure the voltage inside the power cable?

If i understand you right the replacement, was an other model, which would exclude the possibility of a bad batch of hard drives.

hello and thx for the quick response, my sata cable running from my ssd has a little daisy chain deal so i can plug multiple drives in with one cable. That is the 1st cable i tried on both drives that sparked up so im not sure how it can be the cable when my ssd is running perfectly fine off of it, the 2nd drive tho (the one in the picture) i tried using the dvd drive sata power cable (seperate from my ssd power cable)

both the drives that sparked up were WD 1TB blues from newegg, previously i had 3 wd caviar black 1 tb and 1 wd green that did not show up in the bios or in device manager but none of those sparked up or anything crazy like that just the last 2 wd blues i got from newegg did

 

[GTXFerrari]

It sounds like a bad 12v rail. I would replace the power supply unit before it cooks the entire
components list.

i was also thinking this had something to do with the psu but i dont understand why it would only destroy these hard disks and not any of my other components. also my psu has a hybrid mode that when i switch on does not work my pc wont boot up so maybe its a good idea to rma the psu regardless if its the problem here.

 

[Drew010]

Yeah, your PSU barely meets the requirements of your CPU/GPU combo, adding a couple DVD and storage drives is probably stressing it too much.

 

[bassejepsen]

Well, even tho you used the power core, which worked with you DVD driver, it is possible that the DVD drive is just more robust, and can handle a higher voltage.. Can you measure the voltage inside the power cable?

If i understand you right the replacement, was an other model, which would exclude the possibility of a bad batch of hard drives.

hello and thx for the quick response, my sata cable running from my ssd has a little daisy chain deal so i can plug multiple drives in with one cable. That is the 1st cable i tried on both drives that sparked up so im not sure how it can be the cable when my ssd is running perfectly fine off of it, the 2nd drive tho (the one in the picture) i tried using the dvd drive sata power cable (seperate from my ssd power cable)

Well, i am not saying it is likely, but it would be MY next sted in debugging, since that every drive(both ssd and DVD, is made with different hardware, and some hardware(SSD and DVD, may be more robust(handle higher voltages)) and some may be more sensitive to high voltags.. again it is not likely, but i have a hard time see what the problem shouldbe, so more debugging is always better...

An other thing, that sound unlikely is, that it could be the data cable, did you try to change them around?

It is just that, if the hard drive is not a fault, the error can only be in the cable, and signals.

EDIT:
When i think of it, it might be hard to measure the voltage, since that the problem, may only rise once the PSU get high enough load.

 

[GTXFerrari]

Yeah, your PSU barely meets the requirements of your CPU/GPU combo, adding a couple DVD and storage drives is probably stressing it too much.

really? i didnt know that, i used extreme psu calculator and it recommends 634 watt psu and thats with an overclock with the overclock voltage at 1.3 which tiny tom logan said was pretty much max for haswell cpus. Also i got the 760w cause i was told by a friend that the 80+ only works when the psu is at 80% or over in order to take advantage of it also i think ive heard linus say that in a few a his videos to not go overkill with those 80+ psus. Also pc part picker did not say that the psu was not compatible with the system usually they give a warning if its too little power for the setup.

 

[GTXFerrari]

Well, even tho you used the power core, which worked with you DVD driver, it is possible that the DVD drive is just more robust, and can handle a higher voltage.. Can you measure the voltage inside the power cable?

If i understand you right the replacement, was an other model, which would exclude the possibility of a bad batch of hard drives.

hello and thx for the quick response, my sata cable running from my ssd has a little daisy chain deal so i can plug multiple drives in with one cable. That is the 1st cable i tried on both drives that sparked up so im not sure how it can be the cable when my ssd is running perfectly fine off of it, the 2nd drive tho (the one in the picture) i tried using the dvd drive sata power cable (seperate from my ssd power cable)

Well, i am not saying it is likely, but it would be MY next sted in debugging, since that every drive(both ssd and DVD, is made with different hardware, and some hardware(SSD and DVD, may be more robust(handle higher voltages)) and some may be more sensitive to high voltags.. again it is not likely, but i have a hard time see what the problem shouldbe, so more debugging is always better...

An other thing, that sound unlikely is, that it could be the data cable, did you try to change them around?

It is just that, if the hard drive is not a fault, the error can only be in the cable, and signals.

EDIT:
When i think of it, it might be hard to measure the voltage, since that the problem, may only rise once the PSU get high enough load.

yeap when i plugged the 2nd drive into the dvd sata power cable i also used the dvd sata data cable with it instead of the one i was using by itself, so at this point the 2nd drive that sparked had all the cables my dvd drive has been running fine but still started sparking up, but you are probably right it could be because the dvd and ssd are different hardware so they can handle higher voltages

 

[GTXFerrari]

wooops so i made a rookie mistake and chose best answer when i was thought i was hitting reply (although bassjepsen has been a huge help) id like to get a little more feedback first so is there a way to undo the answer or do i have to make a new thread?

 

[fzabkar]

+1 to chrisso

Check the following components with a multimeter:

http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/bigcircuitboard_diodes.jpg

D4 will probably be shorted. If so, then that will confirm that your PSU overvolted your drives.

 

[bassejepsen]

+1 to chrisso

Check the following components with a multimeter:

http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/bigcircuitboard_diodes.jpg

D4 will probably be shorted. If so, then that will confirm that your PSU overvolted your drives.

Which you would also be able to measure on the power core, usesless the overvoltage is not consistent

and btw a little overvoltage is normal, up to 12.4, i think you should be safe

 

[fzabkar]

There is often an overshoot when the supply is starting up, especially when the drives are spinning up. When the load settles down, the supply voltages also settle down.

 

[bassejepsen]

Yes, i agree, and the diode is a good idea, if you can find the right one, as no 2 harddrive models have the same PCB layout

if you had access to an oscilloscope, you would be able to observe the voltage under load change and observe the voltage overshoot. But since we, or at lest me, don't know how much is normal, it is hard to say anything about the overshoot.

But anyway i think it should be safe to assume that it is a bad PSU(or may just be overloaded - as Drew010 indicated ), since you tired 2 hard drives, i would say that statics would indicate a faulty PSU

 

[fzabkar]

A 12V TVS diode is a 12V TVS diode. The PCB layout has nothing to do with it.

 

[bassejepsen]

A 12V TVS diode is a 12V TVS diode. The PCB layout has nothing to do with it.

So you are sure there is only one? And even If you are able to locate the right diode, or you could just test them all... But, a multimeter will not truely be able to indicate it is faulty or not, as the common multimeter can only test the common 1,5v diodes.... But never mind that, i think that we both agree and new psu is the Best bet

 

[fzabkar]

There are 2 TVS diodes, one 12V and one 5V. My photo clip identifies those components that need to be checked.

Any "common multimeter" can test a diode, or locate a short circuit. A 12V TVS diode has a voltage drop of around 0.6V in the forward direction, just like a regular silicon diode. In the reverse direction it behaves like a fast zener.

See my FAQ:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/TVS_diode_FAQ.html

 

[bassejepsen]

There are 2 TVS diodes, one 12V and one 5V. My photo clip identifies those components that need to be checked.

Any "common multimeter" can test a diode, or locate a short circuit. A 12V TVS diode has a voltage drop of around 0.6V in the forward direction, just like a regular silicon diode. In the reverse direction it behaves like a fast zener.

See my FAQ:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/TVS_diode_FAQ.html

Fair, even tho i would not call it "identifies" it is not that exact harddrive, and if it is just that harddrive, my bad

You would still have a problem testing the reverse direction, as a common multimeter do not test diode at 12 volts, so i guess you would conenct it to an other voltage soruce, and then take the voltage over the diode to see if it works.. and if this is the case, i would pref to solder it off first 😛...
But if you where just to measure the ohms you would not truely be testing if the 12V TVS diode works. sinec you from that test can't say anthing about the breakdown voltage of the diode, and you would not be able to tell the difference between a 5V TVS diode and a 12V TVS diode.

 

[fzabkar]

All you need to know is whether the diode is shorted or not. Select the 200 ohms range and you will have your answer within 10 seconds. A $5 DMM is all that you need.

The difference between a 12V diode and a 5V diode is that the 12V diode is connected across the 12V supply whereas a 5V diode is connected across the 5V supply.