Question Motherboard melted my power supply cable, is there a solution?

Arickado

Commendable
Aug 25, 2019
18
1
1,515
Hi, I'm new here, so my problem is that the cable that goes from my power supply directly to my motherboard has melted and a piece of it is now stuck.
Basically what I want help with is how to remove/clean the socket and what the cause for it to happen may be and how to prevent from happening.
PS: the processor cooler stays close to the socket and I was thinking that this may be the cause, need clarification.
 

Arickado

Commendable
Aug 25, 2019
18
1
1,515
40n5DQD.jpg

DXpArDd.jpg
AosutP6.jpg


The first photo is how the motherboard socket is. The second is the cable from the power supply. And the third is how the cooler stays on the CPU.
The motherboard I can't remember the model right now, my psu is a aerocool white kcas, processor is a fx 8350, the cooler on the processor is a cooler master hyper t4, 12gb of ram, 500gb hd.
 

bignastyid

Titan
Moderator
Looks to me like a combination of poor choices ultimately led to this failure. A low quality PSU in a system running a 8350 on a board ill suited for it(only using a 4 pin cpu power connector gives away it was not going to pair well with an 8350), plus a tower cooler on a board with no VRM heatsinks. That recipe was a fire waiting to happen.

Motherboard and PSU are definitely toast and it's quite possibly anything to everything else powered by that PSU has been damaged.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
But what caused it to melt like that is from the psu, motherboard, cooler, or just overheating in general? Or have this never happened before?
The high requirements of the CPU, a substandard motherboard trying to feed that CPU, and a PSU struggling to try to deliver what the CPU/motherboard are asking for.
Hence too much power trying to flow through that connector. Power = heat = melting.
 

Arickado

Commendable
Aug 25, 2019
18
1
1,515
Looks to me like a combination of poor choices ultimately led to this failure. A low quality PSU in a system running a 8350 on a board ill suited for it(only using a 4 pin cpu power connector gives away it was not going to pair well with an 8350), plus a tower cooler on a board with no VRM heatsinks. That recipe was a fire waiting to happen.

Motherboard and PSU are definitely toast and it's quite possibly anything to everything else powered by that PSU has been damaged.
The 4 pin connector was the only option within this motherboard (that I discovered is a M5A78L-M plus/usb3) the tower cooler was the recommended one for this processor, I searched forums, videos, everything, this VRM heatsink is out of my knowledge, the psu too I searched for a cost/efficiency for my system, what motherboard and psu do you judge adequate for the 8350? Thanks for the replys everyone, it helped a lot.
 
The 4 pin connector was the only option within this motherboard (that I discovered is a M5A78L-M plus/usb3) the tower cooler was the recommended one for this processor, I searched forums, videos, everything, this VRM heatsink is out of my knowledge, the psu too I searched for a cost/efficiency for my system, what motherboard and psu do you judge adequate for the 8350? Thanks for the replys everyone, it helped a lot.
The tower cooler does not blow air down over the VRMs, unlike a stock cooler. That in combination with a cheap motherboard with no VRM heat syncs as well as an 8 core is a bad idea.

What GPU do you have?
 

bignastyid

Titan
Moderator
That motherboard only has a 3+1 VRM setup which is wholly inadequate(shame on ASUS for even putting the 8350 on the supported list), especially where it's uncooled. With a 8350 you want a minimum of a heatsinked 6+2 VRM setup, an 8+2 being preferred.

Using a tower cooler directs air away from the VRMs making them run hotter and when using a board with uncooled VRMs it's a failure waiting to happen. I'd be surprised if that setup didn't suffer from horrible lag from the VRMs throttling the cpu before it failed.

With a PSU build quality is very important and you went with a cheap low quality unit. With a GTX 750 a good quality 450w PSU would have be adequate.

IMHO scrap it. Even if the CPU managed to survive a good AM3+ motherboard will be hard to find and not cheap. you'd be better of upgrading the platform to Ryzen.
 
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PCPartPicker Part List

Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
Motherboard | ASRock 970M PRO3 Micro ATX AM3+/AM3 Motherboard | $68.98 @ Newegg
Power Supply | Corsair CX (2017) 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply | $49.89 @ OutletPC
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total (before mail-in rebates) | $133.87
| Mail-in rebates | -$15.00
| Total | $118.87
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-25 18:15 EDT-0400 |

Good quality PSU.
The motherboard isn't great, but it has a small VRM heat sync and 8 pin EPS. It also has USB3 and Sata3 along with supports the 8350, and most importantly it is still available new at a good price.
 

bignastyid

Titan
Moderator
PCPartPicker Part List

Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
Motherboard | ASRock 970M PRO3 Micro ATX AM3+/AM3 Motherboard | $68.98 @ Newegg
Power Supply | Corsair CX (2017) 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply | $49.89 @ OutletPC
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total (before mail-in rebates) | $133.87
| Mail-in rebates | -$15.00
| Total | $118.87
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-08-25 18:15 EDT-0400 |

Good quality PSU.
The motherboard isn't great, but it has a small VRM heat sync and 8 pin EPS. It also has USB3 and Sata3 along with supports the 8350, and most importantly it is still available new at a good price.

Not a good board for an 8350. While the VRMs do have a small heatsink it's still only a 4+1 setup making VRM throttling a good possibility, especially if the OP sticks with the tower cooler.
 

Arickado

Commendable
Aug 25, 2019
18
1
1,515
My idea for right is to just change the motherboard (later the psu) since my budget is very low, the tower cooler I bought to avoid overheating, if I use the one from the fabricant it would be less lethal? Also would the ASRock 760 gm hdv be better or worse? And how do I check these vrm?
 
Last edited:

dmitche31958

Reputable
Aug 13, 2019
43
6
4,545
My guess of how this happened wasn't heat. The connection wasn't good and tight and that the damage occurred over time until it finally failed. The contacts were arcing and eventually burned the contacts down. While I never thought I'd see this in a PC and I kinda of doubt that the amount of power would do this but the amount of heat required to damage the metal contacts would have done more damage to the area.
I see it quite often in 110-Volt wall outlets.

As other's have said another motherboard and PSU is the best course of action until you have the skills to to fix this yourself.
 
For me, if a board has NO VRM heat syncs, I would never buy it. You are going to run into issues with the 760 GM HDV. It has a weak VRM with no heatsync

msi-extended_heaysink-1-740x487.png

Pic of a VRM heatsync

Whether you have the stock cooler or the tower cooler I would avoid any board without a heatsync like the above.
You should also look for a motherboard with a decent VRM with many phases that are rated for a high TDP.