My 4 pin psu wire melted and I'm wondering what caused this

[mscall92]

If anyone knows if it was the motherboard or psu that caused this, It would be greatly appreciated.
PS. My specs are:
Raidmax 530 watt (not the best I know, probably upgrading to a corsair soon),
gigabyte micro atx am2 socket mobo that I dont have the name of,
sapphire HD 4890 vapor-X (stock),
phenom II 940 black edition(stock),
4 Gigs of mushkin ddr2 800 ram.
not sure what else is needed.

 

[delluser1]

I'd blame the psu.

 

[moody89]

Any idea what voltage your VCore value for your CPU was set at when this happened? To me it looks like overcurrent on the cables used for your 4-pin CPU power connector. Too much current running along a cable like this usually results in burning/melting at the weakest point of the cable which of course is the soldered connection into the connector.

I would have thought that your PSU should have knocked off before the damage got this bad, however as you mentioned it is a Raidmax and you would be much better off upgrading it.

It's also a possibility that you need an 8-pin CPU connector - the more cables the less current each one has to carry. Unofrtunately your motherboard only has a 4-pin CPU connection so there's not a lot you can do about this. Does the connection on the motherboard still work or is it too badly damaged?

Replace your PSU first as you shouldn't have these problems with a quality PSU such as Corsair like you mentioned. However I would also recommend that you keep a close eye on it to ensure that the damage doesn't get worse. Best of luck!

 

[hunter315]

Thats not melting, that scorch marks, meaning there was probably an arc so betting on the PSU having had an issue particularly because raidmax is known for making excellent firecracker. The PSU is supposed to prevent arcs from occuring, for an arc to happen something must have gone really wrong in the PSU.

 

[mscall92]

The vcore was the default. 1.350 I believe. I hadn't changed anything yet I was just taking it out to change out thermal paste on the cpu to ocz freeze from the default.

 

[moody89]

Good job you noticed it when you did. As long as the connector is still functional, grab yourself a new PSU and you should be fine. I would recommend you not to power up that system until you have a new PSU though since that problem can only get worse with your current PSU.

 

[mscall92]

The connector is fuctional but not with a different psu because the shells on the power wires of the 4 pin plug came off and are stuck in the motheboard. I'm not quite sure how to get them out

 

[moody89]

If you can't manage to get them off at all then it may also be time for a new motherboard along with that PSU unfortunately.

 

[FALC0N]

It's also a possibility that you need an 8-pin CPU connector - the more cables the less current each one has to carry. Unofrtunately your motherboard only has a 4-pin CPU connection so there's not a lot you can do about this. Does the connection on the motherboard still work or is it too badly damaged?

He isn't overclocking. A 4 pin cpu connector can handle a stock 940 just fine. It can handle any stock cpu.

 

[saaiello]

LOL thank god this wasnt a single rail PSU because the Chris@Antec would have been all over this saying see lol.

Like others have said there has to be a dead short somewhere on the motherboard to cause that you might have had a loose screw or something floating around or the PSU just started feeding to much power to that connector to handle and in that case it would be the PSU's fault RaidMax really are very very bad units and have been known to do stuff like this.

 

[Userremoved]

LOL thank god this wasnt a single rail PSU because the Chris@Antec would have been all over this saying see lol.

HEHE!
Yeah probably the PSU.

 

[leon2006]

One possibility:

Poor connection. That connector draws large amount of current going to the board. Any small resistance due to poor contact will result to large amount of heat. This has nothing to do with PSU. Any PSU(single rail or mult-rail) will source the amount of current needed to sustain the 12V rail for this node.

Poor contact on high current load will result to large amoutn of heat. This is true for single and or multi rail PSU.

 

[RetiredChief]

Recommend Sh&^% canning both MB and PSU.
The PSU, as previous posters have mention - really Bad PSU. Weather direct cause, or not.

MB - May have caused and/or if not the direct cause may have damage beyound just the connector. At a bare min the 4 pin connector will have to be replaced.

Possible causes.
(1) PSU over voltaged cuasing a component to short out (or go to a very low resistance. (PSU should have gone into overcurent protection - may not have.
(2) Component failure on MB caused over current.
(3) As leon2006 point out - poor contact between male/female connection on 4 pin connector. Probable due to Pis%%$ poor PSU connector. Avoid this brand PSU like the plague!

The end result, burnt/melted 4 Pin connector - This was caused, As leon2006 pointed out, by the high I squared R drop across the pins.
Normal drop. Max design is approx 5 amps thru a pin. (Based on max of 120 Watts / 12 Vols / by 2 pairs of pins.) A maxamim contact resistance of 0.05 ohms = 0.2 Watts. Poor contact resistance coupled with some oxidation can easily increace this resistance to 0.5 Ohms (or greater). At point 5 ohms the power dissipated by the connector to 2 Watts. Try touching a 2 Watt resistor, it will burn you. Note this is a self distructive path. With a poor contact more heat is generated which increases oxidation which increases the temperature further increasing resitance UNTIL POOF. In addition to poor voltage/current OCR on cheap PSUs, poor connectors are imployed and not normally mentioned in reviews.

 

[saaiello]

Since the wires are not melted and its just the connector the poor connection theory is most likely the cause.

 

[FALC0N]

Avoid this brand PSU like the plague!

I don't know about that. I would much rather be stuck with a raidmax PSU than have the plague! :lol:

 

[zetpendragon]

If anyone knows if it was the motherboard or psu that caused this, It would be greatly appreciated.
PS. My specs are:
Raidmax 530 watt (not the best I know, probably upgrading to a corsair soon),
gigabyte micro atx am2 socket mobo that I dont have the name of,
sapphire HD 4890 vapor-X (stock),
phenom II 940 black edition(stock),
4 Gigs of mushkin ddr2 800 ram.
not sure what else is needed.

well this pins use special voltage the 2 pins u use i usualy use sometime connect black to green and use my power supply for soldering iron with transformer the transformer died might be ur power supply or its the motherboard might there was high voltage income and u left ur pc plugged or some component failed