SATA cables burnt out?

[SkimMilk]

Hello friends, I'm in need of some assistance. So my 250gb Samsung evo ssd came in the other day, so I was trying to hook it up to my desktop. I connected everything, and booted up my computer. Immediately I started smelling the burnt smell so I shut everything off. Upon inspection, it looked like the SATA port was slightly singed, and my SATA cable was shredded with some of the plastic at the end being melted.
I've had problems before, where I tried to hook up a DVD drive but it burned out as well.

When I hooked up the SSD to the cables that my current hard drive uses, everything seemed to work fine. No burning, and a message popped up asking for me to boot from the correct device since I dont have windows on the SSD. I checked the BIOS and it detected it fine as far as I can tell. Is the SSD still usable or is it ruined?

Im still not entirely sure what went wrong, and I'm pretty bummed out about it. Could someone help?

The SATA port I used for the SSD is the one on the left. The one on the right is from a DVD drive I tried about 2 years ago.
http://imgur.com/a/JhB6E#0

 

[yumri]

you might have to reformat thta SSD and might have lost some data but the SSD itself should be ok. That cable was made wrong it sounds like just next time get a better cable that can go at the speeds of a SSD not just claim it can

 

[Someone Somewhere]

you might have to reformat thta SSD and might have lost some data but the SSD itself should be ok. That cable was made wrong it sounds like just next time get a better cable that can go at the speeds of a SSD not just claim it can

You're almost certainly 100% wrong on every point, but oh well.

The chances of getting two miswired cables two years apart are miniscule, and there is no way to miswire a SATA data cable that can cause it to burn - it's only ground and data.

My guess is the cable from the PSU to the sata plug is miswired, and the drive is seeing ground as being +12V, +5V, or +3.3V. That then grounds via the shielding in the data cable to the mobo, but not with enough currrent to trip the overcurrent protection (why multi-rail PSUs are good!).

@OP, can you check that the wires in the SATA plug you were using are the same as the other ones you're using for the other drives?

 

[SkimMilk]

you might have to reformat thta SSD and might have lost some data but the SSD itself should be ok. That cable was made wrong it sounds like just next time get a better cable that can go at the speeds of a SSD not just claim it can

You're almost certainly 100% wrong on every point, but oh well.

The chances of getting two miswired cables two years apart are miniscule, and there is no way to miswire a SATA data cable that can cause it to burn - it's only ground and data.

My guess is the cable from the PSU to the sata plug is miswired, and the drive is seeing ground as being +12V, +5V, or +3.3V. That then grounds via the shielding in the data cable to the mobo, but not with enough currrent to trip the overcurrent protection (why multi-rail PSUs are good!).

@OP, can you check that the wires in the SATA plug you were using are the same as the other ones you're using for the other drives?

I'll post some pictures later today, gotta head out in a bit. Assuming that the problem is the PSU wiring, how would I fix it? Is the only solution to replace it outright? I'm fairly new to a lot of computer terminology, could you explain what 'ground' is?

Is the SSD boned then? I guess thats my biggest worry, I'm a college student and a $100 investment is pretty huge

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Ground is zero volts - all other voltages are referenced to it.

You can probably shift the wires around in the SATA power connectors, if that's what's wrong. There's a couple of videos around on how to do it.

Can't really say on the SSD. The pins that are slightly munted are all grounds, which is slightly optional-ish on the data side and reasonably reduntant on the power side.

 

[George Mulligan]

This is a sadly very common occurrence. I'll wager you did not use the modular cables that came with your PSU. PSU manufacturers use different pin outs, so if you use one manufacturer's cable on another's PSU, you toast components.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

That's something I didn't think of...

Maybe we need ATX v3, with standardised modular connectors...

 

[SkimMilk]

I'm using a XFX Pro 550 psu. I just used the cables that it came with. The sata power cables were from a different strand than the ones that im using with my current hard drive.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Can you post a picture of the ends of those cables?

Do you have a multimeter?