SSD fried unknown cause

[Spiritoftheblue]

Hello, new here and to well building computers, this has been some journey but I'll make a long story short.

Recently had my computer built followed instructions looked up tutorials, making sure I don't do anything wrong because you know how much these things cost. I got to the point of booting up my pc with my SSD detected in the bios and all is well with the world.. than I made a novice mistake.

I wanted to plug in my HDD and my SSD however my multi sata cord was too short so I got a longer one and unpluged the old power and data cables.. while my computer was still on.. and plugged in the new ones.

I found out two things.. one an HDD needs to be plugged into the power supply directly to spin and two don't plug or unplug sata cables when the computer is powered on.

It fried my SSD and was no longer showing up in the bios.. well I thought lesson learned now I know better for the future. At least I didn't mess up my new computer... here's where my current problem comes into play.

Now that I know my issue I'll just get a new SSD, so I hooked it up, turned on the power to my computer and "POP" that wonderful smell of a new fried SSD.

But Now I don't know what's causing it this time, did I short my mother Sata controlers causing them to fry the new drive? Is it the cables I'm using? Did my first SSD frying cause other things to get messed up as well? And what do I do now?

For someone inexperienced like me there are so many possibilities and now my journey leads me here hoping I could get some idea of what to do or what it could be.


Apart of me feels it might be the motherboard maybe letting too much voltage through and killing my SSD.. if so I do have 8 days left on my warranty so It wouldn't be the end however I really wouldn't want it to come to that if mobo isn't the problem. Would shorting a drive destroy so much or am I missing something?

Here's some specs, I have a Z270 gamming m7 motherboard

With a I7 7700k processor and A Corsair power supply 850m wattage.


Thanks for reading and your time.

 

[Seanie280672]

It wont be your motherboard, your motherboard doesnt supply any power to your hard drives or SSDs at all, thats data transfer only.

I would start by getting rid of those extra cables you brought, maybe faulty, the power supply is the only thing that supplies the power to your drives, but it sounds like those extension cables to me, you said it yourself, it was working fine before you used those SATA power extensions, you could see drives in the bios etc, did the longer cable come with the PSU ? or is it a 3rd party cable ?

With a Corsair 850 PSU, you must have more than 1 SATA power cable, I have 4 power points on 1 cable, but im having to use 2 cables, as my 3rd hard drive is too far away from the other 2 for the power to reach it, so although 1 of my cables can power 4 drives, its only powering 2 and the other cable although can also power 4 drives is only powering 1.

Dont be affraid to unplug power cables and data cables from the drives whilst the computer is on, in most cases this is fine, its called hot plugging, however, I wouldnt recommend doing it power supply end if your PSU uses modular cables, this does requir powering off first, RMA your blown drives if they are still under warranty and get those replaced.

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

Just incase you damaged the motherboard sata ports dont re use the ones you were previously using
If you were using 0,1&2. Use 3,4&5
(Assuming you have enough sata ports)

Hot swapping sata safely depends on bios settings and is not encouraged

If the psu is modular getting cables in wrong psu socket can be fatal to components

Good modular psu prevent pci-e, eps 12v and sata cables going in wrong sockets


Regards
mike barnes

 

[Spiritoftheblue]

It wont be your motherboard, your motherboard doesnt supply any power to your hard drives or SSDs at all, thats data transfer only.

I would start by getting rid of those extra cables you brought, maybe faulty, the power supply is the only thing that supplies the power to your drives, but it sounds like those extension cables to me, you said it yourself, it was working fine before you used those SATA power extensions, you could see drives in the bios etc, did the longer cable come with the PSU ? or is it a 3rd party cable ?

With a Corsair 850 PSU, you must have more than 1 SATA power cable, I have 4 power points on 1 cable, but im having to use 2 cables, as my 3rd hard drive is too far away from the other 2 for the power to reach it, so although 1 of my cables can power 4 drives, its only powering 2 and the other cable although can also power 4 drives is only powering 1.

Dont be affraid to unplug power cables and data cables from the drives whilst the computer is on, in most cases this is fine, its called hot plugging, however, I wouldnt recommend doing it power supply end if your PSU uses modular cables, this does requir powering off first, RMA your blown drives if they are still under warranty and get those replaced.

Thank you for replying and for the helpful advice.

I'm sorry I didn't explain this properly the cable also came with the corsair, might not be longer like I thought but perhaps looked that way being as it was unused or twisted like the previous cord. I am however using new data cables which came with the motherboard.

Could it be possible since the first SSD fried using the same sata power cable it thus rendered that cable bad and may have fried the new SSD? forgot to mention the sata power cable was plugged into the motherboard and not the PSU directly.

 

[Seanie280672]

It wont be your motherboard, your motherboard doesnt supply any power to your hard drives or SSDs at all, thats data transfer only.

I would start by getting rid of those extra cables you brought, maybe faulty, the power supply is the only thing that supplies the power to your drives, but it sounds like those extension cables to me, you said it yourself, it was working fine before you used those SATA power extensions, you could see drives in the bios etc, did the longer cable come with the PSU ? or is it a 3rd party cable ?

With a Corsair 850 PSU, you must have more than 1 SATA power cable, I have 4 power points on 1 cable, but im having to use 2 cables, as my 3rd hard drive is too far away from the other 2 for the power to reach it, so although 1 of my cables can power 4 drives, its only powering 2 and the other cable although can also power 4 drives is only powering 1.

Dont be affraid to unplug power cables and data cables from the drives whilst the computer is on, in most cases this is fine, its called hot plugging, however, I wouldnt recommend doing it power supply end if your PSU uses modular cables, this does requir powering off first, RMA your blown drives if they are still under warranty and get those replaced.

Thank you for replying and for the helpful advice.

I'm sorry I didn't explain this properly the cable also came with the corsair, might not be longer like I thought but perhaps looked that way being as it was unused or twisted like the previous cord. I am however using new data cables which came with the motherboard.

Could it be possible since the first SSD fried using the same sata power cable it thus rendered that cable bad and may have fried the new SSD? forgot to mention the sata power cable was plugged into the motherboard and not the PSU directly.

The fact you're using new data cables makes no difference.

What do you mean the sata power cable was plugged into the motherboard directly, how and where did you do this ? ive just had a look at the motherboard pictures on the MSI website, and I cant see anywhere to plug an SATA power cable ?

Like I said before, the SATA data cables dont carry any power, theres 8 wires inside an SATA data cable, 4 are used for data+ and 4 are used for data- so with that in mind, the sata drives themselves still require a power connector in them too.

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

I dont know how you could connect a sata power cable to the motherboard!

Sata power cable connector is wider than the sata data cable connector

Sata data cable goes from motherboard to disk

Sata power cable goes from psu to disk

Regards
Mike Barnes

 

[Spiritoftheblue]

Sorry for the late replay.

Thats how the SSD worked the first time unless that first attempt was a fluke. The sata power went from SSD to motherboard CPU PWR 2. I first attempted to connect it's power to the PSU directly however my PSU doesn't support a 4 pin end which is what the sata was connected to.
The motherboard had that option with Cpu2 supporting 4 pin, same connector and prong shape.

Asked a buddy of mine and mentioned his was hooked up the same way but his HDD needed tp be plugged in directly.

 

[Seanie280672]

Sorry for the late replay.

Thats how the SSD worked the first time unless that first attempt was a fluke. The sata power went from SSD to motherboard CPU PWR 2. I first attempted to connect it's power to the PSU directly however my PSU doesn't support a 4 pin end which is what the sata was connected to.
The motherboard had that option with Cpu2 supporting 4 pin, same connector and prong shape.

Asked a buddy of mine and mentioned his was hooked up the same way but his HDD needed tp be plugged in directly.

Can you take a picture of the back of the SSD drive and also the cable you used to hook it upto the motherboard and post it here please, im proper confused, ive never in my life heard of an SSD getting power that way, all SSDs ive ever seen only have 2 connectors on the back of them, 1 large one, L shaped is for power from your PSU and the smaller L shapped one is for the Data cable from SSD to Motherboard SATA ports.

 

[Seanie280672]

Hang on a min, are you saying you somehow connected your hard drive power cable to the cpu2 eps cable? Instead of the power supply? Why would you do that instead of going direct to the power supply, If this is the case, you fried your ssd yourself, the cpu2 eps 4pin cable has 2 x 12v lines and 2 x ground cables, (2 yellow and 2 black) ssd require 1 x 12, 1 x 5 volt and 2 x grounds. (1 yellow, 1 red, 2 black) you've basically shoved 12v into the 5v line of the ssd.