[SOLVED] Want oppinions on my situation

[Fidgety]

Haven't posted on this forum since 16. Back then I was asking about sli with the gtx970 I had bought.
Well, that graphics card got me through right untill a month ago. One day last month I was in the middle of a game and the computer just turned off.
I checked the insides after a few failed attempts of repowering, and found that the graphics card fan had stopped spinning. The computer was powered but not displaying images and allowing me past boot stage. I had been pondering upgrades for at least a year by this point, but I only played 1 online game really and my old rig was doing a fine job for what I needed it for. May as well upgrade then. I decided to just upgrade the graphics card and harddrive first, i didnt have a ssd.

Anyway, I opted for a RTX 2060, a decent upgrade but not too over the top price wise.

Next morning special delivery I get my new card. I go to install it and hit a problem. The card needed a 8 pin power supply cable from the psu and I only had 6 pin cables. I was scratching my head for a minute. I remember the 750w power supply I bought before having a 6+2 pin on it. Then I remembered. A couple of years a go my computer popped and went dead. I didnt have any spare psu units so took it to a local mr robot. We discovered that there was an accumulation of fluid on the inside of the pc where the air flow was released at the back right next to the PSU. Some had obviously gotten into the PSU and killed it.

My advice - Never EVER vape in the same room as your computer on a repeated basis. Since that day I haven't lol.

He had swapped out the PSU back then. I never really inspected it that much I saw my comp working after he installed the PSU and was happy to be on my way.

I had already spent £400 on my new rtx2060 and SSD and was not really happy spending more for a new PSU.

In comes the magical £10 from amazon 6pin to 8pin adapter. I did do some reading on the net and although i did read a few people saying you shouldn't do it, I read the same if not more people saying it was perfectly fine as long as your PSU can handle it.

Fast forward 1 month. Everything was working great with the connecter, untill friday night that is. In the middle of a game session the screen goes blue. It wasn't a BSD, just the screen I was using goes blue and displays a no signal message. Eventually the computer turns itself off. I reboot and the machine starts up as normal. I go back to the game and as soon as a 3D enviroment is loaded up, 1 min later the same happens again. Damn it, somethings wrong with my graphics card. I check inside and cant see anything wrong with cables and the 2 fans are spinning away. after 2 days of tinkering around and looking up error events from windows logs and crashing on 3dmark tests, I am at the point where i decide I will contact the company I bought from and get the card replaced as its still in warrenty and I will buy a new PSU while im at it just to be sure.

Tonight, I opened up my case to do something with a DVD drive I had in the computer. As soon as the case was off, i quickly noticed the power lead, the 6 - 8 pin adapter cable to be precise, was black, charred and melted. Its a right mess. the ?surge? or whatever happened even ripped the copper threads inside the cables into a flailed mess.

I have removed the graphics card for now. I can see no visable damage to the 8 pin female on the card. It looks fine. The 6 pin connector on the power lead from PSU looks ever so slightly damaged. Its more just the white of the plastic is slightly yellow from the heat of what happed. Im guessing the PSU is not in itself damaged seeings as my computer has been running fine since Friday after the incident. I'm guessing it fried after some time after the initial game crashes. Maybe the 3d mark test that crashed my comp was the final straw. Theres no way I would have missed this cable like that when I first inspected the card after first 2 crashes from the game.

Im wondering what peoples oppinions are on if they think the graphics card may have taken damage that I cant see. I already have a new PSU on the way for tuesday morning. I'm not sure if I should maybe send the card to the manufacterer to maybe look at it before putting it back in my comp. The card was working fine after this happened. It was just when I went into say a 3d enviroment and the card was put under stress. Obviously the card has to start drawing extra power and couldnt. My main worry at this point is getting the new PSU installed and finding something is wrong inside the graphics card that repeats the burn out on the cable from the new PSU. I would then know theres something wrong with the graphics card but I would be out of pocket for yet another PSU.

I cant think of a way of testing the card I have removed. I dont have access to a comnputer that can handle a RTX 2060 that I dont care about damaging. ONl;y thing I can think of is asking the manufacterers to take a look. Maybe I'm being too paranoid?

EDIT > just a little visual ...

PSU ---------- 6pin} {6to8} ----------{8pin GRAPHICS CARD
...........................................^DAMAGE

 

[Fidgety]

Well, no-one responded but I'm going to write here what happened incase anyone does a google search looking for info on 6 pin to 8 pin adapter cables like I was searching for a month ago.

1 hour ago my new cooler master PSU arrived and I have installed it. I have just ran a 3d mark benchmark test and my computer did not crash. Before it crashed after 10 seconds.
I am hoping, nay, praying that there isnt some instability that will resurface in the future due to this nightmare.

I contacted amazon earlier this morning. I told them what happened to my cable. I just wanted to let them have it on record incase anyone else had problems then they would know it was a bad product. I explained I was having a PSU delivered and it could be a problem with that.
The lady I spoke with told me that they had had multiple people contacting with the same experience. She told me the adaptors were now banned from amazon and they had suspended the seller in question.
The seller was based in and shipping cables from Hong Kong. I'm not sure if the cables there are designed differently for that area of the world or not but there you go.

Personally, I will never use any adaptor like that again, just to be safe. That doesnt mean I think its wrong to do it, I read on multiple sites that its ok as long as your PSU can handle the load.
Amazon gave me a full refund and a gift voucher for my troubles, but for the risk of trashing your graphics card, get yourself a new PSU, or make sure you buy from a safe source, if you can find and trust one.

edit- reading this back, I made it sound like Amazon had blanket banned these cables. That is not the case, It is just that specific sellers cables as far as I know.

 

[hang-the-9]

Adapters for power supplies are never a good idea, there are many posts asking about using them, the correct solution is to replace the power supply with one made to be used with the equipment not use adapters. When your PSU was replaced the first time you should have checked to see what model was used since it seems to have been a cheaper lower end one than you had originally.

 

[Fidgety]

Adapters for power supplies are never a good idea, there are many posts asking about using them

Well in the future, when you get posts on here asking about them, you can point them to this thread and let them see a possible outcome. I think many people will end up reading this through google searches. That's why I came back to post an update. I was in the same boat last month.

@hang-the-9 if you want, feel free to change the thread name to something easier to find and more relatable in a forum search. Something with 6-8 pin adadptor in would be better than what I chose the other day.

 

[theonerm2]

I'm sorry. Can you please summarize your question with only the most important parts? There's so much there.

But I think if I'm understanding you correctly that there was a possible failure on the power supply 8 pin adapter?

I personally would never use those. You need a PSU that's good quality that has the 8 pins.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Don't use those adapters. I've seen a molex to sata power adapter that had caught fire and melted the connectors on a hard drive. You are probably lucky that your card didn't seem to be damaged, and that the connectors on the card didn't burn. I would run it with a good power supply from now on and hopefully you won't have any issues with your card.