Why is corner of case getting hot to the touch?

Dougie Fresh

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Jan 3, 2010
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I've recently built a PC with the following parts:

Gigabyte GA-H55N-USB3 mini-itx motherboard
4GB Mushkin Essentials DDR3 RAM
Antec EA-380D PSU
Lian-Li PC-07b case (all-aluminum case)
Asus DVD drive
Microcenter (IPSG) 64GB SSD

I've got a very strange thing happening I just noticed tonight. One of the rivets on the top corner of the case gets really hot - so hot you can't touch it for long - moments after the PC is powered on. Once it's shutdown, it stops being hot in a few seconds. It's kinda scary. My first though is this is some kind of grounding issue? Of course, I've used all four screws on the motherboard so it should be properly grounded. I know the outlet is grounded properly - I tested it. It seems dangerous. Any thoughts on what might be causing this? Faulty case? PSU? Motherboard? It's bizarre.

Thanks.
 

Dougie Fresh

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Jan 3, 2010
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Wow, I am really lucky I didn't fry my whole system. I made two mistakes at the same time that could have been very costly. First, what looks like a USB header is actually the "debug port" and second, I somehow got half the USB cable plugged in (just one row of pins). I feel like such a n00b. What I really need is a new prescription for my glasses. I discovered this when I just burned the side of my hand on the USB cable. I'd just put an extension on the USB cable internal so it would reach the motherboard so that was the first thing I was looking at. I just happened to brush against it and it felt like I'd been stung. The cable was red hot.

Wow. What if it melted, caught on fire and burned my house down in the middle of the night?
 

suteck

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Insurance would have bought you a new house and a computer that wasn't shorting out on you. But yeah, get your glasses fixed and take your time to inspect your build to make sure ALL connections are properly seated and secured. While you're at it you might want to double check all your components and connections. memory, pcie, power ect... with a magnifying glass to make sure nothing else is out of sync.