4 pin power cable burning up

[Hektik100]

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I have a full size Antec tower with a 400 or 440 Watt power supply. Its about 2 maybe 3 years old now. Recently when i restart my computer or turn it on in the morning i get beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep error saying my graphics card cable needs to be plugged in. Well i go to check it and its plugged in. So i move it around alittle to make sure its connected properly, which it is and try to boot it again and it works fine.
Now when i restart the computer or have it powered off for awhile the same thing happens the graphics card looses connectivity via the 4 pin power cable. This time i took out the power cable to see what the deal was and the 1st pin the one that the Red wire connects into was all burned up. Blackish Brown color. So i switched the 4 pin connector with the other one on that same set of wires. (because there are 2 4 pin connections on 1 set of power wires). The switc worked for about a week and i'm now having the same problem. I'm loosing connectivity to the graphics card and the 4 pin connection with the red wire going into it is turning brownish black.

What is causing this? Is my power supply going bad? is the graphics card bad?

Are those 4 pin power plugs supposed to get hot?

[mbentley]

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I have a full size Antec tower with a 400 or 440 Watt power supply. Its about 2 maybe 3 years old now. Recently when i restart my computer or turn it on in the morning i get beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep error saying my graphics card cable needs to be plugged in. Well i go to check it and its plugged in. So i move it around alittle to make sure its connected properly, which it is and try to boot it again and it works fine.
Now when i restart the computer or have it powered off for awhile the same thing happens the graphics card looses connectivity via the 4 pin power cable. This time i took out the power cable to see what the deal was and the 1st pin the one that the Red wire connects into was all burned up. Blackish Brown color. So i switched the 4 pin connector with the other one on that same set of wires. (because there are 2 4 pin connections on 1 set of power wires). The switc worked for about a week and i'm now having the same problem. I'm loosing connectivity to the graphics card and the 4 pin connection with the red wire going into it is turning brownish black.

What is causing this? Is my power supply going bad? is the graphics card bad?

Are those 4 pin power plugs supposed to get hot?

no, they shouldn't be getting hot like that. if you have a multimeter, i would check the voltages on those lines. they could be too high or it could be that your computer isn't properly grounded or something. i would check anything and everything with the power supply. also, do you have any other molex connectors you can try? try one from a different line this time and see if it happens again. if the other connectors aren't getting hot and they do it on the video card, it may be the video card.

[Annoyingrob]

Or, if the lines are too low, the regulating circuitry on the video card would probably compensate by increasing the current draw, which would cause the wires, and plug to heat up, browning the connector. As mbently said, grab a multimeter, and check the voltage across the 5v line (red and black). My guess is that it's probably low.

Edit: Just out of curiosity, what kind of power supply is it? Is it an Antec? And what are you running off of it? You may be overloading the supply, especially if it's a cheaper brand. This would cause the line voltages to drop.

[Hektik100]

Or, if the lines are too low, the regulating circuitry on the video card would probably compensate by increasing the current draw, which would cause the wires, and plug to heat up, browning the connector. As mbently said, grab a multimeter, and check the voltage across the 5v line (red and black). My guess is that it's probably low.

Edit: Just out of curiosity, what kind of power supply is it? Is it an Antec? And what are you running off of it? You may be overloading the supply, especially if it's a cheaper brand. This would cause the line voltages to drop.

Not sure what brand my power supply is but its either 400 or 440 watt power supply.