Could it be fried?

the_cultie · Sep 19, 2010

A friend of mine who I built a pc for a couple of years ago had a hard drive die recently. So he got a replacement and added it. While he was replacing the broken one he decided to add another hard drive. He has a modular power supply (Corsair 1KW) and needed another power connection for the hard drive. In his rush to get it working he used a power cable from an old OCZ PSU. He switched on the pc and it turned off after 1 or 2 seconds. He tried again a few times and it did the same, but then after those few times it wouldn't switch on at all.

I then went and had a look. I took out the ram, graphics cards, hard drives and gave it a try but still won't switch on. The power supply is still good, i tested it separately. Could he have fried the mobo by using a power cable from a different PSU?

his system specs:
Asus Z7S-WS Dual LGA 771
2x Intel Xeon E5420 2.5GHz quad cores.
12GB DDR2 ECC ram (6x2GB)
4x 1TB hard drives
Corsair 1KW PSU

Hardass · Sep 19, 2010

the_cultie said:
A friend of mine who I built a pc for a couple of years ago had a hard drive die recently. So he got a replacement and added it. While he was replacing the broken one he decided to add another hard drive. He has a modular power supply (Corsair 1KW) and needed another power connection for the hard drive. In his rush to get it working he used a power cable from an old OCZ PSU. He switched on the pc and it turned off after 1 or 2 seconds. He tried again a few times and it did the same, but then after those few times it wouldn't switch on at all.

I then went and had a look. I took out the ram, graphics cards, hard drives and gave it a try but still won't switch on. The power supply is still good, i tested it separately. Could he have fried the mobo by using a power cable from a different PSU?

his system specs:
Asus Z7S-WS Dual LGA 771
2x Intel Xeon E5420 2.5GHz quad cores.
12GB DDR2 ECC ram (6x2GB)
4x 1TB hard drives
Corsair 1KW PSU

I use different cables all the time. Most power cables no matter what brand they come in are built to the same specs. Did you pull the battery for a few hours?

Psycogeec · Sep 19, 2010

i have so far read 3 times when a Modular power supply cable from a different manufacture was used on aonther manufactures PSU and the wiring was not the same.
and they fried things.

I would be checking the voltages on ANY of the modular cables after reading that, before pluggining them in, the Mamaboards dont have any Polarity protection on them.
SO
now that this is done and you Believe this might be the problem, why not NOW just check the voltages and the Plusses and Minues on the cable used, and KNOW if this could ever have been an Issue, so you know where to start looking.
even a realy cruddy Voltmeter would tell you the basic voltages that were at the end of the wire, and if they are of the correct polarity.

but it was only connected 1 wire to 1 hard drive, that was from the "unknown" ,right ? so what is the wurst that could have happend? some 12 goes down a HD 5v line?
.

the_cultie · Sep 19, 2010

Took the battery out for nearly 2 hours but no luck.

At the moment I don't have any of the cables home with me to check, meant to take one home but forgot. If it was wired differently 12V could possibly travel through the ground line. From my backround in electronics I assume the ground lines in the sata lines and power lines on the hard drive would be common so 12V could go through the sata cable into the mobo.

Another possible cause I thought of was that the constant quick on/off cycles that happened could have caused a surge that damaged the mobo. Just a thought.

Any other insights welcomed

the_cultie · Sep 21, 2010

I managed to get the PC down to my work place so I could do some more detailed testing. I also got the power cable that he used to connect the hard drive that belonged to the OCZ PSU. My initial idea was correct. Even though the modular connectors are physically the same on both power supplies, the actual wiring is different. 12V went down he ground line into the hard drive and into the mobo via the sata cable. Its an expensive lesson for him but hopefully it can help this from happening to other people. Don't use modular cables with other brands of PSU's.

Could it be fried?

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Hardass

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