Can someone tell me what happened to my adapter?

Hi all..I was putting together a pc today and I used a ide to sata adapter on my dvd-rom and then after I plugged everything in, about 20 seconds later I saw a bunch of smoke and immediately yanked the power supply out of the psu..The adapter was about 2 inches from the power supply so I couldn't tell right off if the psu or the adapter was smoking..but when i removed the adapter I saw what was burning, lol..So of course I removed that adapter and tried to boot the pc with that same psu and of course it didn't work anymore..Then I put another psu in to make sure I didn't fry everything in my pc and it worked fine thank goodness..Now I am by no means an electrician and would like for someone to maybe tell me what happened, or possibly what happened..

guitargirl30, to the forums!

Hard to say, from the sounds of it you definitely had a short. I notice that adapter is just bare (board is un-guarded). If it the solder/pin side of where that terminal meets the board was grounding on something, that would have done it, looks as if a lot more amperage than that wire was rated for was trying to travel though it.

That would be my best guess.

Sucks that it fried the PSU, what was the make/model of it? More of your better manufactured PSU's should have some protection for themselves built in to it.. which would have resulted still in a fried adapter/wire, but not a fried PSU.

repilce said:

guitargirl30, to the forums!

Hard to say, from the sounds of it you definitely had a short. I notice that adapter is just bare (board is un-guarded). If it the solder/pin side of where that terminal meets the board was grounding on something, that would have done it, looks as if a lot more amperage than that wire was rated for was trying to travel though it.

That would be my best guess.

Sucks that it fried the PSU, what was the make/model of it? More of your better manufactured PSU's should have some protection for themselves built in to it.. which would have resulted still in a fried adapter/wire, but not a fried PSU.

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Hi, thanks for giving me an idea of what happened, I just didn't have a clue, lol..I already took the psu to the trash but from memory it was a Logisys 480W, which after I googled it I saw exactly how cheap this thing was..I should have known better, but it was a cheap build..I have definitely learned my lesson..And yeah, that board was totally unguarded, so what you said made total sense..thanks a bunch

Keeping this for future reference to explain to people why getting a high quality PSU is one of the most important things with your computer.

Don't feel bad though, without any help it's not something that most people would think about right away, I'm guilty of the same mistake. Just be glad it didn't kill anything else.