PC ALMOST BURNED DOWN!

[Pepi93]

Watching a show, all of a sudden I smell something...weird...burning...very fast...smoke coming out of the front of my PC...small fire...WTF????

Quickly shut everything down...

Took out bluray drive and fan controller <-- the culprit...

My question is...did I somehow cause this or is this just one of those rare events? Could this have burned everything down or are these components designed that if they melt like this that they don't tend to affect other nearby things?

Should I contact BitFenix? I've had the controller for a few years now...powering 3x14cm and 2x12cm bitfenix led fans.

See attached pic for what melted and burst into flame.

 

[Mr.Scott]

Voltage controller cooked. Probably out of warranty now. Toss it and consider yourself lucky.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

What controller was it?

 

[Pepi93]

BitFenix Hydra Pro

 

[ehume]

I had a cheapie single-fan controller catch on fire once. The fan pulled too many watts through the controller and . . . a s'more maker!

 

[bob4933]

Id contact bitfenix, but don't expect anything. Worst case scenario you should at least get an explanation. I've had companies send me new stuff in these situations regardless of warranty status.

 

[imafan]

woah bummer dude! lucky u were close by, i normally leave my pc on for ages while im not around.

After doing some bitfenix warranty search = all i found out is bitfenix has really bad support team...

 

[Pepi93]

It seems that way as far as bad support is concerned. Still waiting for my ticket to be addressed.

I'm not overly concerned about a refund or anything...replacement would be nice but should I really put another of the same thing back in my PC?

I'm just still shocked at how close I was to losing my entire PC and if I wasn't home...well...home?!?!

My place still has remnants of the smell lingering despite having cleaned the inside of my case with rubbing alcohol.

I'm now looking into the 6 channel Lamptron FC5 v3

 

[ehume]

It seems that way as far as bad support is concerned. Still waiting for my ticket to be addressed.

I'm not overly concerned about a refund or anything...replacement would be nice but should I really put another of the same thing back in my PC?

I'm just still shocked at how close I was to losing my entire PC and if I wasn't home...well...home?!?!

My place still has remnants of the smell lingering despite having cleaned the inside of my case with rubbing alcohol.

I'm now looking into the 6 channel Lamptron FC5 v3

Don't bother. If you have to have fan speed control, buy PWM fans. For case fans, buy fans that have the correct speed in the first place.

 

[Pepi93]

I ended up just plugging 2 fans into the mobo (full speed) and 3 into 7v molex adapters that came with the fans. This mimics what I was doing with the controller, the only downside is that my LED's are on all the time. I might try to build a switch for them at some point, we'll see.

Bitfenix hasn't replied to my ticket yet.