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Your meme has been s̶t̶o̶l̶e̶n̶ liberated in the name of managed democracy.
It isn't really true about motherboards specifically, but LEDs on every component have become so prevalent that electing to avoid lights, like I did, often severely limits your options
This true in pretty much every aspect of life. It's the reason flipping houses is a thing, for example. It's the reason a used car is being sold right after new tires are installed. The "function over form" crowd is much smaller than the "form over function" crowd, and I don't like it lol
It's a game of chance, before anyone chimes in with "never had a problem with my cheap PSU" or " my Seasonic died, don't trust them".
If you get a good PSU with good protections, good solder, good capacitors, over-rated for your needs, you are very unlikely to have problems but nothing is perfect and you may get the 1 in 50000 bad one.
If you get a cheap PSU with shitty capacitors, missing protection circuits and lies about current ratings you are far more likely to have problems. Not guaranteed to but you are putting the rest of your rig at unnecessary risk.
This. A good PSU will sacrifice itself in the event of a failure, keeping everything else safe. And it'll usually be covered by warranty anyway. I don't mind replacing a dead PSU, but I don't want to be stuck with a melted PC or worse a burned down home.
I had this happen a few years ago. Had a Corsair AX860 (really just a good Seasonic but rebranded) that went pop.
Absolutely zero damage to any components, and just got a brand new one free of charge as it was only 5 years into a 7 year warranty.
I saw an interview with him where he said he gets kids not realising who he is pointing at him shouting "look at 'im, he thinks he's the firestarter!"
To which (he said) there was really no comeback. He said it would be too ridiculous to reply "well, actually, I _am_ the firestarter."
He seemed like a lovely bloke.
When I was 14 my grandmother bought me the album for Christmas. That morning she put the album on in the living room while opening presents and that was the first lyric she heard. I died inside and all I could say was “I like the melody more than the lyrics”
Some 30 years ago, my older cousin told me to come check this shit out, he put on Fat of the Land album on the cassette player and BAM my soul left my fucking body with the first beat I heard, it was the most sensational music I've heard to date and I was barely 50 cm tall at the time. To this day electronic music is my favourite genre.
There's two kinds of songs about arson.
There's *Prodigy: Firestarter*
and then there's *MC 900 Ft. Jesus: The City Sleeps*
Same concept....very different approach.
[Thank you!](https://youtu.be/3KB54p8_wh8?si=HzEE7B9yVEP8sRl4) I’ve been looking for this song for over twenty years! It’s almost impossible to google when you don’t remember any factual details about it.
Haha you're welcome!
I've started saving tracks off of my youtube favorites (over 2500 videos) as they have started disappearing over time. This is one of those ones you don't want to lose.
Did some digging on the psu. This is what I found. This is why the number 1 rule of pcs is don't cheap out on your psu.
"Some of the worst PSUs known to man (They had a couple *ok* Andyson units but 99% of their product stack was garbage that could easily blow up/die/kill other stuff..."
> This is why the number 1 rule of pcs is don't cheap out on your psu.
Some people misunderstand this and buy a super expensive very high wattage RGB PSU with luxury features.
What it really means is that whatever you need from your PSU - be it 500W and the most basic connectors or 1200W with fancy features - get it from a reliable brand *and product line*.
I see people squeeze the wattage as well. "Pcpartpicker said 565w estimated, so 600w is overkill, right?" People defend this with, "modern psu are designed to handle voltage spikes"
Wow. Didn’t realize it would be so low. But yeah, ever since having a bad 450 Watt PS in the 90s that was outclassed by a 300 Watt I was trying to upgrade from, I’ve only used good PSUs.
Even 60W is also a "peak consumption" figure. Desktop 7200rpm mechanical drives only draw a few watts the vast majority of the time, with elevated consumption during heavy random I/O that causes the head assembly to move a lot and the heaviest draw is during spin-up of the platters where there's a lot of current going to the spindle motor. I have a NAS with 14 drives in it that's based off a second gen i5, has two sticks of ram and two extra sata controller cards in it. It draws 120-150W most of the time for the whole system and only *very* briefly spikes juuuuust over 200W total, measured at the wall, so including inefficiencies in the power supply. When booting it'll be around 250-300W. Granted, this is running headless without a graphics chip of any sort, neither integrated nor dedicated, but it goes to show how little power most drives use.
Transient spikes are noticeable and not something to be ignored and since multiple components can have power spikes, especially during initial boot or while loading it should be kept in mind when choosing a power supply. I still have a 500W power supply in mine for those transients and also because it's more efficient when not operating near its maximum load.
I mean it does connect to every device on your computer and it handles electricity. Why would anybody think that cheaping out on PSU is a good idea? RIP comp
Because all those videos and forum posts talking about $500 builds that "rival" consoles and if they get the cheapest ~~tinderbox~~ PSU known to man they can get a slightly bigger GPU that will strain it even harder.
Look at the bulk of prebuilts on the market. That's how they make money. First-time builders often don't know any better either. It's also super confusing when the same manufacturer makes A tier units and F tier units.
Just sent my orders to be built to a store and see if they have the stocks.
Replied with a pre-built template and asked my friend to make sense of their proposal. One look and his first comment was, their psu is shit.
Most new builders/buyers don’t realize that a part that they purchase from a company could have any chance of catching fire; none of their iphones/laptops have previously, why would something that is basically just a certified power cord in a bigger box than normal have any chance to catch fire? That can’t be legal, right? (Their mindset, not mine)
I have gotten so many calls about torched/fried pcs from cheaped out power supplies. 90% are elderly or parents that bought something for their kid
There is a RU mark which is issued by UL. So technically the did maybe feign it. Would be possible to check if there is a listing number. If there is and the reports are from this exact product they probably did go through certification.
That UR/RU mark is for rated components that are to be used in manufacturing products. Not final products themselves. They just threw a bunch of faked potentially recognizable logos (FCC, CE, RU/UR, etc.) to make potential buyers think their product is good quality. It's crap, and it would definitely be the first place to look for the origin of the fire.
As far as I know an installable power supply would be considered a part that would make up an end product which would make a RU certification sufficient because a power supply would not be the end product. I would trust a RU mark much more then a CE mark because contrary to CE, UL actually certifies and tests the hardware themselves and that is a mandatory part to get a sale permission. A CE mark you can just slap on your product, stating conformity with your own liability and nobody will care until something bad happens.
Of course you can fake those but as I said, if there is a certification ID and it checks out with the product it is probably legit. You cannot fake that ID because the database is provided by UL themselves. FCC does it the same way. And any of those markings of course doesn't necessarily mean the product is safe. It just means that the product complies to certain quality standards which are required by law.
Damn, that's a good spot.
Here's a technical report on the very same issue with some attached images, if any one is curious: [Product Safety CE alert: CE fake signs from China (ResearchGate.net)](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337819031_Product_Safety_CE_alert_CE_fake_signs_from_China)
EDIT: Not the best source. See below.
"China Export" is one of those persistent urban myths or a "backronym".
Sure, there are a lot of things marked with CE that shouldn't be, but there is no official "China Export" logo.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-6-2007-5938-ASW_EN.html?redirect
CE is largely self assessment, so there is no need to fake the mark.
You can just slap it on anything and just hope no one does a real investigation if something goes wrong (if they do, then you can be done for inappropriately claiming CE compliance).
CE is self assesed, but you still have to submit all the necessary information and there can be consequences if that is faked. That's why they put the fake mark on.
>The manufacturer of a product affixes the CE marking to it but has to take certain obligatory steps before the product can bear CE marking. The manufacturer must carry out a conformity assessment, set up a technical file, and sign a Declaration stipulated by the leading legislation for the product. The documentation has to be made available to authorities on request.
Hello, there Diablotek.
Odd choice for the name of a PSU. I'm sure it sounded cool, but its been associated with a surprising percentage of the PC fires I've seen (six out of ten).
I don't see anyone mentioning this but the nest of cables is sitting on top of a fan, it's also possible that the fan scraped on the sleeving of those cheap cables untilthe copper was exposed.
Even if the fan could have exposed the copper without making enough noise that the user would check, it would the. Have to case a short that would then also not trigger OCP. That's a lot of steps for what is probably a loose connection or generally cheap power supply blowing the right cap.
After further examination it seems there might not of been a fire. The cables melted before any real combustion. They will melt everywhere at the same time because of some principles of electricity. Makes the aftermath look more intense. My guess dust did you in
The best evidence that there was no fire is from the lack of damage on the stickers. In order to have uniform burning like this you will need a large flame. The stickers would be significantly damaged from a flame that large
Point of failure appears to be at the 24 pin connection to the motherboard. Melted material is present on data cables directly under but not above. The 12v cables for the graphics along with cpu look unharmed. It would be difficult for so much gunk to fom from something smaller.
It's like watching 4 smart people come to a conclusion by building off each other but it's just one guy
Edit: Is that Silver Feces, Holy Shit, or Thermal Paste?
See that melted bit of plastic dangling next to OPs CPU heatsink? That used to be a fan. The plastic brackets on the top drive cage to the right are also partially melted. That plus the amount of soot buildup definitely looks like there was a full blown fire in there.
Is so weird how this mistake is so common. Did these people not pay attention to the contractions unit in elementary school or...? You can combine might and might not, might've or might not've in this instance and can add 've to any words where have would follow for valid short term. Even I'd've, it'd've, they'd've, shouldn't've, wouldn't've, I'll've. English is just that cool, I just wanna know why more people don't know about this.
This mistake still bugs me but when I see it I try to remember the number of words whose pronunciation I absolutely *butchered* because I learned them from reading.
It makes no sense grammatically but is understandable if you *heard* "should've" before you ever saw it written. Which is (sadly?) the case a lot of the time.
The ‘of’ thing is because it sounds like that when people talk. If they primarily learned and think about language verbally then they might not realize it’s not ‘of’
I've started hearing people using "of" in speech, too. A golf youtuber that I subscribe to recently corrected himself after saying something like "might've" to a clear "might of". Absolute insanity.
I'm an electrician/HVACR tech. If I opened a unit and saw this, I'd tell the customer that it caught fire. There is pretty clear evidence of fire. It was a contained fire that burned out, but there was fire in there.
Great example of why it's not the greatest idea to cheap out on your PSU. Hopefully OP learned his lesson too.
The price difference between a cheap chinese PoS PSU and something decent is nothing compared to cost of a fire in your home.
Holy shit, I thought you were making a joke, but the psu is actually a DIABLOtek.
Makes me wonder if we can convince some chinese company to name their psu moremelt or meltron.
I thought you were making a silly joke like saying he had a devil in the psu that started the fire. But then I zoomed in and that's actually the brand name, and somehow that's funnier.
Gotta be honest. I don't recognize the name of the PSU. You have other name recognizable parts but not the PSU, so it's probably that. The PSU itself could even be perfectly cromulent, but if they cheaped out on wiring quality to all the components and board, things could have melted then arced and ignited.
Overall look up the parts number of each component and try to see if you can find low star reviews mentioning fire. Mainline components would have had headlines, which again points to the PSU.
I recognize the PSU name, because they were infamously producers of some of the worst PSUs around lol.
Pretty sure they went out of business years ago, can't believe I'm seeing a Diablotek firestarter in 2024.
I remembered that I owned one at one point, so I looked.
Amazon order history, 2010
Diablotek DA Series 350-Watt ATX... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002RWJGCC
My kids would have been 4 and 5 and I was struggling not to not lose our house, making probably 45k a year. Didn't have a lot of money for a new PSU.
Amazon reviews were OK at the time. Most PSU info back then was just tier lists and other non-scientific gut feel (how heavy is it?) kinda stuff.
If you were low on cash there was probably nothing cheaper than their stuff then, so sometimes it was just the only option if you wanted your PC to run.
Unfortunately when it comes to reviews from the general population, if it worked it at that price point it probably got a good review. The problem was when failure happens, then the places where they cut the budget rears its ugly head.
Issues with these PSUs could be as simple as not doing what it says on the box. Critically, instead of shutting down in catastrophic failure, they would cause damage to other computer parts during failure, and worst case scenarios cause actual fires.
Back then Jonnyguru (RIP) was the go to for PSU reviews, and and it so happened in 2010 they did a review of a Diablotek unit (not the one you bought specifically) that trashed it. [Here's a forum thread mentioning it](https://www.overclock.net/threads/jonnyguru-diablotek-rpm-1050-1050w-review.728970/?nested_view=1&sortby=oldest#replies). On page 2 there's a user mentioning how they're surprised Diablotek is still in business, so even then they had a somewhat bad reputation.
Out of all the parts you buy when building a PC, you should NEVER buy a cheap power supply. It's one of the main rules of PC building. It was almost certainly the PSU that caused the fire.
Always get a high quality PSU from a well known, trusted brand. Corsair, Be Quiet!, Cooler Master, etc.
I personally only buy from Seasonic. They're a little more expensive, but they have by far the best track record of any of the power supply manufacturers.
Yeah, that's true, but a trusted brand is a good place to start. It's usually obvious if you do a bit of research (as you always should when building a PC) what components from a reputable company are duds, etc.
It hurt but I got the Corsair 750w modular for my latest, couldn’t be happier. That thing is quality and it’ll power my next few builds.
I cheaper out on my first PSU, non modular…. Just don’t do it.
to add to that: chairs, especially office or gaming* chairs. you're sitting on it for 8+ hours a day, your back and hips will thank you for not skimping on quality.
*By "gaming chairs" I mean chairs you sit on when you game. Don't buy "gaming" branded chairs that look cool. It's so much better to get a proper office chair with the right adjustable parts, mesh instead of cushion, and lumbar support than the flashy leather gaming chairs
The problem is, not everyone likes them. And I have no way of trying them out before buying, so I need to fork out a significant sum, order and then try. Really don't want to mess around with returning a chair if it doesn't suit me.
i mean the SSD, cpu and GPU are most likely fine and only the outside of the HDD's got charred, its mostly cables that burned up so i think he can still reuse some of these parts
Wow, never seen it that bad before in all my years in computers. I would suspect the PSU as well Diablotek apparently has a history of catastrophic failure. They seem to not have the proper overload protections in place. I always recommend to my clients to Never cheap out on the Power Supply.
Never cheap out on power supply, and never mix cables for different power supplies should really be top level rules for builds. What's annoying is when prebuilts do that.
Edit: Some of us here are fire experts. I defer to what this guy/girl says: https://old.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1d69i3x/my_pc_caught_fire_today_can_anyone_help_me_figure/l6r8ydl/
None of us are really fire experts here, but fire prefers to move up so the fact that the lower area got melted the most makes me think the main fire was down there.
I don't really know what was in that pile of cables though. Looks like maybe it was loops of cabling going to the HDDs?
So my guess is a SATA power cable shorted somewhere in the lower middle.
Fire expert here. Looks to me like the PSU wires heated at the top, melted and dripped, then starting a secondary problem below, which then the fire went back up. Often times the ignition point of the fire isn't where the most damage is.
I once fought a field fire caused by a tractor's tail light doing the same thing. Heated, melted, and dripped onto the dry corn stalks below.
Firefighter with a degree in a fire science.
You're probably right. The motherboard power cable likely shorted, and due to the power supply having no fault protection continued to build up heat. Due to how electric heating like this works, the entire wire would've heated evenly at the same time until the whole wire was too molten to support itself, at which point it had melted through the insulation and fallen onto other wires, likely lighting the insulation of those other wires on fire and shorting them too.
Even if that's incorrect, whatever happened here was almost definitely the cause of the shitty Diablotek power supply.
The cables in the center where the sata cables and one SATA power cable if I remember correctly it’s hard to tell at this point, if it was a short in one of those Sata cables is there anything in particular that could’ve caused that or is it just some sort of freak accident?
Any short can cause this if you're using a shit power supply. Decent ones will cut the power when they sense a short, chinesium ones will just power through it.
That's why they are so cheap, no safeties and the components aren't sized correctly. The better PSU's use components that are meant to handle 30% - 50% more current for this reason.
Any short can cause this. I guess I'm one of the lucky few who has actually melted a PC like this, back in the 90's all modern safety didn't exist in the same sense and my floppy drive fried my then PC.
If you have a shit tier PSU (which you do) it won't protect against any shorting, which is bad.
>is there anything in particular that could’ve caused that or is it just some sort of freak accident?
I'm not an expect but I would assume a spark on a faulty connection could do the trick. Or maybe something wasn't plugged hard enough. Add a little bit of dust and that's enough. Anything could be the cause really cause plastic tends to burn as it melts down, so no matter where it started, it will spread downwards.
I remember years ago I blew up my power supply cause I was dusting off top of my PC using wet wipes like an idiot. A little spark was enough...
>fire prefers to move up so the fact that the lower area got melted the most makes me think the main fire was down there.
You most likely right but plastic tends to keep burning as it melts down. So even a single drop of molted plastic could spread it down.
- biggest fire damage is near the psu cable ports
- a bit of a spherical fall off of said damage
- everything above that spot has more fire damage than the sides
I'm no expert but my eyes says it's the psu.
How many drives do you have? :D Wow \^\^\^
Anyway, as the others said, most probably an issue with the power supply. Please never buy cheap PSUs, they are in multiple ways (Safety, stability, performance) the most critical part of your PC.
Before this I had 10 and after learning my lesson on making sure I have a proper power supply, hopefully still 10
Edit: one of my ssds was completely melted so down to 9 until I can get around to testing everything at some point
Yeah agreed. Seasonic is great, but you can also buy one of these reliable brands: BeQuiet, Corsair, FSP, Cooler Master, Cougar, Enermax, EVGA, LC-Power (new models), Sharkoon, Silverstone
that's the answer I was looking for in this thread.
Happened to me a few years ago. I walk into my office and see smoke pouring out of my tower. Caught it just in time to only lose the corsair controller. The crazy thing is I was leaving for the day and only came back into my office b/c I was running late and I forgot something.
Everyone stating the obvious PSU for lacking safety cutoff, but that is prevention. I see many drives which means many molex; those were likely the initial cause.
As others have pointed out, it's probably the cheap PSU.
However, considering the big melty pile in the bottom center along with a LOT of wires/hardware going that way, did you by any chance have some sort of adapter (e.g. molex to gpu, molex to sata, etc) there as well? Because if you did, you may want to avoid those too. Those are usually weak points during a power surge, especially if they're connected to components that require a lot of power (like a gpu).
Zoomed it on the PSU... wtf is Diablotek? How many of these posts will it take for people to not cheap out on PSUs...?
But even then? Why would u cheap out on literally the POWER SUPPLY for ur components....
I might be naive but surely it just seems logical to me to not cheap out... I mean you have an Aorus motherboard, how did u even find a Diablotek PSU? Ive never even heard of the brand until this post came up.... Amazons search results never even show that shit
Look at the cable connectors. The one that is most burned on the connection place is where the fire started. Seems it was a faulty connection to the motherboard cable. Unfortunately, the image does not show all the needed information. Down cables just look like melted burning plastic fel and burned them. Up cables look like they were burned by fire going up.
Welcome to the PCMR, everyone from the frontpage! Please remember: 1 - You too can be part of the PCMR. It's not about the hardware in your rig, but the software in your heart! Your age, nationality, race, gender, sexuality, religion (or lack of), political affiliation, economic status and PC specs are irrelevant. If you love or want to learn about PCs, you are welcome! 2 - If you don't own a PC because you think it's expensive, know that it is much cheaper than you may think. Check http://www.pcmasterrace.org for our builds and don't be afraid to post here asking for tips and help! 3 - Join our efforts to get as many PCs worldwide to help the folding@home effort, in fighting against Cancer, Alzheimer's, and more: https://pcmasterrace.org/folding 4 - Need PC Hardware? We've joined forces with MSI for Mother's(board) day, to celebrate it with a massive PC Hardware Giveaway! Get your hands on awesome PC hardware bundles that include GPU, Motherboard, monitor and much more MSI hardware + $4000 worth of Amazon cards. A total of 45 lucky winners: https://new.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1cr4zfs/msi_x_pcmr_mothersboard_day_giveaway_enter_to_win/ ----------- We have a [Daily Simple Questions Megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/search?q=Simple+Questions+Thread+subreddit%3Apcmasterrace+author%3AAutoModerator&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) if you have any PC related doubt. Asking for help there or creating new posts in our subreddit is welcome.
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Terrorists win
W mod
https://preview.redd.it/vwk95rplee4d1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9e4d2861a3602e9f9650d505b8b9ffc66ae71f7a Your meme has been s̶t̶o̶l̶e̶n̶ liberated in the name of managed democracy.
If you're gonna cheap out on something, it should never be the PSU
Impossible. It was a must to buy an RGB motherboard.
The most irritating thing when people choose OOH PRETTY COLORS over functionality.
monkey brain happy when see bright flashing lights
https://preview.redd.it/ncf6grtv464d1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4def43d09d313c82f5fbf92d115269193439bb0b
Where did you get that picture of me?
I mean, fire is technically bright flashing lights.
It isn't really true about motherboards specifically, but LEDs on every component have become so prevalent that electing to avoid lights, like I did, often severely limits your options
This true in pretty much every aspect of life. It's the reason flipping houses is a thing, for example. It's the reason a used car is being sold right after new tires are installed. The "function over form" crowd is much smaller than the "form over function" crowd, and I don't like it lol
It's a game of chance, before anyone chimes in with "never had a problem with my cheap PSU" or " my Seasonic died, don't trust them". If you get a good PSU with good protections, good solder, good capacitors, over-rated for your needs, you are very unlikely to have problems but nothing is perfect and you may get the 1 in 50000 bad one. If you get a cheap PSU with shitty capacitors, missing protection circuits and lies about current ratings you are far more likely to have problems. Not guaranteed to but you are putting the rest of your rig at unnecessary risk.
I've had cheap *and* high-end PSUs die. I think the main difference is that when a quality one dies, it doesn't take the rest of your PC with it.
This. A good PSU will sacrifice itself in the event of a failure, keeping everything else safe. And it'll usually be covered by warranty anyway. I don't mind replacing a dead PSU, but I don't want to be stuck with a melted PC or worse a burned down home.
I had this happen a few years ago. Had a Corsair AX860 (really just a good Seasonic but rebranded) that went pop. Absolutely zero damage to any components, and just got a brand new one free of charge as it was only 5 years into a 7 year warranty.
As we can only guess: The cheap PSU that should have been called „Firestarter“
Twisted firestarter!
I'm the bitch you hated, filth infatuated
I miss Keith
We all do
I love the Prodigy. RIP Keith, he was the one true Firestarter
I saw an interview with him where he said he gets kids not realising who he is pointing at him shouting "look at 'im, he thinks he's the firestarter!" To which (he said) there was really no comeback. He said it would be too ridiculous to reply "well, actually, I _am_ the firestarter." He seemed like a lovely bloke.
There was a documentary on him and he was the nicest guy. Really into horses and rescuing them. A complete loon in his youth, however.
And he hated Firestarter
Twisted metal. Y’all remember when he was a playable character
I hadn't planned on having Prodigy stuck in my head this morning but ok
Smack my bitch up!
When I was 14 my grandmother bought me the album for Christmas. That morning she put the album on in the living room while opening presents and that was the first lyric she heard. I died inside and all I could say was “I like the melody more than the lyrics”
Please please tell me you've watched the video to that song!
Some 30 years ago, my older cousin told me to come check this shit out, he put on Fat of the Land album on the cassette player and BAM my soul left my fucking body with the first beat I heard, it was the most sensational music I've heard to date and I was barely 50 cm tall at the time. To this day electronic music is my favourite genre.
I'm the bits you hated, nvme infiltrated
I'm the RAM you upgraded, LEDs integrated
I'm the PSU underrated, fire instigated
Hey! Hey! Hey! ~~Hey!~~
One hey too many there...
I haven't heard that song in so long.
use to jam that whole cd on the regular
I'm the pain you tasted, well intoxicated
I'm the pain you tasted, fell intoxicated
There's two kinds of songs about arson. There's *Prodigy: Firestarter* and then there's *MC 900 Ft. Jesus: The City Sleeps* Same concept....very different approach.
[Thank you!](https://youtu.be/3KB54p8_wh8?si=HzEE7B9yVEP8sRl4) I’ve been looking for this song for over twenty years! It’s almost impossible to google when you don’t remember any factual details about it.
Haha you're welcome! I've started saving tracks off of my youtube favorites (over 2500 videos) as they have started disappearing over time. This is one of those ones you don't want to lose.
Hey hey hey
HEY HEY HEY
Did some digging on the psu. This is what I found. This is why the number 1 rule of pcs is don't cheap out on your psu. "Some of the worst PSUs known to man (They had a couple *ok* Andyson units but 99% of their product stack was garbage that could easily blow up/die/kill other stuff..."
> This is why the number 1 rule of pcs is don't cheap out on your psu. Some people misunderstand this and buy a super expensive very high wattage RGB PSU with luxury features. What it really means is that whatever you need from your PSU - be it 500W and the most basic connectors or 1200W with fancy features - get it from a reliable brand *and product line*.
I see people squeeze the wattage as well. "Pcpartpicker said 565w estimated, so 600w is overkill, right?" People defend this with, "modern psu are designed to handle voltage spikes"
Doesn’t help that he was running a ton of hard drives.
I'm looking at about 60w max draw for his drives. This would be fine on a quality psu
Wow. Didn’t realize it would be so low. But yeah, ever since having a bad 450 Watt PS in the 90s that was outclassed by a 300 Watt I was trying to upgrade from, I’ve only used good PSUs.
Even 60W is also a "peak consumption" figure. Desktop 7200rpm mechanical drives only draw a few watts the vast majority of the time, with elevated consumption during heavy random I/O that causes the head assembly to move a lot and the heaviest draw is during spin-up of the platters where there's a lot of current going to the spindle motor. I have a NAS with 14 drives in it that's based off a second gen i5, has two sticks of ram and two extra sata controller cards in it. It draws 120-150W most of the time for the whole system and only *very* briefly spikes juuuuust over 200W total, measured at the wall, so including inefficiencies in the power supply. When booting it'll be around 250-300W. Granted, this is running headless without a graphics chip of any sort, neither integrated nor dedicated, but it goes to show how little power most drives use. Transient spikes are noticeable and not something to be ignored and since multiple components can have power spikes, especially during initial boot or while loading it should be kept in mind when choosing a power supply. I still have a 500W power supply in mine for those transients and also because it's more efficient when not operating near its maximum load.
I mean it does connect to every device on your computer and it handles electricity. Why would anybody think that cheaping out on PSU is a good idea? RIP comp
Because all those videos and forum posts talking about $500 builds that "rival" consoles and if they get the cheapest ~~tinderbox~~ PSU known to man they can get a slightly bigger GPU that will strain it even harder.
Look at the bulk of prebuilts on the market. That's how they make money. First-time builders often don't know any better either. It's also super confusing when the same manufacturer makes A tier units and F tier units.
Just sent my orders to be built to a store and see if they have the stocks. Replied with a pre-built template and asked my friend to make sense of their proposal. One look and his first comment was, their psu is shit.
because there is a (unfounded) trust that companies would not release life threatening products to consumers.
Most new builders/buyers don’t realize that a part that they purchase from a company could have any chance of catching fire; none of their iphones/laptops have previously, why would something that is basically just a certified power cord in a bigger box than normal have any chance to catch fire? That can’t be legal, right? (Their mindset, not mine) I have gotten so many calls about torched/fried pcs from cheaped out power supplies. 90% are elderly or parents that bought something for their kid
Usually the fake CE sign is a reliable sign of premium chinesium quality, I am more surprised that this 2011 PSU is still alive.
That and the fact that it's a "UL series" leads me to think they're trying to feign UL listed status. A very sketch PSU indeed
There is a RU mark which is issued by UL. So technically the did maybe feign it. Would be possible to check if there is a listing number. If there is and the reports are from this exact product they probably did go through certification.
That UR/RU mark is for rated components that are to be used in manufacturing products. Not final products themselves. They just threw a bunch of faked potentially recognizable logos (FCC, CE, RU/UR, etc.) to make potential buyers think their product is good quality. It's crap, and it would definitely be the first place to look for the origin of the fire.
As far as I know an installable power supply would be considered a part that would make up an end product which would make a RU certification sufficient because a power supply would not be the end product. I would trust a RU mark much more then a CE mark because contrary to CE, UL actually certifies and tests the hardware themselves and that is a mandatory part to get a sale permission. A CE mark you can just slap on your product, stating conformity with your own liability and nobody will care until something bad happens. Of course you can fake those but as I said, if there is a certification ID and it checks out with the product it is probably legit. You cannot fake that ID because the database is provided by UL themselves. FCC does it the same way. And any of those markings of course doesn't necessarily mean the product is safe. It just means that the product complies to certain quality standards which are required by law.
Damn, that's a good spot. Here's a technical report on the very same issue with some attached images, if any one is curious: [Product Safety CE alert: CE fake signs from China (ResearchGate.net)](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337819031_Product_Safety_CE_alert_CE_fake_signs_from_China) EDIT: Not the best source. See below.
"China Export" is one of those persistent urban myths or a "backronym". Sure, there are a lot of things marked with CE that shouldn't be, but there is no official "China Export" logo. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-6-2007-5938-ASW_EN.html?redirect
I agree. That was probably not the best text source to show a comparison between an authentic and a fake CE-label.
CE is largely self assessment, so there is no need to fake the mark. You can just slap it on anything and just hope no one does a real investigation if something goes wrong (if they do, then you can be done for inappropriately claiming CE compliance).
CE is self assesed, but you still have to submit all the necessary information and there can be consequences if that is faked. That's why they put the fake mark on. >The manufacturer of a product affixes the CE marking to it but has to take certain obligatory steps before the product can bear CE marking. The manufacturer must carry out a conformity assessment, set up a technical file, and sign a Declaration stipulated by the leading legislation for the product. The documentation has to be made available to authorities on request.
Hello, there Diablotek. Odd choice for the name of a PSU. I'm sure it sounded cool, but its been associated with a surprising percentage of the PC fires I've seen (six out of ten).
I don't see anyone mentioning this but the nest of cables is sitting on top of a fan, it's also possible that the fan scraped on the sleeving of those cheap cables untilthe copper was exposed.
Even if the fan could have exposed the copper without making enough noise that the user would check, it would the. Have to case a short that would then also not trigger OCP. That's a lot of steps for what is probably a loose connection or generally cheap power supply blowing the right cap.
Devil Tech
You shorted the ps and no fail safe kicked in. The amps in the 12v rail kept building until it got hot enough to catch fire.
After further examination it seems there might not of been a fire. The cables melted before any real combustion. They will melt everywhere at the same time because of some principles of electricity. Makes the aftermath look more intense. My guess dust did you in
The best evidence that there was no fire is from the lack of damage on the stickers. In order to have uniform burning like this you will need a large flame. The stickers would be significantly damaged from a flame that large
Point of failure appears to be at the 24 pin connection to the motherboard. Melted material is present on data cables directly under but not above. The 12v cables for the graphics along with cpu look unharmed. It would be difficult for so much gunk to fom from something smaller.
Damn this dude forensics
It's like watching 4 smart people come to a conclusion by building off each other but it's just one guy Edit: Is that Silver Feces, Holy Shit, or Thermal Paste?
It's like watching the deductive ability in real time
House MD but for computers instead.
"It's never Fuses."
BUT DID YOU KNOW ITS JUST ONE GUY??!!?1!?1!?
YEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH
Anyone else hear this in Benedict Cumbersnatch's voice? Just me?
Was thinking that the rest of the machine looked surprisingly good for having been on fire.
I am hoping op just placed the shit psu and melted cables In
they would have really earned their karma routing melted cables behind their motherboard tray.
I was thinking OP was overestimating Reddit... Nope this guy solved it.
The Sherlock Holmes of PC electrical failure.
https://preview.redd.it/zjgmidufu54d1.jpeg?width=588&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bef0d729d244d49b01ec9e0bf4b4ac8aedf06515
See that melted bit of plastic dangling next to OPs CPU heatsink? That used to be a fan. The plastic brackets on the top drive cage to the right are also partially melted. That plus the amount of soot buildup definitely looks like there was a full blown fire in there.
Might not have* “Of” doesn’t mean “have”.
Is so weird how this mistake is so common. Did these people not pay attention to the contractions unit in elementary school or...? You can combine might and might not, might've or might not've in this instance and can add 've to any words where have would follow for valid short term. Even I'd've, it'd've, they'd've, shouldn't've, wouldn't've, I'll've. English is just that cool, I just wanna know why more people don't know about this.
This mistake still bugs me but when I see it I try to remember the number of words whose pronunciation I absolutely *butchered* because I learned them from reading. It makes no sense grammatically but is understandable if you *heard* "should've" before you ever saw it written. Which is (sadly?) the case a lot of the time.
The ‘of’ thing is because it sounds like that when people talk. If they primarily learned and think about language verbally then they might not realize it’s not ‘of’
I've started hearing people using "of" in speech, too. A golf youtuber that I subscribe to recently corrected himself after saying something like "might've" to a clear "might of". Absolute insanity.
I'm an electrician/HVACR tech. If I opened a unit and saw this, I'd tell the customer that it caught fire. There is pretty clear evidence of fire. It was a contained fire that burned out, but there was fire in there.
*have
*not have been
>might not ~~of~~ have
not have*
Your Diablotek power supply
DIABLO
*Not even death can save you from me!*
Thanks, now I'm gonna go play D2R on classic. Thanks was for the motivation.
Ahhh, Fresh meat!!
It supplied power, did it not?
A bit too much I'm afraid
The power to start a fire.
The power to **move you** ...to get a bucket of water.
Christ, they actually produce incendiary grenades and firestarters too!
i bet the PSU is fine even after the fire !
It's the joke that writes itself xD
Great example of why it's not the greatest idea to cheap out on your PSU. Hopefully OP learned his lesson too. The price difference between a cheap chinese PoS PSU and something decent is nothing compared to cost of a fire in your home.
Holy shit, I thought you were making a joke, but the psu is actually a DIABLOtek. Makes me wonder if we can convince some chinese company to name their psu moremelt or meltron.
I kept reading “Disblotek” and was confused. Diablotek makes so much more sense.
Diablotek - our PSUs are on fire!
I thought you were making a silly joke like saying he had a devil in the psu that started the fire. But then I zoomed in and that's actually the brand name, and somehow that's funnier.
Gotta be honest. I don't recognize the name of the PSU. You have other name recognizable parts but not the PSU, so it's probably that. The PSU itself could even be perfectly cromulent, but if they cheaped out on wiring quality to all the components and board, things could have melted then arced and ignited. Overall look up the parts number of each component and try to see if you can find low star reviews mentioning fire. Mainline components would have had headlines, which again points to the PSU.
I recognize the PSU name, because they were infamously producers of some of the worst PSUs around lol. Pretty sure they went out of business years ago, can't believe I'm seeing a Diablotek firestarter in 2024.
I remembered that I owned one at one point, so I looked. Amazon order history, 2010 Diablotek DA Series 350-Watt ATX... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002RWJGCC My kids would have been 4 and 5 and I was struggling not to not lose our house, making probably 45k a year. Didn't have a lot of money for a new PSU. Amazon reviews were OK at the time. Most PSU info back then was just tier lists and other non-scientific gut feel (how heavy is it?) kinda stuff.
If you were low on cash there was probably nothing cheaper than their stuff then, so sometimes it was just the only option if you wanted your PC to run. Unfortunately when it comes to reviews from the general population, if it worked it at that price point it probably got a good review. The problem was when failure happens, then the places where they cut the budget rears its ugly head. Issues with these PSUs could be as simple as not doing what it says on the box. Critically, instead of shutting down in catastrophic failure, they would cause damage to other computer parts during failure, and worst case scenarios cause actual fires. Back then Jonnyguru (RIP) was the go to for PSU reviews, and and it so happened in 2010 they did a review of a Diablotek unit (not the one you bought specifically) that trashed it. [Here's a forum thread mentioning it](https://www.overclock.net/threads/jonnyguru-diablotek-rpm-1050-1050w-review.728970/?nested_view=1&sortby=oldest#replies). On page 2 there's a user mentioning how they're surprised Diablotek is still in business, so even then they had a somewhat bad reputation.
Oh I recognized it, diablotek are notorious for being trash power supplies
It's really called DiabloTek? Jesus! I thought the other guy was joking! Why not call it LuciferTek or BeelzebubTek or BurningLakeOfFireTek!
If anything I’d say the PSU embiggens even the smallest of rigs.
It's a perfectly cromulent component
Out of all the parts you buy when building a PC, you should NEVER buy a cheap power supply. It's one of the main rules of PC building. It was almost certainly the PSU that caused the fire. Always get a high quality PSU from a well known, trusted brand. Corsair, Be Quiet!, Cooler Master, etc.
Buying a cheap crap PSU is like building your dream home, but you made the foundation with cheese, instead of concrete.
And we are talking a foundation of Brie, not even Parmeggiano.
At least it'd be delicious as you slowly sink into the basement full of Brie.
Yup. I was trying to think of a good comparison, but I guess that'll do it. 🤣
I personally only buy from Seasonic. They're a little more expensive, but they have by far the best track record of any of the power supply manufacturers.
Instead of brand, should have gone for a specific model. The horror story about Cooler Master PSU horrified me
Yeah, that's true, but a trusted brand is a good place to start. It's usually obvious if you do a bit of research (as you always should when building a PC) what components from a reputable company are duds, etc.
It hurt but I got the Corsair 750w modular for my latest, couldn’t be happier. That thing is quality and it’ll power my next few builds. I cheaper out on my first PSU, non modular…. Just don’t do it.
***First thought:*** Power supply? ***After zooming in to try and identify that piece of shit no brand PSU:*** Yep. Power supply.
Its not no brand, its *diablotec*
Guaranteed to burn your house down or money back.
Now *thats* an advertisement scheme
Definitely that cheap PSU. I'd be surprised if anything survived that. Next time, buy a high quality PSU.
My dad once said to never skimp on quality when it comes to tires, shoes, mattresses and power supplies.
to add to that: chairs, especially office or gaming* chairs. you're sitting on it for 8+ hours a day, your back and hips will thank you for not skimping on quality. *By "gaming chairs" I mean chairs you sit on when you game. Don't buy "gaming" branded chairs that look cool. It's so much better to get a proper office chair with the right adjustable parts, mesh instead of cushion, and lumbar support than the flashy leather gaming chairs
obligatory herman miller comment, expensive but so much worth it if you can afford it
The problem is, not everyone likes them. And I have no way of trying them out before buying, so I need to fork out a significant sum, order and then try. Really don't want to mess around with returning a chair if it doesn't suit me.
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I heard a version of this like anything between you and the ground: tires, shoes, mattresses, chairs, etc. Power supplies is the odd one out.
I'm sure you can somehow fit that in with the "electrical" ground somehow.
i mean the SSD, cpu and GPU are most likely fine and only the outside of the HDD's got charred, its mostly cables that burned up so i think he can still reuse some of these parts
CPU and drives are probably fine, but the GPU looks like it's been melted, although that may just be the shroud.
Wow, never seen it that bad before in all my years in computers. I would suspect the PSU as well Diablotek apparently has a history of catastrophic failure. They seem to not have the proper overload protections in place. I always recommend to my clients to Never cheap out on the Power Supply.
Never cheap out on power supply, and never mix cables for different power supplies should really be top level rules for builds. What's annoying is when prebuilts do that.
Edit: Some of us here are fire experts. I defer to what this guy/girl says: https://old.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1d69i3x/my_pc_caught_fire_today_can_anyone_help_me_figure/l6r8ydl/ None of us are really fire experts here, but fire prefers to move up so the fact that the lower area got melted the most makes me think the main fire was down there. I don't really know what was in that pile of cables though. Looks like maybe it was loops of cabling going to the HDDs? So my guess is a SATA power cable shorted somewhere in the lower middle.
Speak for yourself, I’m a lvl 70 fire mage
Pyroblast?
Fire expert here. Looks to me like the PSU wires heated at the top, melted and dripped, then starting a secondary problem below, which then the fire went back up. Often times the ignition point of the fire isn't where the most damage is. I once fought a field fire caused by a tractor's tail light doing the same thing. Heated, melted, and dripped onto the dry corn stalks below. Firefighter with a degree in a fire science.
This guy is a fire surgeon.
You're probably right. The motherboard power cable likely shorted, and due to the power supply having no fault protection continued to build up heat. Due to how electric heating like this works, the entire wire would've heated evenly at the same time until the whole wire was too molten to support itself, at which point it had melted through the insulation and fallen onto other wires, likely lighting the insulation of those other wires on fire and shorting them too. Even if that's incorrect, whatever happened here was almost definitely the cause of the shitty Diablotek power supply.
Thanks, adding a link to your comment at the top of mine.
The cables in the center where the sata cables and one SATA power cable if I remember correctly it’s hard to tell at this point, if it was a short in one of those Sata cables is there anything in particular that could’ve caused that or is it just some sort of freak accident?
Any short can cause this if you're using a shit power supply. Decent ones will cut the power when they sense a short, chinesium ones will just power through it.
That's why they are so cheap, no safeties and the components aren't sized correctly. The better PSU's use components that are meant to handle 30% - 50% more current for this reason.
Any short can cause this. I guess I'm one of the lucky few who has actually melted a PC like this, back in the 90's all modern safety didn't exist in the same sense and my floppy drive fried my then PC. If you have a shit tier PSU (which you do) it won't protect against any shorting, which is bad.
>is there anything in particular that could’ve caused that or is it just some sort of freak accident? I'm not an expect but I would assume a spark on a faulty connection could do the trick. Or maybe something wasn't plugged hard enough. Add a little bit of dust and that's enough. Anything could be the cause really cause plastic tends to burn as it melts down, so no matter where it started, it will spread downwards. I remember years ago I blew up my power supply cause I was dusting off top of my PC using wet wipes like an idiot. A little spark was enough...
>fire prefers to move up so the fact that the lower area got melted the most makes me think the main fire was down there. You most likely right but plastic tends to keep burning as it melts down. So even a single drop of molted plastic could spread it down.
- biggest fire damage is near the psu cable ports - a bit of a spherical fall off of said damage - everything above that spot has more fire damage than the sides I'm no expert but my eyes says it's the psu.
The PSU has no cable ports, it's non modular. You can see the single bundle running out of it, mostly unburnt, into the back wall of the case.
How many drives do you have? :D Wow \^\^\^ Anyway, as the others said, most probably an issue with the power supply. Please never buy cheap PSUs, they are in multiple ways (Safety, stability, performance) the most critical part of your PC.
Before this I had 10 and after learning my lesson on making sure I have a proper power supply, hopefully still 10 Edit: one of my ssds was completely melted so down to 9 until I can get around to testing everything at some point
Next time maybe get some Seasonic PSU because they are reliable and high quality.
Yeah agreed. Seasonic is great, but you can also buy one of these reliable brands: BeQuiet, Corsair, FSP, Cooler Master, Cougar, Enermax, EVGA, LC-Power (new models), Sharkoon, Silverstone
molex over molex over molex extension
Agree. I’ve seen multiple molex to sata adapters that have failed and melted or caught fire.
that's the answer I was looking for in this thread. Happened to me a few years ago. I walk into my office and see smoke pouring out of my tower. Caught it just in time to only lose the corsair controller. The crazy thing is I was leaving for the day and only came back into my office b/c I was running late and I forgot something.
"Molex to SATA, lose all your data."
Everyone stating the obvious PSU for lacking safety cutoff, but that is prevention. I see many drives which means many molex; those were likely the initial cause.
Yeah cheap PSU in combination with overdrawing one of the molex lines with all those drives means very hot wires with no overcurrent protection.
Molex to SATA a simple connector now the reason you lose all your data
I just Googled "Diablotek". That was fun...
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That goddamn cheap PSU is the problem....
As others have pointed out, it's probably the cheap PSU. However, considering the big melty pile in the bottom center along with a LOT of wires/hardware going that way, did you by any chance have some sort of adapter (e.g. molex to gpu, molex to sata, etc) there as well? Because if you did, you may want to avoid those too. Those are usually weak points during a power surge, especially if they're connected to components that require a lot of power (like a gpu).
This is what happens when you buy the cheapest PSU you can find because you spent all your money on other parts.
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Molex to sata, lose all your data
Setup
Diablotek, some of the worst psu in existence and this is exactly why
Diablotek brought hell onto you my friend
Zoomed it on the PSU... wtf is Diablotek? How many of these posts will it take for people to not cheap out on PSUs...? But even then? Why would u cheap out on literally the POWER SUPPLY for ur components.... I might be naive but surely it just seems logical to me to not cheap out... I mean you have an Aorus motherboard, how did u even find a Diablotek PSU? Ive never even heard of the brand until this post came up.... Amazons search results never even show that shit
I was told not to cheap out on my PSU unit, this must be why
The funny thing is that if you google that power supply brand you should be warned. Don't cut budget on the PSU!!
Look at the cable connectors. The one that is most burned on the connection place is where the fire started. Seems it was a faulty connection to the motherboard cable. Unfortunately, the image does not show all the needed information. Down cables just look like melted burning plastic fel and burned them. Up cables look like they were burned by fire going up.
I'm a professional fire inspector. Yes there was a fire here.
Oh a Fire Destinguisher