The fire is out . . .

  • Thread starter Thread starter Craig Williams
  • Start date Start date
C

Craig Williams

The good news is that the fire is out. The better news is that I was
sitting at our PC when it "smoked." It shut down normally! Whew! More
good news - my son's old PC hasn't sold yet, so I'm able to reach out for
help.

The bad news is that the fire was on the motherboard. It appears to have
started at the Firewire connector on the motherboard that goes to the
adapter card. The connector cable (mobo end) is pretty well destroyed, and
the one of the pins on the mobo is gone (stuck in the connector I suppose).
There is some smoke residue on other components, but hopefully nothing else
is damaged.

System details: The motherboard is a DFI NFII Ultra Infinity. Generic
Firewire adapter card (COMAX brand?). I don't think anything else is
pertinent, but can supply more details if needed.

I haven't tried powering it on again. Do you think that's a logical thing
to do (under close scrutiny, of course)? Or should I just write it off and
get a new mobo?

Anyone else had problems with PC faults like this?

Thanks,
Craig
[to reply directly, change the VERB to a NUMERAL]
 
Craig Williams said:
The good news is that the fire is out. The better news is that I was
sitting at our PC when it "smoked." It shut down normally! Whew! More
good news - my son's old PC hasn't sold yet, so I'm able to reach out for
help.

The bad news is that the fire was on the motherboard. It appears to have
started at the Firewire connector on the motherboard that goes to the
adapter card. The connector cable (mobo end) is pretty well destroyed, and
the one of the pins on the mobo is gone (stuck in the connector I suppose).
There is some smoke residue on other components, but hopefully nothing else
is damaged.

System details: The motherboard is a DFI NFII Ultra Infinity. Generic
Firewire adapter card (COMAX brand?). I don't think anything else is
pertinent, but can supply more details if needed.

I haven't tried powering it on again. Do you think that's a logical thing
to do (under close scrutiny, of course)? Or should I just write it off and
get a new mobo?

Anyone else had problems with PC faults like this?
Click to expand...


i sure would not use it if it smoked!

just odd that it was the firewire connector that burned up!
 
A few weeks back, I installed an extra 256 MB of brand name (Kingston) DDR
333 RAM in bank #2. I had used it for a few minutes the day before with out
any problem. When I powered on, there was a snapping or popping sound
followed by the smell of burning plastic...oops! Two of the gold RAM
contacts, one near each end of the module, were charred black. I removed the
bad module and tried a reboot. The long repetative beep tones indicated that
the mobo did not recognize any of the remaining memory. The remaining memory
did just fine when tested in my other computer. After clearing the cmos on
the injured mobo, I tried again with the original 512 MB RAM in bank #1. It
would go to he startup BIOS screen and display the BIOS logo, processor type
and amount of memory correctly and stop there....no access to the BIOS setup
or OS. Don't know what happened to my Soyo KT 400 Platinum, but the board is
obviously land fill now. Kingston replaced the 256 MB of RAM.
 
Misery loves company, so they say. Sorry to hear about your problem. I'll
post the results of my power-on test later.

Craig

Andrew K said:
A few weeks back, I installed an extra 256 MB of brand name (Kingston) DDR
333 RAM in bank #2. I had used it for a few minutes the day before with out
any problem. When I powered on, there was a snapping or popping sound
followed by the smell of burning plastic...oops! Two of the gold RAM
contacts, one near each end of the module, were charred black. I removed the
bad module and tried a reboot. The long repetative beep tones indicated that
the mobo did not recognize any of the remaining memory. The remaining memory
did just fine when tested in my other computer. After clearing the cmos on
the injured mobo, I tried again with the original 512 MB RAM in bank #1. It
would go to he startup BIOS screen and display the BIOS logo, processor type
and amount of memory correctly and stop there....no access to the BIOS setup
or OS. Don't know what happened to my Soyo KT 400 Platinum, but the board is
obviously land fill now. Kingston replaced the 256 MB of RAM.
Craig Williams said:
The good news is that the fire is out. The better news is that I was
sitting at our PC when it "smoked." It shut down normally! Whew! More
good news - my son's old PC hasn't sold yet, so I'm able to reach out for
help.

The bad news is that the fire was on the motherboard. It appears to have
started at the Firewire connector on the motherboard that goes to the
adapter card. The connector cable (mobo end) is pretty well destroyed,
and
the one of the pins on the mobo is gone (stuck in the connector I
suppose).
There is some smoke residue on other components, but hopefully nothing
else
is damaged.

System details: The motherboard is a DFI NFII Ultra Infinity. Generic
Firewire adapter card (COMAX brand?). I don't think anything else is
pertinent, but can supply more details if needed.

I haven't tried powering it on again. Do you think that's a logical thing
to do (under close scrutiny, of course)? Or should I just write it off
and
get a new mobo?

Anyone else had problems with PC faults like this?

Thanks,
Craig
[to reply directly, change the VERB to a NUMERAL]
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
I cleaned up as much as I could of the sooty residue, and of course removed
the offending adapter cable, and "fired it up" (so to speak). No problems
so far, but I'm not leaving the room with the PC on.

Craig

Craig Williams said:
Misery loves company, so they say. Sorry to hear about your problem. I'll
post the results of my power-on test later.

Craig

Andrew K said:
A few weeks back, I installed an extra 256 MB of brand name (Kingston) DDR
333 RAM in bank #2. I had used it for a few minutes the day before with out
any problem. When I powered on, there was a snapping or popping sound
followed by the smell of burning plastic...oops! Two of the gold RAM
contacts, one near each end of the module, were charred black. I removed the
bad module and tried a reboot. The long repetative beep tones indicated that
the mobo did not recognize any of the remaining memory. The remaining memory
did just fine when tested in my other computer. After clearing the cmos on
the injured mobo, I tried again with the original 512 MB RAM in bank #1. It
would go to he startup BIOS screen and display the BIOS logo, processor type
and amount of memory correctly and stop there....no access to the BIOS setup
or OS. Don't know what happened to my Soyo KT 400 Platinum, but the
Click to expand...
board
is
obviously land fill now. Kingston replaced the 256 MB of RAM.
Craig Williams said:
The good news is that the fire is out. The better news is that I was
sitting at our PC when it "smoked." It shut down normally! Whew! More
good news - my son's old PC hasn't sold yet, so I'm able to reach out for
help.

The bad news is that the fire was on the motherboard. It appears to have
started at the Firewire connector on the motherboard that goes to the
adapter card. The connector cable (mobo end) is pretty well destroyed,
and
the one of the pins on the mobo is gone (stuck in the connector I
suppose).
There is some smoke residue on other components, but hopefully nothing
else
is damaged.

System details: The motherboard is a DFI NFII Ultra Infinity. Generic
Firewire adapter card (COMAX brand?). I don't think anything else is
pertinent, but can supply more details if needed.

I haven't tried powering it on again. Do you think that's a logical thing
to do (under close scrutiny, of course)? Or should I just write it off
and
get a new mobo?

Anyone else had problems with PC faults like this?

Thanks,
Craig
[to reply directly, change the VERB to a NUMERAL]
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
..
The bad news is that the fire was on the motherboard. It appears to have
started at the Firewire connector on the motherboard that goes to the
adapter card. The connector cable (mobo end) is pretty well destroyed, and
the one of the pins on the mobo is gone (stuck in the connector I suppose).
Click to expand...

You'd better check what was plugged into the Firewire connector, too.
 
That would be the Nikon CoolScan III film scanner. I turned it on and it
seems to function OK, but without the Firewire connection I don't know for
sure.

Craig
 
Noooo, I didn't mean the Nikon scanner. The firewire is for our digital
camcorder, which was NOT connected at the time - hooray!

Craig Williams said:
That would be the Nikon CoolScan III film scanner. I turned it on and it
seems to function OK, but without the Firewire connection I don't know for
sure.

Craig

James T. White said:
.
Click to expand...
destroyed,
Click to expand...
 
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