Why did my motherboard catch fire? Also, what can be saved?

[zero10]

I had a minor incident with my file/media server today. I'll begin with the specs:

Asus P5E-VM DO motherboard
Intel E6300 Core 2 duo
2x2GB G-Skill DDR2-1066 ram
4x1TB Western Digital hard drives
1x1.5TB Seagate hard drive
2x2TB Western Digital green hard drives
1x500GB IDE Seagate hard drive
3x120mm Scythe front fans
1x120mm Scythe rear fan
1x140mm Antec top fan
Corsair VX550 power supply
I had done TONS of overclocking in the past (1.86GHz-->3.2GHz), and have a monster cooler on the CPU and north bridge, but it was running at stock clock speeds and voltages for the last 2 (nearly 3) years.

A pic of the carnage is attached. This machine had just experienced an otherwise record-breaking (for me) 850 days of uptime (852 I believe) and had nothing plugged into the front USB ports. I cut the usb cable off to clear the board for better picture taking and so I could check for a short in the cable and/or front panel USB jacks, no shorts were found.

As far as I can tell something to the top or top left of the USB header is what started the issue. I caught it rather quickly after the fire started as the machine is in my furnace room near an air intake for the furnace and the furnace was running when the fire started. When I got there small flames were visible.


What do you guys think might have caused this fire?
And, a related follow-up question, do you think I can get away with just replacing the board? Ideally I would prefer to avoid spending $400 replacing the CPU, RAM and maybe power supply as well as the motherboard.

[mockingbird]

Re: Why did my motherboard catch fire? Also, what can be saved?

It's those United Chemi-Con "KZG" caps that probably caused the explosion. Wow, never seen that before.

[c_hegge]

Re: Why did my motherboard catch fire? Also, what can be saved?

No, it's from the header. Something more than likely shorted it, like damaged wires or a screw or other foreign object betting stuck behind the motherboard. The CPU and RAM are -probably- OK.

[Evil Lurker]

Re: Why did my motherboard catch fire? Also, what can be saved?

Agreed. Looks like a short with something on the USB header.

[kc8adu]

Re: Why did my motherboard catch fire? Also, what can be saved?

short on usb long term.polyfuse finally cooked down and burned.
get a pic of that area and check to see if the damage is centered on the polyfuse.

[popeye]

Re: Why did my motherboard catch fire? Also, what can be saved?

I can't understand how this unit never shut downbefore it got this bad the protection circuit did not do it's job why? Was anything changed from the manufacturers spec's ?
I would not be useing any board from the same people that is realy dangerous !!!
something was allowed to ark for a long time.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Why did my motherboard catch fire? Also, what can be saved?

A mobo does not have any voltages that could arc over. Agreed with the above, it looks like a short on the USB header.

[b700029]

Re: Why did my motherboard catch fire? Also, what can be saved?

Looks like it's limited to the USB power, the rest of the board should still work.

[kc8adu]

Re: Why did my motherboard catch fire? Also, what can be saved?

burned through a multilayer board?even if it still runs its no longer reliable or safe.just replace the board.eveything else ok.dont use whatever was plugged into that header again.

Looks like it's limited to the USB power, the rest of the board should still work.

[dood]

Re: Why did my motherboard catch fire? Also, what can be saved?

Cockroach behind the board?

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Why did my motherboard catch fire? Also, what can be saved?

Don't think they're conductive enough to short out 5v.

[smason]

Re: Why did my motherboard catch fire? Also, what can be saved?

I had a minor incident with my file/media server today. I'll begin with the specs:

Asus P5E-VM DO motherboard

Well that takes care of the why.

[ratdude747]

Re: Why did my motherboard catch fire? Also, what can be saved?

clean the soot off the board and then upload a pic... looks like a polyfuse went boom. if thats all, then you could have someone replace the fuse (be sure to find the cause of the short first!

from the looks of it, it looks like some wires and a polyfuse burned but the rest of the board is intact, as I can see the outline of traces under the soot.

to clean it, use a nylon/plastic brush, dry.

to replace the poly fuse, it takes skill... not for the faint of heart. it essentially an SMD repair operation. what one does is desolder the remains of the old fuse off the board, desolder a good fuse from a junk board, and solder on the new fuse. the second part is the hardest.

just my $0.02.

[zero10]

Re: Why did my motherboard catch fire? Also, what can be saved?

I can confirm that the USB port assembly that was plugged into that header is not shorted, however I had to cut the wires leading to it to check it, and since it is generally unused I will just leave it off the replacement board. I can find no signs of any foreign objects against the pins for the header either on the front or back of the board so I don't think that this was a short on the USB lines, plus, as mentioned above, that should be current limited... I have no idea what else could prompt such a failure though
If the thoughts are that the CPU/ram have a fighting chance then I will just replace the motherboard and hope for the best. I appreciate all the opinions so far, I was hoping that I wouldn't have to replace much more than that.

[Topcat]

Re: Why did my motherboard catch fire? Also, what can be saved?

The back side of the board looks like it flared too, along with the front surface. This burned through traces unrelated to the USB polyfuse that went poof ultimately killing the board. Repairing this damage is likely going to be a pipe dream. The polyfuse is intended to protect the motherboard from USB port shorts/overloads. I went through this with a Tyan board a year or so ago...but thankfully, it was repairable. For whatever reason, it incinerated itself. If you're lucky, all that doesn't work is the USB port the fuse was on...but if the board is dead, there was some severe trace damage....time to replace the board.

[c_hegge]

Re: Why did my motherboard catch fire? Also, what can be saved?

I have no idea what else could prompt such a failure though

Like smason said, the fact that the board is an ASUS explains it. They love going with no external cause. It's known here as the ASDS (ASUS Sudden Death Syndrome)

[smason]

Re: Why did my motherboard catch fire? Also, what can be saved?

The only fires I've seen in my career have been Lexmark Laser printers, Tripp-Lite UPSes and Asus motherboards.

[kc8adu]

Re: Why did my motherboard catch fire? Also, what can be saved?

had an abit socket 462 board that had a burned polyfuse on the firewire.
i cleaned it up and replaced the pf.
its still in use today.never did find out why this happened but the customer was very happy to get it fixed.abit returned it unrepairable and warrenty void.on a $300 board that was unacceptable.
the o.p's board is too far gone.sorry!
another thought is possibly a short developed between layers.i remembe this happening to some expensive servo drive boards.the mfr had to hipot the bare boards before assembly to prevent this.

[b700029]

Re: Why did my motherboard catch fire? Also, what can be saved?

That's not the USB header!

Now it's pretty clear what happened - 12V to ground short.

The other pictures I could find of this board show that area has almost no components, so even cutting the whole area out, it would probably still work (maybe no more audio out.)

[ratdude747]

Re: Why did my motherboard catch fire? Also, what can be saved?

That's not the USB header!

Now it's pretty clear what happened - 12V to ground short.

The other pictures I could find of this board show that area has almost no components, so even cutting the whole area out, it would probably still work (maybe no more audio out.)

sweet catch

the board's soul has crossed the rainbow bridge to computer heaven... (plays taps).

time for a new board.