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

[ratdude747]

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

either way, you will need to go on an expedition to ebay to hunt for a new board.

[zero10]

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.)

Oh dear, I just re-read the diagram you posted and I fear you might be right! Oh dear oh dear oh dear.... This just may be the dumbest mistake I have ever made with a computer. Quick, I need to get inside the internet and delete this entire thread before anybody can ever read it.

If I understand right, it is irrelevant whether anything was ever plugged into the port since the USB port would be grounded where it was attached, and that would indeed ground the +12V line on the firewire circuitry.

Firewire was disabled from within BIOS, but I doubt that actually powers down the firewire power circuitry.... that means it ran 850+ days with the firewire power shorted to ground, and it probably ran for ~250-300 days before that last reboot the same way too. If this is all correct, then I am now confused whether I should be happy that it ran so long like this, or furious that it didn't shutdown immediately when connected up this way...

[zero10]

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.)

Your post had me panicked for a moment until I remembered there was nothing plugged into the front ports, not when it burned or at any time ever before, I never ever used them. The USB header doesn't connect anything to anything else unless a device is plugged in, so although I think you might be right and that cable is on the wrong header, it can't be a short caused by that. Or, in other words, I may be an idiot, but I think the failure is unrelated (I'm sure everybody says that....)

Looking closer at the picture (the computer is located out of my house right now for... smell... reasons so I can't physically look at it right now), it does appear whatever failed flared on the back first, then the front melted after. I think that might be important.

I have a new motherboard/cpu/ram on order and I will post an update with more pictures when I get this old board out and can take a proper look at it. New components should be here this week assuming NCIX isn't too backlogged with boxing day orders. I decided it wasn't worth throwing $80 in a new (unreturnable once tested) motherboard at this problem without knowing whether the other related (architecture-wise) components were any good. For an extra $160 I upgraded from my E6300 Core2Duo to an AMD Phenom II X6 1055T (2x1.86GHz --> 6x2.8GHz with better architecture) and from 2x2GB 800MHz ram to 2x4GB 1333MHz. This gives me the advantage of being able to switch the main OS over to Solaris and still run the linux stuff I need inside a virtual machine with acceptable performance.

Thanks for all the input , and the offers for instructions / suggestions on fixing the board , but as much as the tinkerer in me REALLY wants to dig in and try fixing the board I really think fixing it was never an option given the extent of the damage.

[ratdude747]

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

Probably Intel, who also made the wonderful front panel HD audio connector physically identical yet electrically incompatible with the old AC97 connector...



All hail the mighty Intel....

Can we go back to PowerPC yet?

I guess I got lucky on the board you gave me... it had both... it also had both 3 usb headers and a 1394... at least they grouped them and color coded the headers.

my beef with intel regardign said baord (a dp35dp) is that they ditched one of the 2 IDE ports, the floppy port, and the ps/2 ports. the IDE i understand, since the controller chip is a single port marvell... but the rest perplexes me... at least they gave me 6 SATA ports (5 SATA+ one internal eSATA) and 12 usb 2.0 ports (6 internal headers, 6 external ports). I guess they were using Macintosh design concepts (ironic I put it in a mac clone case).

[shovenose]

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

Can we go back to PowerPC yet?

no because PowerPC is a proprietary slow piece of crap

[KeriJane]

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

Who'se idea was it to make the USB and 1394 headers identical, even though getting it wrong blows the board up?

Probably Intel, who also made the wonderful front panel HD audio connector physically identical yet electrically incompatible with the old AC97 connector...



All hail the mighty Intel....

Can we go back to PowerPC yet?

[ratdude747]

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

Who'se idea was it to make the USB and 1394 headers identical, even though getting it wrong blows the board up?

marketing.

[c_hegge]

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

Who'se idea was it to make the USB and 1394 headers identical, even though getting it wrong blows the board up?

[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.

[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.)

[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.

[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.

[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)

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[dood]

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

Cockroach behind the board?

[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.