Fire Hazard Molex to Sata Power Adaptor

[MCDIT]

Hello everyone,

I was on callout Friday morning to a local equine clinic. Being far out into the country they receive a lot of power cuts, and it seems that their most recent cost them the power supply of their server. At least, it seemed that simple.

Just before packing up it had been noticed that the molex to Sata converter cable they had been using for one of their drives in RAID was pretty badly burned. Not having seen this before I decided to break the RAID and take the drive with me since it is better to be safe than sorry. The Hdd connection was almost covered in melted plastic and I was really expecting to have to replace it, assuming it to be the source of the problem. Well, the drive itself turned out to be in perfect condition (after carefully scraping and cleaning the gunk and soot from the drive, testing & leaving it to run on a metal sheet for some time).

Doing some searching on the net, it seems these connections have an uncommon-though-considerable tendency to burn. Going by this video it's said that ones with wiring moulded into the plastic have a higher chance of doing this.

Would anyone else happen to have any experience with this happening or any advice on what causes it/what to avoid? I haven't had to use any myself, as far as I can remember, but I am glad to know about this now!

 

[Colin]

had this happen to a client once, they had a Chinese PSU in the unit and for some reason they had Molex to sata adapters powering HDD and DVD (even tho Sata was in the machine!) The computer got hit with a power surge and 1 molex adapter was burnt, AND the 12 volt connector to the MOBO was burnt.

I had to replace the mobo and HDD, also sold them a surge protector for the machine. So I would think it was a bad PSU in my case but never hurts to cover the machine with a good surge protector.

 

[Markverhyden]

This has been happening for years even though it's very rare. Never seen it with SATA power but I have seen it several times with floppy and IDE molex connectors, melting down in place.

 

[TurricanII]

HP had a recall on their molex to dual SATA connector part in the small ML110 series server because of the risk of fire. I have experienced one do it.
http://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=40610

 

[FremontPC]

Looks like it originated at the contacts, has anybody come up with a Cause of Death on this?

 

[TCG]

I had the same thing earlier this week with a molex to sata cable as well.

 

[katz]

I do seem to recall have a few molex connecters melted in the past. I see they all seem to melt at the yellow wire end, which is 12 volts. It would seem that the drives are drawing too much current, and/or that is a weak connection, i.e. loose fit pins, etc.

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

Seems odd that the 850 EVO above would pull too much power and cause that.

 

[FremontPC]

Could just be the plug develops an internal short or the contacts in the plug end don't maintain adequate separation. I would think that if the contacts were so weak as to cause a problem, you'd see charring on the fingers on the drive, similar to what you'd see on a 110 plug when the socket contacts are weak.

 

[coffee]

How about cheap wire in the manufactuer of the cable? Something like aluminium coated instead of copper or something like that? The change in resistance from the P/S wire (good, decent copper) to the cheap aluminium based cheapo wire and /or the way its connected at the drives end?

Just my guess.

 

[BlackLabTechs]

wow, I'm not the only one! Have had this happen twice in the past 18 months. Both at the same customer site. They have had some power fluctuation issues in the past and were "home built" computers in use. I chalked it up to bad batch of power adapters and didn't do much from there since their new computers were on order after the second one went up in smoke. They actually unplugged the computer and ran it outside in fear it was going to catch on fire. It was smoking pretty bad. Both times, no damage to hard drive.

 

[Markverhyden]

If you look at the construction of the SATA power each of the conductors are not completely enclosed/separated like they are with IDE molex connectors. I tend to think that maybe there was some kind of contamination which allowed the power to bleed off some to ground. The increased current heats up the conductor which causes the plastic to melt and smoke. What I've always found odd is that this usually does not blow the power supply.

 

[MCDIT]

There seems to be some merit to that. Doing a quick search on the net, it does seem like the ones with moulded plastic are the ones that burn (a very quick search mind you, but it does seem the most frequent) the video looks to be spot on.

That is, these ones:

Unlike these ones, which look to be safer.

The wires are better separated from each other like with molex connectors.

 

[MCDIT]

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=m...KEwjLkoXntPLMAhWCWxoKHS9FBDwQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=_

Definitely seems to be the common denominator. Though there is one picture there I see where it's the better type that's burned. I take it they probably aren't totally safe as a rule, but that some are definitely worse than others.

 

[TAPtech]

Yep, had 1 or two of these. Pretty scary!

 

[gadgetfixup]

Looking at the wires on the plug one would assume that ground wasn't near the 12V yellow wire. I was curious the SATA plug pin-out and see ground is beside the 12V line. My guess is the molded plug allows the pins to float in the connector when it gets hot and one 12v pin floats to the a ground pin causing the meltdown.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

I've seen this once before where the connector apparently caught fire and burnt the connectors to the drive. It was large enough that it charred the aluminum on the inside of the case. Want to say it was a sparkle or raidmax branded power supply, using a molex to sata power adapter to a hard drive. Thankfully that's the only one of those I've ever seen like that.

 

[gadgetfixup]

We just received a Thecus NAS (N4200) that had a SATA meltdown. Sadly it took out the control screen as well and I'm not sure we can source a replacement screen. They seem to be a UK based company that doesn't ship to the USA.

 

[Markverhyden]

We just received a Thecus NAS (N4200) that had a SATA meltdown. Sadly it took out the control screen as well and I'm not sure we can source a replacement screen. They seem to be a UK based company that doesn't ship to the USA.

Hmmm... Sounds like a job for Super, who can image drives from a bad NAS box to backups then use something like R-Studio to rebuild the arrays and restore to a new NAS, Tech.

 

[BlackLabTechs]

Just got back from a call of computer smoking. Having seen this twice before, I took a spare adapter with me just in case. Popped the side of the case and sure enough, melted plastic. Cleaned up contacts on drive, swapped in new adapter and booted right up. This is my 3rd one now and I'm still shocked the hd has booted afterwards each time.