cable leading into my antec earthwatts 500w just exploded and caught on fire.....

Y

yap09

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May 31, 2009
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my first question is, am i overloading it? my rig is in my sig and i'm running 3 internal hard drives

and as for when it happened, i was loading up battlefield 3 and all of a sudden i hear three really loud popping noises and my power supply cable is on fire.

another question, three years ago when i first built this system i took the cable that was plugged into it after turning it off and plugged it into my old amd 64 rig which had a 300w psu and that psu exploded similarly to my power cable today, rendering everything in that rig useless except for the hard drive and video card. can anyone explain to me exactly what happened here?
 
the cable that just popped and caught on fire

1irdv.jpg
 
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Sounds like you had a faulty power cable.

your second question is hard to understand.
It sounds like you are saying that the cable in the picture was once plugged into another machine and that machine failed when you plugged it in.
 
@zeph the picture is what happened just now, and as for the second question it was probably a different cable, i was just wondering if anyone out there knew exactly why that would happen

@heavenscloud built in 1952 if that's considered old , and i'm not sure if all of the outlets in the house are grounded, how would i find out?
 
This guy

It may not be, just could be a bad wire like Zepher said, but having something similar like that happen twice within 3 years is odd.
 
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That is definitely from a damaged cable, not an overloaded cable.

An overloaded cable would be hot and rather melted.

I'd say just swap it out and you'll be fine.
 
Most cheaper cables are rated for 10A, which is well above the requirements of most computers. The cable was just defective.
 
That looks like the cable was damaged and shorted during use or it was the result of a manufacturing defect.
 
plugwash said:
what conductor size was the cable marked as if any?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't trust what is printed on the cable. I had some I believe "15A" cables, plugged it into a laser printer, I believe 6A nameplate rating, printed something and the exact thing happened: cable explodes and catches fire.

Upon closer inspection the cables seem rather thin and lightweight.
 
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