NZXT H1 case recalled due to fire hazard

DanNeely

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Thanks to Steve @ GN, this dumpster fire has been recalled. The "repair" was replacing the metal screws with nylon ones, but since NZXT had to replace the screws at their factory, the damage was already done to the PCIe riser.

'grats to Steve for handing the CPSA everything they needed on a silver platter.

From the latest video, the govt recall is going to be replacing the defective riser starting sometime next month after the halfbaked internal fix with new screws.

Only thing I'm wondering is if they're recalling outside the US/Canada. 32k US and 1k CA being recalled doesn't fit well with 6 fires in the US and 5 elsewhere in the world unless they've been selling the case outside of North America. Hopefully it's just a case of CPSA and Health Canada being quicker to make things official.
 
11 known fires out of only 33k units seems pretty bad, yikes.

Whoever designed that PCB riser is probably feeling pretty bad by now. Super rookie move to put a ground plane touching a screw hole.
 
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11 known fires out of only 33k units seems pretty bad, yikes.

Whoever designed that PCB riser is probably feeling pretty bad by now. Super rookie move to put a ground plane touching a screw hole.

In all likelihood the intern who did the primary work despite not having taken PCB Design 101 is long gone, and the drunk senior who was supposed to be supervising was fired after someone realized he was filling his water bottle with vodka every morning. 🙄
 
11 known fires out of only 33k units seems pretty bad, yikes.

Whoever designed that PCB riser is probably feeling pretty bad by now. Super rookie move to put a ground plane touching a screw hole.
It looks like the riser is just off the shelf bottom grade Chinesium shit.

There are lots of good component makers in China, the idiot who procured these needs to be looking for a job.
 
Yes never seen CPSC recall any computer parts or anything related DVD player VCR's anything of that nature! I would think the power supply would just shut off by either short-circuit or over current protection some sort of protection circuit should kick in correct?
 
Yes never seen CPSC recall any computer parts or anything related DVD player VCR's anything of that nature! I would think the power supply would just shut off by either short-circuit or over current protection some sort of protection circuit should kick in correct?
In the end it doesn’t matter because it’s not the power supply that caused the initial issue.
 
I had heard about this but not that there has been 11 confirmed fires, that's even worse when you consider how many people likely had a fire too and either didn't know that it was started by their pc or didn't think that thecase itself would be the cause.

The whole situation does tend to reaffirm my opinion that nzxt cases tend to be poorly thought out and focus more on looks/bling than quality or functionality. It's also not really a good look when a company drags their feet and offers a half-assed fix before finally relenting after being pressured.

I will say Steve over at GN seems to be pretty good about getting involved when he sees something that he doesn't think is right, I doubt this would have happened without his pressure.
 
'grats to Steve for handing the CPSA everything they needed on a silver platter.

From the latest video, the govt recall is going to be replacing the defective riser starting sometime next month after the halfbaked internal fix with new screws.

Only thing I'm wondering is if they're recalling outside the US/Canada. 32k US and 1k CA being recalled doesn't fit well with 6 fires in the US and 5 elsewhere in the world unless they've been selling the case outside of North America. Hopefully it's just a case of CPSA and Health Canada being quicker to make things official.
The CPSC is a US governmental body and likely doesn't have the authority to do much beyond the US borders. I'm admittedly not well versed on the details but there is apparently some type of working relationship with Canada to be included there as well.

And yes, Steve rocked this nicely.
 
In the end it doesn’t matter because it’s not the power supply that caused the initial issue.

I know the in this case it does not matter but I still think the power supplies protections circuit should have shut it off before a fire could happen but I do remember when the +5VDC rail was the one with most current I used to play with small 22-24AWG floppy power jumpers touch them to the metal and the wire would start glowing but take a bigger 18AWG wire do the same and it shut right off so maybe this is the case here not enough current to trigger the protection but enough heat generated to make a fire.
 
The CPSC is a US governmental body and likely doesn't have the authority to do much beyond the US borders. I'm admittedly not well versed on the details but there is apparently some type of working relationship with Canada to be included there as well.

And yes, Steve rocked this nicely.
I know that. but Europe, Australia, Mexico, etc all have equivalent agencies; and the number of fires reported implies that significant sales were made outside the US/CA. Which is why I'm wondering where the rest of the recalls are.
 
Tech Jesus is not amused by your blasphemy.
PC master race GN is not amused by your racism. ;)

I actually have one of these cases, and outside of the SURPRISE COMBUSTION, they are actually pretty nice and easy to work in for SFF PCs. Not so much [H]ard but not [F]laccid either. I use mine with a 3d printed 3.5 inch caddy for headless Plex storage and in home Steam game streaming.
 
I received the replacement PCIe Riser via USPS last Friday. This was unprompted and initiated by NZXT probably based on my previous recall support (e.g. nylon screws).
Pretty simple swap out, and the cable does not look to have the same issue with the PCB as detailed by GN Steve. So far so good. No SURPRISE COMBUSTION!
 
Well Im glad I dont own any of their cases, amazing they try and save a buck after their reputation already took a hit for being cheap in the first place.
 
Seems like a brand I'll avoid in the future. As long as Corsair continues to allow me to easily disable their RGB lights (that they install on everything), I'm sticking with them when possible.
 
First rule if you find yourself in a hole: Stop digging.

First rule after you get out of the hole: Don't start digging a new one around yourself.

NZXT has just gone from a brand I'd give the stinkeye to, to one I will avoid at all costs and badmouth and recommend against any time I see someone considering buying a product of in the future. There is nothing they can do at this point to repair my loss of trust in them.
 
First rule if you find yourself in a hole: Stop digging.

First rule after you get out of the hole: Don't start digging a new one around yourself.

NZXT has just gone from a brand I'd give the stinkeye to, to one I will avoid at all costs and badmouth and recommend against any time I see someone considering buying a product of in the future. There is nothing they can do at this point to repair my loss of trust in them.

I can see this maybe if the worse replacement cable was faulty…. Though Gamer’s Nexus couldn’t find anything wrong with the repaired NZXT cables.

Yet they still made long video complaining the whole time 🥺
 
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I can see this maybe if the worse replacement cable was faulty…. Though Gamer’s Nexus couldn’t find anything wrong with the repaired NZXT cables.

Yet they still made long video complaining the whole time 🥺

The original one wasnt faulty at first also. Then they turned around and gave a completly different one to him to market as fixed, then sent changed original ones to customers. Thats why he is saying something, they sent a super high quality one to look good, then sent a cheap repaired one to customers.
 
I can see this maybe if the worse replacement cable was faulty…. Though Gamer’s Nexus couldn’t find anything wrong with the repaired NZXT cables.

Yet they still made long video complaining the whole time 🥺
It is called "bait and switch". NZXT shipped one replacement riser cable assembly to GN to review and it received a positive result from GN due to the riser assembly's high quality and good engineering design. Then NZXT started shipping a completely different replacement riser cable assembly, which is obviously not as high quality or as good of a design, to case owners.
Just one example of the lower quality of the 2nd replacement riser cable assembly is the fact that it does not have through-hole plating on the mounting holes like the 1st replacement riser cable assembly did. Why? Because it's cheaper to not have through-hole plating. We also do not know how close the internal traces get to the hole either. They might be fine, or they might not.

GN didn't want their previous video on this subject (with the glowing review of the 1st replacement riser cable assembly) to be the last posting about this issue since NZXT changed the product being shipped to end users to something completely different than what was in the video. THAT was the point of the video: NZXT cannot be trusted.
 
only experience I've had with NZXT was the n7-z370 mobo, a royal piece of garbage (went thru 3 of them before Newegg finally bailed me out of it)...but it looked cool :barefoot:
 
only experience I've had with NZXT was the n7-z370 mobo, a royal piece of garbage (went thru 3 of them before Newegg finally bailed me out of it)...but it looked cool :barefoot:

Yeah it was bad because they used an ECS board, and just slapped a skin on the bios and a cover over the board. ECS is not known for making high quality boards, seemed like a quick money grab. Makes more sense in light of this riser quality issue also, profit before quality.
 
I recently got this case, honestly it's a really good case. Now I'm not defending NZXT, but this sort of supply issue could have happened to any company sourcing parts in china. Also I got the "GOOD" cable with hole through plating, to me it checks out they needed 2 suppliers to fulfill the demand, so it's not the case of only media getting the good cable. At this point this looks like beating a dead horse, because both cables solve the issue.
 
I recently got this case, honestly it's a really good case. Now I'm not defending NZXT, but this sort of supply issue could have happened to any company sourcing parts in china. Also I got the "GOOD" cable with hole through plating, to me it checks out they needed 2 suppliers to fulfill the demand, so it's not the case of only media getting the good cable. At this point this looks like beating a dead horse, because both cables solve the issue.
eehhhh, I think shifting blame to "China" is a cop-out. The vast majority of tech stuff is made by Chinese suppliers and some of it is ok quality, some is excellent quality, and some is very poor quality. As someone who has experience in R&D and supply chain logistics, I'm gonna say it's like 99% up to the company to properly vet their suppliers and make sure that the parts they're getting don't have design or manufacturing defects. Failure to do so is irresponsible.

As for the two different riser cable types, second-sourcing components is fine. However, second-sourcing complex components with significant variations can be questionable (I know its not uncommon practice, but it causes controversy for good reason) and second-sourcing with significant variations where one may be inferior when there's already been a scandal about the parts being improperly-designed isn't a good look. If it turns out to be fine, then it's fine. But if even one single riser of the "inferior" replacement type has a dramatic failure that's linked to the design then NZXT's PR issues around the H1 are going to be prolonged. They are taking a gamble here.
 
I recently got this case, honestly it's a really good case. Now I'm not defending NZXT, but this sort of supply issue could have happened to any company sourcing parts in china. Also I got the "GOOD" cable with hole through plating, to me it checks out they needed 2 suppliers to fulfill the demand, so it's not the case of only media getting the good cable. At this point this looks like beating a dead horse, because both cables solve the issue.
I too received the good cable. But switching it out after press and not telling anyone was pretty shady. If they hadn't done this, I would be thinking about another chassis from them. But not now. Too many questions.
 
More follow up. I have the NZXT H1 (V1). The fire issue was really annoying, but I received the "good" replacement riser and was pretty happy with the support.
Fast forward to this weekend. The system kept overheat protection tripping/cycling. The AIO pump was working, fan was blowing, and NOT moving heat. One tube was pretty darned hot to the touch (even through the braided sheathing), the other was room temp.
Started googling and found this:


Apparently, it is pretty common. I dont expect an AIO to last forever, but I got this thing in October 2020. I would expect more than 1.5 years out of it. I attempted to flush it, but no matter what I do, the lack of cooling issue is not resolved. I think there is a clog in the radiator somewhere.
I contacted NZXT about RMA. I was honest in that I had attempted to flush it to avoid the RMA process. They responded with a scripted reply (others reported the same reply) that usually they dont do RMA for products that have been "tampered" with, but due to this ongoing issue, they will do RMA.
Now, I have no clue as to whether the new unit will crap out at 1.5 years, but I will be putting a reminder on my calendar to check/flush it at 1 year from installation.

So word to the wise, if you have this case, CHECK YOUR TEMPS! don't assume everything is fine.

Definitely thinking twice about buying from NZXT again. While support has been reasonable (so far), just too many issues with this that probably could have been avoided.
 
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Pretty sure NZXT paid for the cheapest return service from UPS. I shipped it back on 5/14. They received it yesterday 5/23. Now in waiting cycle for RMA engineer to validate the AIO. Nothing has been shipped back to me.
I guess it hasn't been too long, but just annoyed at the whole process. Seems like it could have been faster. Running the system with a low profile Noctua cooler I had on time.
 
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