AX1200 welded its PCIe connectors in

A few days ago, my machine was sitting idling at the windows desktop while I was downstairs when I smelled a burning smell, went upstairs and found the PC off and the room full of smoke.

Not a great experience, as you can imagine.

The system is a 2600k on a Maximus IV Extreme with SLI 580s etc. The PSU is a Corsair AX1200 which I brought at the same time as getting all the other parts of the system about a year and a half ago.

After the smoke incident, I took the motherboard and CPU out and took them to a local PC shop to get them to test, and they found the CPU OK but the motherboard (Asus Maximus IV extreme) was dead. Thinking that was the only problem, I ordered an identical replacement motherboard, and stripped the system down today to fit it.

While I was at it, I figured I'd best test the PSU outputs to ensure I wasn't about to damage the new motherboard, so I looked up some pinouts, broke out my multimeter, bridged the pins to fire the PSU up and tested away.

Everything looked OK at first, 24-pin ATX checks out with normal voltages, same for the molex power connections, then I tested the PCIe 6+2 connectors. One pair were fine, with 3 pairs of +12v/GND and GND/GND on the 2-pin part. The second set had +12v on 2 pairs, on each, but one pair on each were wierd - like +3.5v and +4v or thereabouts.

I immediately raised an RMA with Corsair before even removing the PSU, but now I have removed it I'm not suprised there was a lot of smoke - the PCIe connectors at the PSU end of the modular cables on the 2 faulty outputs have basically welded themselves into the PSU and cannot be removed. Sniffing around the socket, there is still a very strong smell even days later like the one at the time of the incident.

I have inspected my graphics cards very closely (GTX580s) and both look fine - no popped or bubbled chips, no swollen capacitors, no charring or burned bits, no smell of burning.

I wonder if anyone has any input on how safe it's going to be to test my graphics cards on my new motherboard when a replacement PSU arrives. I am concerned that I might plug everything back in and kill another motherboard, possibly kill another graphics card or whatever. I don't even know now which graphics card was plugged into the cables that have melted, as they have been out of the system sitting around since I first took the mobo and cpu out for testing.

I literally have no idea now if the entire system could be fried. I have SSDs in RAID, multiple HDDs, sound and RAID cards and of course the 580s, I just hope this hasn't bricked them all.

So, how do I proceed in terms of testing stuff to ensure I don't do any further damage when putting this all back together?

Also, does anyone know if Corsair will pay for replacements if their PSU has destroyed my system?

Just a quick update, I have spoken to customer service and been sent a damage claim form.

I was rather surprised to receive a form that contained the following statement:

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"If your damage claim is approved, your Corsair product(s) will be replaced and you may receive additional compensate for NON Corsair product(s) up to the following amounts:
Motherboard - $100
CPU - $200
Video Card - $150"

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I can't imagine that anyone who owns an AX1200 has a motherboard worth less than $100, or GPUs worth less than $150.

Frankly, I think it's rather shocking (no pun intended) that a company would send a customer who has had an extremely expensive PSU fail in a dramatic and potentially dangerous way a form that, right off the bat, comes out trying to shun or limit their liability.

My motherboard, which I know is fried, is worth far more than $100. I also have a ton of other expensive components which I can't test at the moment since I have no PSU, so this could quickly become very expensive if the PSU has fried anything else. As far as I'm concerned, if their product has failed and caused other damage because of that, Corsair have a legal and moral responsibility to make good that damage in full.

I don't know yet what will come of all this, and will obviously update the thread as things progress. I am hoping this is going to go more smoothly than the statement above in the Corsair form would suggest.

I am going to continue to give them the benefit of the doubt for the time being and hope that their reputation for customer service is really deserved, but we will see how this goes.

If the pcie connectors were welded at the PSU, that would be a good indication a short occurred at the GPUs or the pcie cables. These signs point to the fault occurring outside of the PSU.

Well, to counter that, the GPUs both seem to be OK - have managed to POST with both GPUs (one at a time) - no further testing done yet, but I'd imagine if they'd been damaged by this kind of failure, it would have written them off completely, so the initial results are promising.

I will update once I've tested other bits, and once I have had a response from Corsair for my initial damage claim on the wrecked motherboard.

An update:

After being told on Thursday (30th August) that I should not return anything, and that I would be contacted within 1 to 2 working days, I have still not heard anything, receipt of my damage claim form has not even been acknowledged.

So, Corsairs "excellent" customer service also extends to telling me not to return the burned AX1200, then ignoring me.

Wonderful.

I would call them back to get things moving.

Can you post some pics of the damage for us to see please?

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Originally Posted by BorisTheSpider

I can't imagine that anyone who owns an AX1200 has a motherboard worth less than $100, or GPUs worth less than $150.

Frankly, I think it's rather shocking (no pun intended) that a company would send a customer who has had an extremely expensive PSU fail in a dramatic and potentially dangerous way a form that, right off the bat, comes out trying to shun or limit their liability.

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Pretty sure that is more than most PSU companies do. Most claim no responsibility for any connected components at all.

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Originally Posted by CrazyNutz

I would call them back to get things moving.

Can you post some pics of the damage for us to see please?

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Well if they don't respond, I'm going to have to chase them up but I'm not exactly happy about it - there is no way I should have to spend my time calling them back - they have promised to contact me, then failed to.

As for pictures, I'm afraid there's really nothing to see - if I took a real close-up macro shot you could see down into the modular plug that one of the pin holes seems to have molten metal or solder in it, but externally it looks normal - it was only when I tried to unplug the connector that I realised it was solidly melted in.

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Originally Posted by Sparky

Pretty sure that is more than most PSU companies do. Most claim no responsibility for any connected components at all.

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%100 this

Im sure they will take care of you mate

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Originally Posted by Splave

%100 this

Im sure they will take care of you mate

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Have you read the thread? They have sent me a form indicating they intend to offer only partial compensation for my fried motherboard, then failed to respond to my damage claim in the time they promised they would respond. I still have my fried AX1200 here, which I have been told not to return. So far, customer service does not get any worse than this.

Yet another day goes by with no proper service from Corsair.

To update, a Corsair employee who posts on their forum as "Ram Guy" has intervened to move things along after I complained that it had taken 4 business days, and I had still had no response to my damage claim that they promised me would be responded to within 2 working days. While I'm not exactly delighted, at least someone seems to be willing to do something other than completely ignore me.

They sent me a shipping label to return the PSU to them, and also asked that I ship them my broken motherboard.

Naturally, I enquired whether, if they believed after inspecting the parts, that the PSU had not caused the damage, there would be no problem getting my motherboard back so I could RMA it to Asus.

Even this simple request seems too much to ask of their customer service department, since even though I sent it at 4AM their time, they still have not responded by close-of-business.

As I remarked on their forum, I wonder if anyone even reads emails from customers with damaged hardware, or if they just go straight in the bin.

Im sure this takes time,wait a few days and see what happens then.

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Originally Posted by Sparky

Pretty sure that is more than most PSU companies do. Most claim no responsibility for any connected components at all.

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Even if you filed a claim with your insurance company, they would base the claim on a depreciated value of the items that were damaged. Regardless what 'we' think our motherboards and video cards are worth (based on the asking price we sell them for used) the reality in business is that used electronics aren't worth much.

With that; certain insurance companies offer special endorsements for electronic/computer equipment. I pay quite the handsome fee for my computer endorsement but my coverage extends to my laptops to the extent that if I drop it and it breaks into a million pieces, I get a new one - at cost.

Finally, a week and a half after I reported the failure to Corsair, I have received a call and they changed their previous instructions now telling me only to ship them the PSU. I have arranged a collection for tomorrow.

I will obviously update the thread once they have received it and responded to me.

OK so 2 weeks later, after shipping the PSU to Corsair using the UPS shipping label they sent me, I had received no reply.

I contacted them asking what was going on, and had they received the PSU. Their customer service representative told me:

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"Can you please provide us with the tracking # and the carrier you used to send back the product. According to our system we are still awaiting for the return."

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They sent me the shipping label to return it!!!!!

I then replied yesterday, before they opened, doing their job by checking the UPS record to find it was delivered to Corsair on 09/18/2012 at 9:22 A.M, I also sent them the UPS tracking code (from the label they originally sent me).

I have since been ignored again.

Further updates as this develops....

OK, some limited good news.

Corsair have agreed their PSU killed the motherboard. They have sent me a replacement AX1200, which arrived very quickly. I did ask for an ax1200i as I have completely lost faith in a single-rail 100A PSU now - this thing could have started a fire. However, I guess I can't argue with a like-for-like replacement, and most people haven't had this kind of problem, so although it would have been nice if they'd sent me an ax1200i with the configurable multi-rail mode, I do have a replacement and that is fair enough.

They have offered me $279 for the motherboard. I can't cash a USD cheque (I'm in the UK) so they said they may be able to do a bank transfer - I'm waiting to hear about that. Once I pay the fee my bank will charge on the currency conversion, and considering the exchange rate, this won't cover my losses on the motherboard but it's not far off (covers maybe 85% to 90% of the replacement cost, but only because the motherboard has come down in price since I brought, it covers maybe 60% of the original purchase cost so if it had happened sooner I'd have a much bigger problem).

Bearing in mind that this has taken a month, I now have a replacement PSU that I am out-of-pocket on, I have an AX1200 that I don't trust anymore and will sell (and hence lose out on, through losses from new value, shipping costs to send it to an ebay buyer etc.), and I don't even have full compensation for my motherboard, I am not exactly delighted.

On the other hand, I still think Corsair generally produce good PSUs - 99% of people probably never have a problem, I even brought an AX1200i as my replacement, but only because at the time the EVGA NEX1500 wasn't available in the UK, and I wanted monitoring.

Given that I have 4 Corsair PSUs in servers or desktops, I had hoped for better service. So a mixed result.

In the end, I am tired of this. I've run out of energy to deal with this, I have better things to do with my time, so I'm just going to call it a day. I have most of my losses back, and it didn't do as much damage as I first feared it might have done.

I'll still update once the bank transfer is finalised.

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Originally Posted by BorisTheSpider

OK, some limited good news.

Corsair have agreed their PSU killed the motherboard. They have sent me a replacement AX1200, which arrived very quickly. I did ask for an ax1200i as I have completely lost faith in a single-rail 100A PSU now - this thing could have started a fire. However, I guess I can't argue with a like-for-like replacement, and most people haven't had this kind of problem, so although it would have been nice if they'd sent me an ax1200i with the configurable multi-rail mode, I do have a replacement and that is fair enough.

They have offered me $279 for the motherboard. I can't cash a USD cheque (I'm in the UK) so they said they may be able to do a bank transfer - I'm waiting to hear about that. Once I pay the fee my bank will charge on the currency conversion, and considering the exchange rate, this won't cover my losses on the motherboard but it's not far off (covers maybe 85% to 90% of the replacement cost, but only because the motherboard has come down in price since I brought, it covers maybe 60% of the original purchase cost so if it had happened sooner I'd have a much bigger problem).

Bearing in mind that this has taken a month, I now have a replacement PSU that I am out-of-pocket on, I have an AX1200 that I don't trust anymore and will sell (and hence lose out on, through losses from new value, shipping costs to send it to an ebay buyer etc.), and I don't even have full compensation for my motherboard, I am not exactly delighted.

On the other hand, I still think Corsair generally produce good PSUs - 99% of people probably never have a problem, I even brought an AX1200i as my replacement, but only because at the time the EVGA NEX1500 wasn't available in the UK, and I wanted monitoring.

Given that I have 4 Corsair PSUs in servers or desktops, I had hoped for better service. So a mixed result.

In the end, I am tired of this. I've run out of energy to deal with this, I have better things to do with my time, so I'm just going to call it a day. I have most of my losses back, and it didn't do as much damage as I first feared it might have done.

I'll still update once the bank transfer is finalised.

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Wow, I have 3 personal AX1200's and have had no issues, it sucks that you got a defective unit, but lets be real, Corsair is going above and beyond to make this right. Any other company would have replaced your psu and that's it, so I think you did pretty good getting them to cover most of the cost of a new motherboard, but in all actuality you can still probably RMA the original dead board and come out on top, just food for thought:up:

Imo, it is wise to just be happy with what you got in return from Corsair rma.

Just don't push it more:)

Just my 2C

In fairness, and so this thread is an accurate record of what took place, I am posting to update that I eventually received some money from Corsair, earlier this week. It's taken about 7 weeks from the failure for me to receive my compensation.

Another user here http://www.overclock.net/t/1300669/c...nd-motherboard also successfully disputed an offer of reduced compensation from Corsair.

I'd advise anyone considering Corsair products, and under the impression that Corsair are no trouble if something goes badly wrong, to read that thread carefully. In it, a Corsair employee talks about their policy having changed with regards to compensation for hardware that their products have damaged. It's not entirely clear at this point what that new policy consists of.

To be fair you aren't paying attention to the fact that you should be glad you got any money at all for the motherboard.

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Originally Posted by stangracin3

To be fair you aren't paying attention to the fact that you should be glad you got any money at all for the motherboard.

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Why is this? Corsair replaces the motherboard if there watercooler fails and dumps liquid over the entire system. OCZ replaced my M4A78T-E after shipping it to them and it being declared dead along with shipping the bad board back when they were done. Now while I did not receive a check for the original price I did receive a check for the current price of the board on newegg. I do not see why Corsair would not do the same. OCZ is a much smaller company...