Burnt mainboard power plug

[paparazi]

Just wondered if I have stumbled across a common problem and possible RMA or just a bad coincidence.
A few months ago I built several customer machines based around Gigabyte KT400 series motherboards.
One was my own and had a GA7-VAXP the others were the cut down version of the same moby the GA7-VA.
I have had 3 (including my own) either partially or severely burn out the main power connector from PSU to the mainboard, none had the same PSU (mine was infact a Enermax 431)the others were generic and all have differant hardware configurations.
On investigation I thought that the pins on the motherboard
looked under sized? so creating a poor connection to their female counterparts in the plug.
Really just wanted to know if anyone else had experienced the same.
I guess it's worth noting that a lot of mainboards now have an aditional power connector, I can only sumise this is to relieve some of the load on the main plug.
When you think about it, this connector was first seen back in early Pentium P60 days, so it's not surprising that it has reached it's load design limits with the advent of such power hungry machines of today.
Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.

 

[edfair]

The additional connections have been added under FCC mandate to limit current through any individual connector to 5 amps. They won't even evalulate a board that exceeds that.
I could see the problem if the corresponding pins to the board failed at a thru hole of faulty trace.
I haven't traced the providers of the ATX stuff to see if there are competing suppliers. I could foresee problems there like the AMP/Molex problems on disk drives.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[ceh4702]

I think I would contact Gigabyte by phone and try to make a complaint. Could be a supplier just stiffed them and they didnt realize it. Often manufacturers use the supplier as an excuse. I can't see how they would not notice.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[dazzaboy]

Ok Martin,

Mmm.. I'm a regular user of Gigabyte mobos and have never come across this prob so far.? I do know that some of the 7VA-XP's have had AGP slot failure after limited use and I've heard this mentioned a few times by other.?

Most of my customers machines are built using the GA-7VA (I use one myself) and have never had any problems with this mobo so far (touch wood )

I've also noticed that a lot of suppliers have ceased selling the 7VA-XP. Could this be the reason.?

Cheers,

DaZ