Gigabyte RX 570 4GB short circuited and sparked

[petereth]

Hi, so this is the story, I built my first mining rig for fun, just 3 video cards (although I was testing it for a few days with just one card).

Mobo: MSI Krait Z270
CPU: i5 7400 (stock cooler)
RAM: Ballistic 8gb DDR4
SSD: PNY 240gb
Power supply: CORSAIR RM850x
GPU: GIGABYTE RX 570 4gb (the others still in their boxes SAPPHIRE RX 580 8gb)

All of these brand new, sealed in their boxes.

I set it up open case, the motherboard directly on top of the cardboard box of the power supply which is just the right size for the mobo.

Everything worked fine for like 12 hours, in the middle of the night, everything shut down, when I hit the power button nothing happens, so I disconnect the power supply from the outlet and hit the swich off and then on. I try to power on the computer again, it starts for 1 second, and it shuts down again, it doesn't want to start again. So I reset once again the power supply, this time the computer powers on fine for 3 seconds, and then I see a spark coming out of the gpu and it smells like burnt components so I quickly hit the switch on the power supply and that's it, I don't want to turn anything on again and I'm afraid that if I install the sapphire GPUs the mobo or the power supply or something is going to burn them up.

My question is, who was the likeliest culprit, the mobo, the power supply or just a defective GPU?
What should I do to test?

I have an old mobo where I could test the GPU, with the same power supply.

I will upload some pics of my setup
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[adaseb]

Basically something shorted out in your GPU.

Your PSU detected a short and turned off as a security feature.

If it ran for 12 hours most likely the GPU was defective and not a bad hookup job.

Just send it in for warranty

[smoolae]

Do you see any burnt spots on the back of your GPU or does it have a backplate (just asking out of curiosity)?
Like adaseb said, just try RMA it

[petereth]

Basically something shorted out in your GPU.

Your PSU detected a short and turned off as a security feature.

If it ran for 12 hours most likely the GPU was defective and not a bad hookup job.

Just send it in for warranty

I'm glad to hear that, should I try to power on my system with the Intel graphics? I don't think I hooked up anything wrong, I've made three builds in my life and I'm not an expert but I did follow the manual and tutorials to the letter.

Also, it ran I think even more than twelve hours, because there was also the time I spent installing windows, installing drivers, etc....

Do you see any burnt spots on the back of your GPU or does it have a backplate (just asking out of curiosity)?
Like adaseb said, just try RMA it

I can't see anything, I wanted to take it apart to check for burnt spots but I don't think I'm knowledgeable enough to do that, it seems to have like a radiator and some copper tubes. It does have a backplate, something like this: http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2017/05/aorus-radeon-rx-570-review/aorus570-6b.jpg

[Metroid]

Cases like this are very dangerous, the only way you could do is test on a cheap motherboard, cpu, boot drive and nothing else or send back to rma, i would send it back.

Also make sure power supply socket is grounded.

[bdiddle]

All 3 GPU's plugged into the mobo?

Likely related to drawing too much power through the PCI slots (Combined draw could be 250+ watts depending on your voltage level for the GPU's)

[petereth]

Cases like this are very dangerous, the only way you could do is test on a cheap motherboard, cpu, boot drive and nothing else or send back to rma, i would send it back.

Also make sure power supply socket is grounded.

Thank you, I will try to send it back, I bought it from amazon, perhaps they will replace it.

It is grounded, yes.

If I test the gpu on this old mobo I got, is there a risk of it damaging other components?

All 3 GPU's plugged into the mobo?

Likely related to drawing too much power through the PCI slots (Combined draw could be 250+ watts depending on your voltage level for the GPU's)

No, I had connected only 1 gpu (the GIGABYTE RX 570) to test for a few days, only, it didn't last even 24 hours.

Why would it draw more than it needed? It had its 8 pin PCIe power connector, I didn't overclocked it or changed the BIOS or anything, it was stock with the drivers it came with, in a CD-rom. Power supply is rated at 850 watts

[petereth]

I tested the video card on this Intel motherboard I had socket 775 (old), and the card ran fine. So I installed it again on the MSI Z270  and it its mining just fine, it doesn't appear to have been damaged. So I don't know what caused that spark and the smell but it is running fine now