PSU SATA power cable works for 3 years then dies?

J

jamsomito

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Aug 29, 2010
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I'm having some issues with my RAID array, full discussion on that in this thread: Questions for a new RAID 0 setup

But I think I found my issue is a bad power cable. Specifically, all the power connectors after the one closest to the PSU (4 on the cable, the last 3 are intermittent or do not work). I used to have 2 SSD's on connectors 2 and 3, and an NZXT hue on connector 4 (connector 1 unused). I added the 2nd SSD on connector #3 about 3 or 4 months ago, otherwise it's been untouched for about 3 years.

It seems really odd to me that a connector on a cable would go bad at all, but then after being untouched for the majority of it's service? Have you guys seen anything like this, or did I just get lucky moving things around and it's really another issue? Since it's a RAID array, while I do have backups, it's a major PITA to work on, and I'm kind of worried about data loss in day-to-day use (and I would still be even on a single drive).

I have a Seasonic X650. Is it worth a call to them for a cable replacement? How are they to work with in your experience? Thanks for the help.
 
Well Seasonic is shipping me a replacement cable for free. We'll see if this fixes the issue. Still have a hard time believing the cable would go bad, untouched inside my case after so long. Weird.
 
Bad cables definitely happen, it could have been a bad crimp -- when there's a poor crimp, there's extra resistance which means more heat, which makes the metal expand and causes more resistance, until the crimp fully opens and power stops flowing.
 
I guess I figured 2 SSD's and some LED's wouldn't touch the max capacity of the cable. It's not like a GPU or anything, though I understand those use different cables.
 
hrm, interesting, there are suggestions that molex to sata is a better choice in some cases because of heavier gauge wire and specs. I have read elsewhere that SSDs can pull more power than a drive
 
Interesting. When I hook everything up with the new cable, I'll move the LEDs to another line and just keep the 2 SSD's on the new cable. I can't run 2 seperate lines over to my drive area, case is too big to also reach the other stuff that needs power. But I'll take this into account, thanks.
 
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