Motherboard On The Wall

Last year I was upgrading my computer’s power supply unit (PSU) in an effort to prepare for the GeForce RTX 3090. It so happened that I swapped PSU manufacturers as well while I was at it. It didn’t occur to me that while the cable connectors on the PSU side are absolutely identical they are not compatible across other modular PSUs, and especially those from other manufacturers.

Turning the computer on after the operation - a loud pop, some blue smoke, and a loud “Ah fuck.”

The consequence of my naïveté was a motherboard with a fried USB line. As in - everything that was connected to the USB at the time (fans, AIO, RGB controllers) were toast. After a frantic hour disassembling everything and putting it together in another machine I was relieved to find out that everything else worked fine. I got extremely lucky.

To commemorate this joyous occasion, I framed the fried motherboard and mounted it in the office. A “memento mori” of sorts. Any computer component at some point will die, but some will do it sooner if you don’t check the wiring conventions properly.

Not to mention that when doing anything with a power supply I need to make sure to also disconnect everything else and run the tests in a bare-minimum configuration.