Accidentally installed SSD with my PC powered on

[LabRat 891]

This thread reminds me of one of the biggest electronics fuckups I've ever been a part of. It was back in 2001 on a warship, while on deployment, and involving rod control for a nuclear reactor, but this story deserves its own thread.

Hopefully staff won't mind you editing in a link to that thread, when it's eventually made. (also, hope you've taken OpSec, etc. into account. Though, violations always make for the most interesting stories; sometimes making international news )

 

[caroline!]

Thats less safe

You should flip the PSU switch off but leave it connected so you have an earth

Assuming you have an earth connection. I just wear shoes, heh. Workshop surface is wooden so it's acting as an insulator too.
Mine is on the floor because it weighs a ton so I have no choice but to remove all cables before doing anything.

I could never get one of those anti-static wrist straps though I had no issues either.

@ = At
T = The
M = Moment
(At The Moment)
ATM means Automated Teller Machine, and are often PC's underneath. So when 'talking tech', I just avoid the old T9-shorthand of 'ATM'. (T9 stands for Text on 9 keys. AlsoKnownAs 'how all the adults texted when they were kids')

Oh. This reminded me how terrible the T9 autocorrect on my phone is, never used it because it inserts random words and nonsense into text rather than "what I mean".

The low operating voltage is more related to 'power spike' when connecting / disconnecting 'load' to 'power'. Ever unplugged an incandescent lamp from the wall while it's on? It arcs. Same w/ a DC Car Battery.

Ever plugged a 12V 100 watt incandescent lamp to a DC source? you get a neat spark. If you use AC switches there's a big chance it'll arc and never go out or fuse the contacts together while on.

This thread reminds me of one of the biggest electronics fuckups I've ever been a part of. It was back in 2001 on a warship, while on deployment, and involving rod control for a nuclear reactor, but this story deserves its own thread.

You're still alive so I assume it was a not great not terrible incident.

 

[Mussels]

That’s interesting that they are hotpluggable at all although my mobo definitely does not support that.

As an example, all AM4 platforms support hotswap on the SATA ports - it's just off by default in the BIOS. Even with it disabled, you can just 'refresh' in disk management or device manager and they'll show up.

NVME is a little different as it's PCI-E, but as an example i've got one in a USB enclosure - so they certainly have no issues with suddenly being powered on or disconnected randomly. The only risk is inserting it wrong so the contacts touch something they shouldnt, and even then it would take more than one making contact (one for power in, one for power out - and the pins touching would have to be connected in the device)

 

[LabRat 891]

Assuming you have an earth connection. I just wear shoes, heh. Workshop surface is wooden so it's acting as an insulator too.
Mine is on the floor because it weighs a ton so I have no choice but to remove all cables before doing anything.

NEVER. EVER. count on your own body or workwear to 'sufficiently' protect you. However, I am firmly in the camp of 'plugged in switch off; for earth/gnd'. Othewise, *anything* with capacitance becomes a potential virtual ground.
I'm neither an EE nor an electrician but have both experienced and read enough stories from such. You aren't technically wrong, just 'freak variables' like to pop-in. Especially, when dealing w/ mains V, HighV, and HighHz, it can mean your life. The pros that HAVE TO work on live circuits, have multiple layers of PPE and/or have intricate understanding of what they're working with. (I still do not envy linemen)

I could never get one of those anti-static wrist straps though I had no issues either.

I'm 'The Hypocrite'. I will always agree that ESD precautions should be taken. Though, I too usually don't. (only this Winter have I killed stuff from ESD, in ~25+yrs of 'tinkering')

Ever plugged a 12V 100 watt incandescent lamp to a DC source? you get a neat spark. If you use AC switches there's a big chance it'll arc and never go out or fuse the contacts together while on.

Yup! last time was testing an old round H1-equipped auxiliary lamp on an SLA. Also, yes. "DC doesn't 'break' arcs" ie. 'cross-0V'. So, contacts not designed for DC, can weld closed.
Sounds fun

You're still alive so I assume it was a not great not terrible incident.

Well, that's a rad way of looking at it. I'm a STALKER fan, I can go on for days...

 

[A Computer Guy]

eSATA isn't it a dead std. now? I actually liked eSATA it was great for external, back-up HDD's

I don't know about dead but AM4 motherboards support sata "hot-plug" and mine even supports configuring "hot-plug" for specific ports in UEFI/BIOS.

With a simple SATA to eSATA cable and an eSATA dock or HDD/SSD enclosure it works. I do this with older 150MB/s HDD/SSD enclosures that I have had for years and it still works pretty well. The typical USB icon you use to disconnect your drives will pickup the eSATA device so you can disconnect it properly.

 

[damric]

Hopefully staff won't mind you editing in a link to that thread, when it's eventually made. (also, hope you've taken OpSec, etc. into account. Though, violations always make for the most interesting stories; sometimes making international news )

I kept it very vague with no classified info, but just enough info for your reading pleasure

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/oops-thread.305863/

 

[80251]

I don't know about dead but AM4 motherboards support sata "hot-plug" and mine even supports configuring "hot-plug" for specific ports in UEFI/BIOS.

With a simple SATA to eSATA cable and an eSATA dock or HDD/SSD enclosure it works. I do this with older 150MB/s HDD/SSD enclosures that I have had for years and it still works pretty well. The typical USB icon you use to disconnect your drives will pickup the eSATA device so you can disconnect it properly.
View attachment 287651

My present Asrock Taichi z390 has the BIOS support for making individual SATA ports hot-pluggable but for some reason that only works on the native Intel ports, if I try that with the Asmedia SATA ports it causes problems (i.e. of the HDD never being seen in its external SATA enclosure).

 

[caroline!]

My SATA ports support hotplug as well but if you use Windows it comes at the price of every HDD showing up as removable media on the taskbar. I've never used that feature anyway, removing a drive from my computer is a mini-nightmare due to the amount of cables and size of the bays, I have big hands you know.

Both my PCIe cards come with 2 eSATA ports though I've never used them because it's impossible to get one of those cables where I live, otherwise I could've installed 2 extra drives per card, but anyway, not a big deal. I don't use external drives other than USB sticks.

 

[TheEndIsNear]

I've done that twice in my whole I feel for ya

 

[Mussels]

My SATA ports support hotplug as well but if you use Windows it comes at the price of every HDD showing up as removable media on the taskbar. I've never used that feature anyway, removing a drive from my computer is a mini-nightmare due to the amount of cables and size of the bays, I have big hands you know.

Both my PCIe cards come with 2 eSATA ports though I've never used them because it's impossible to get one of those cables where I live, otherwise I could've installed 2 extra drives per card, but anyway, not a big deal. I don't use external drives other than USB sticks.

That's the entire point - they get treated as removable drives so you can 'disconnect' them in software and they'll power down to prevent data loss when they get removed

 

[A Computer Guy]

hotplug, that is just asking for trouble in the long run. SATA hotplug is of course one preventing thing for drives to not take a hit, but believe that was not the OP case.
It can not be too difficult to power down&unplug/PSU power switch a system before tinkering with drives etc. And why in the world is it at all necessary "hotplug" internal drives in home use?

Also useful for SATA HDD docks.

 

[Segundoh]

RAM isn't meant to be, but the 'tecnically hot-swappable nature' has been a 'vector of attack' proposed for 'espionage work'. Years back, it was fairly commonly known that it was technically possible to 'cryo-freeze' RAM and pull data directly out of it for a few seconds-to-minutes w/ extremely specialized tools and hardware. (Neat, but largely useless knowledge.)

If traveling, you have to pre-accept all of your personal rights 'effectively null'. This is exactly why I turned down EVEN PURSUING a 'traveling tech job'.

Ah, that makes sense. I haven’t seen anyone say @TM instead of ATM before, but it makes sense since ATMs exist lol. And I see, so stuff with a low operating voltage won’t really arc like that? That’s definitely good, at least. So even RAM is technically hotswappable… I won’t do it, of course, but it’s interesting that you can hotswap a lot of things without destroying anything. And even to get secrets like you said lol. I definitely wouldn’t want a traveling tech job either. Im working as a software engineer right now and we’re not even allowed to work on anything but our work laptops; I don’t care as much about a laptop I got for free as opposed to something I actually bought, but it would still be annoying if the TSA breaks it or something.

Assuming you have an earth connection. I just wear shoes, heh. Workshop surface is wooden so it's acting as an insulator too.
Mine is on the floor because it weighs a ton so I have no choice but to remove all cables before doing anything.

Ever plugged a 12V 100 watt incandescent lamp to a DC source? you get a neat spark. If you use AC switches there's a big chance it'll arc and never go out or fuse the contacts together while on.

I have to work in a carpeted area which is bad, but I wear an anti static wristband and clothes that aren’t staticy. I put a cardboard box beneath my feet as well as a antistatic mat. The one I got is like $20 so it might not even be any good, but it gives me some peace of mind, at least. I’ll try to wear shoes next time too. And autocorrect is probably better nowadays, but it’s still pretty bad lol. And that lamp thing is definitely interesting. At least a SSD has much lower wattage and voltage and all, so it hopefully shouldn’t cause any issues like that

NEVER. EVER. count on your own body or workwear to 'sufficiently' protect you. However, I am firmly in the camp of 'plugged in switch off; for earth/gnd'. Othewise, *anything* with capacitance becomes a potential virtual ground.

Yup! last time was testing an old round H1-equipped auxiliary lamp on an SLA. Also, yes. "DC doesn't 'break' arcs" ie. 'cross-0V'. So, contacts not designed for DC, can weld closed.
Sounds fun ]

I’ll take that precaution too in addition to the ones I just mentioned. Nothings happened yet, but, like you said, something could happen at any time even if everything’s been working out so far. I definitely would not want to be an electrician or lineman either, that’s for sure. I definitely won’t try to use a non-DC thing on a DC power source then to avoid that!

I don't know about dead but AM4 motherboards support sata "hot-plug" and mine even supports configuring "hot-plug" for specific ports in UEFI/BIOS.

That’s definitely interesting. Frankly, maybe I’ll go with that instead so I don’t make this mistake again, though I’d assume that SATA’s slower than NVME.

I kept it very vague with no classified info, but just enough info for your reading pleasure

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/oops-thread.305863/

That is definitely a great story. Thanks for sharing it!

My present Asrock Taichi z390 has the BIOS support for making individual SATA ports hot-pluggable but for some reason that only works on the native Intel ports, if I try that with the Asmedia SATA ports it causes problems (i.e. of the HDD never being seen in its external SATA enclosure).

Interesting. I’ll see if my BIOS has any support for that and try it out if it does. It’ll be safer in case I accidentally hotswap it and all lol.

My SATA ports support hotplug as well but if you use Windows it comes at the price of every HDD showing up as removable media on the taskbar. I've never used that feature anyway, removing a drive from my computer is a mini-nightmare due to the amount of cables and size of the bays, I have big hands you know.

Both my PCIe cards come with 2 eSATA ports though I've never used them because it's impossible to get one of those cables where I live, otherwise I could've installed 2 extra drives per card, but anyway, not a big deal. I don't use external drives other than USB sticks.

I see, that does seem quite annoying. It does seem like it’d be annoying to get a SATA drive out, that is true. I’d need a PCIE card like yours for thet too I guess. But yeah I just use USB sticks and no other external drives too anyway.

I've done that twice in my whole I feel for ya

And it luckily worked out for you and me… let’s hope we don’t do that again in the future though.

That's the entire point - they get treated as removable drives so you can 'disconnect' them in software and they'll power down to prevent data loss when they get removed

Oh interesting, so that’s how they’re supposed to work. Maybe I’ll try out some removable drives too then.

Also useful for SATA HDD docks.

I don’t plan on using those, but maybe I will do I can just avoid this situation lol.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

But have you watched this classic?

I remember watching this and thinking about how ridiculous this scenario was—who is ever going to have a cooler come loose? Then a HSF lug broke off on my Socket A and my copper heat sink fell off! Yes, back when the socket still held the HSF in place. PC was asleep at the time, so my Athlon 900mhz suffered no damage. PC still worked fine too.

 

[Mussels]

SATA’s slower than NVME.

SATA Maxes out at 600MB/s (around 550 in reality) while NVME can do 8GB/s on PCI-E 4.0

E-sata was just a stronger/better shielded SATA cable that could handle longer cable lengths, and only died because its main features (hotplug) became part of the SATA standards, as early SATA was repurosed IDE/PATA (Parallel ATA to Serial ATA) (going from parallel 133MB/s between two devices to 150MB/s per device) was a large upgrade, but they were fully compatible with cheap adaptors)

Then USB3.0 came along with its 5Gb/s that while slower than SATA3, was (and still is) faster than mechanical hard drives with cheaper cables that also provided power, and E-sata stopped being relevant

 

[Segundoh]

SATA Maxes out at 600MB/s (around 550 in reality) while NVME can do 8GB/s on PCI-E 4.0

E-sata was just a stronger/better shielded SATA cable that could handle longer cable lengths, and only died because its main features (hotplug) became part of the SATA standards, as early SATA was repurosed IDE/PATA (Parallel ATA to Serial ATA) (going from parallel 133MB/s between two devices to 150MB/s per device) was a large upgrade, but they were fully compatible with cheap adaptors)

Then USB3.0 came along with its 5Gb/s that while slower than SATA3, was (and still is) faster than mechanical hard drives with cheaper cables that also provided power, and E-sata stopped being relevant

I see, so NVME is definitely much better. And I see, so it makes sense why eSATA died then. Even without it, SATA drives are hottplughable though? That’s good to know. It seems there’s no point in getting SATA drives then if they’re that slow.

I remember watching this and thinking about how ridiculous this scenario was—who is ever going to have a cooler come loose? Then a HSF lug broke off on my Socket A and my copper heat sink fell off! Yes, back when the socket still held the HSF in place. PC was asleep at the time, so my Athlon 900mhz suffered no damage. PC still worked fine too.

I definitely hope that never happens to me, though it seems coolers are generally more secure nowadays… hopefully at least. I suppose it won’t start burning like that though since there’s thermal protections and all now.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I see, so NVME is definitely much better. And I see, so it makes sense why eSATA died then. Even without it, SATA drives are hottplughable though? That’s good to know. It seems there’s no point in getting SATA drives then if they’re that slow.


I definitely hope that never happens to me, though it seems coolers are generally more secure nowadays… hopefully at least. I suppose it won’t start burning like that though since there’s thermal protections and all now.

I remember the controversy around that back in the day. Many considered it when Toms jumped the shark. While it’s a possibility, it’s a very unlikely one. In my case, the copper cooler I used was off-brand, and it only used 2 of the 6 lugs on the CPU socket to secure it. Had it used all 6, as it probably should, it would have never happened. In fact, I just went and got a different HSF that used all 6 lugs, and the system still worked just fine. Copper was just becoming a thing in HSFs back then, so next gen sockets started accounting for the size and weight increases. Having a board backplate for the retention mechanism is a great answer. It would take some serious issues to have that fail.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Depends on usage really
I use a lot of sata ssd's and hdd's I have no issues at all
I also do not transfer large files around so loosing speed on something I don't do is no lose at all

When there's multiple m.2's hot swap devises I'll think about it using m.2's
Besides m.2 only recently have come down in price for example 2tb for 130.us.

 

[chrcoluk]

I am struggling to understand how this can happen assuming you was sober.

Fans spinning, motherboard lights on, lights on keyboard etc.

Is this a silent fanless, spindleless, lightless system?

 

[Segundoh]

I remember the controversy around that back in the day. Many considered it when Toms jumped the shark. While it’s a possibility, it’s a very unlikely one. In my case, the copper cooler I used was off-brand, and it only used 2 of the 6 lugs on the CPU socket to secure it. Had it used all 6, as it probably should, it would have never happened. In fact, I just went and got a different HSF that used all 6 lugs, and the system still worked just fine. Copper was just becoming a thing in HSFs back then, so next gen sockets started accounting for the size and weight increases. Having a board backplate for the retention mechanism is a great answer. It would take some serious issues to have that fail.

Ah I see. I can see why that’d be controversial then. That makes sense if you were using an off-brand cooler and less lugs than needed then though it’s good that the new one worked well. I made sure to get a high-quality cooler (that’s probably overkill but I wanted a quiet powerful cooler) and I definitely secured the backplate and the screws and all correctly. I won’t worry about that then for sure.

Hi,
Depends on usage really
I use a lot of sata ssd's and hdd's I have no issues at all
I also do not transfer large files around so loosing speed on something I don't do is no lose at all

When there's multiple m.2's hot swap devises I'll think about it using m.2's
Besides m.2 only recently have come down in price for example 2tb for 130.us.

Oh okay I suppose they’re still much more cost effective than NVME SSDs for sure if you don’t need to transfer large files. I got a cheap 500GB NVME for $35, but I’m sure I could get a higher capacity SATA for about the same price.

I am struggling to understand how this can happen assuming you was sober.

Fans spinning, motherboard lights on, lights on keyboard etc.

Is this a silent fanless, spindleless, lightless system?

I had just woken up to be fair, so I was still half asleep… I’ll be sure to avoid messing with my PC when I’m half asleep in the future lol.

 

[Mussels]

It seems there’s no point in getting SATA drives then if they’re that slow.

Sata drives match USB 3.0 quite well, so they're great for externals - and they fit any SATA 2.5" device so they're fantastic for any pre-NVME systems, including laptops.


On modern systems it's usually just that you're getting 1-4 NVME slots, with many boards losing features to use all those slots (13900K? GPU drops to 8x to use that first PCI-E 5.0 NVME slot)
Use the 3rd/4th one? You'll find SATA ports or PCI-E slots disabled to find the bandwidth for them.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Sata drives match USB 3.0 quite well, so they're great for externals - and they fit any SATA 2.5" device so they're fantastic for any pre-NVME systems, including laptops.


On modern systems it's usually just that you're getting 1-4 NVME slots, with many boards losing features to use all those slots (13900K? GPU drops to 8x to use that first PCI-E 5.0 NVME slot)
Use the 3rd/4th one? You'll find SATA ports or PCI-E slots disabled to find the bandwidth for them.

People forget that what makes flash storage “feel” so fast is the near instantaneous seek speeds. Yes, raw throughout matters, but mainly when loading and moving large files and programs. So even a SATA SSD is good for most people and will make the system seem snappy.

 

[Calenhad]

I forgot I left my PC on overnight while running a memory test (so it wasn’t even in sleep mode), and I accidentally installed a NVME SSD while it was on. Is it possible I damaged anything like the SSD or any other parts? The PC seems to be booting up fine at least, and I’m able to boot into that SSD. Could this degrade the performance of any of my parts though?

Build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/fpfDLs

That is lucky. I wouldn't worry to much since it is still working. No guarantee if you have done some damage that will result in premature failure though.

As an example, all AM4 platforms support hotswap on the SATA ports - it's just off by default in the BIOS. Even with it disabled, you can just 'refresh' in disk management or device manager and they'll show up.

NVME is a little different as it's PCI-E, but as an example i've got one in a USB enclosure - so they certainly have no issues with suddenly being powered on or disconnected randomly. The only risk is inserting it wrong so the contacts touch something they shouldnt, and even then it would take more than one making contact (one for power in, one for power out - and the pins touching would have to be connected in the device)

SATA is by design hotpluggable. If you look at the cables/contacts, the pins are different lengths to make sure the necessary connections are made first. You are correct that the controller firmware must support hotplugging for the device to be properly detected without a system restart. But the physical connection can be made with any SATA device while the system is powered on.

USB enclosures contain a bridge chip that translate PCIE to USB, so having a hotpluggable external enclosure have nothing to do with PCIE hotplugging.

There are hotpluggable NVME hardware. But it is not a design requirement (like with SATA devices). There is no guarantee that the drive/cpu/chipset support hotplugging. So, OP may have been lucky and had hardware that support hotplugging, or just lucky in general.

 

[80251]

I have an external SATA HDD that's connected to the A$$media SATA controller. I can't turn on the hotplug functionality of the A$$media SATA controller because any drives connected to it begin to act flaky (in particular the BIOS won't see my external HDD!), so what I have to do is go into device mangler and manually un-install the HDD. So far, I've had no issues with this.

 

[LabRat 891]

I am struggling to understand how this can happen assuming you was sober.

Fans spinning, motherboard lights on, lights on keyboard etc.

Is this a silent fanless, spindleless, lightless system?

At first when I read the title, I was too. Then, I started remembering all the bone-headed things I've done, and it seemed merely a 'modernized' version of my own moments of idiocy.

My favorite experience is plugging an '+12V/+5V standby' Molex off a 'plugged-in, switch-on' PSU, into a BFGtech 6800GT AGP,
upside-down
It sparked. It died.
I did the 'young and dumb thing' and RMA'd it, except I went a step further and forgot about sending it out until ~30 days later. Why is this so memorable? The replacement showed up literally the next day after finally shipping it out. It seemed like magic!
Years-later I put 2-and-2 together, and realized BFGtech (the friggin 'bros' they were; may they RIP) sent out replacements for every 'open RMA' they had before shuttering their doors and liquidating their inventory. I'd still like to know exactly why/how they went under, someday...

People forget that what makes flash storage “feel” so fast is the near instantaneous seek speeds. Yes, raw throughout matters, but mainly when loading and moving large files and programs. So even a SATA SSD is good for most people and will make the system seem snappy.

Related: Optane NVMe drives, while 'slower' in raw r/w performance numbers, can add another 'minor, but noticeable' increase in snappiness. I've tried 'Optane-as-boot' a couple times, and am working on getting 2+ P1600Xs arranged in RAID on my X570's CPU-connected lanes.
While I've not tried a >144hz display, I would probably analogize things as such (since display refresh-rate's "perceived performance" are also highly subjective):
HDD -> SATA SSD = 60hz -> 90hz ("how did I ever live without this?!")
SATA SSD -> NVMe SSD = 90hz -> 120-144hz ("Wow. It gets even better!")
NVMe SSD -> Optane = 144hz -> 240-360hz ("Not huge improvement, but I still notice it. Nice.")

SATA is by design hotpluggable. If you look at the cables/contacts, the pins are different lengths to make sure the necessary connections are made first. You are correct that the controller firmware must support hotplugging for the device to be properly detected without a system restart. But the physical connection can be made with any SATA device while the system is powered on.

USB enclosures contain a bridge chip that translate PCIE to USB, so having a hotpluggable external enclosure have nothing to do with PCIE hotplugging.

There are hotpluggable NVME hardware. But it is not a design requirement (like with SATA devices). There is no guarantee that the drive/cpu/chipset support hotplugging. So, OP may have been lucky and had hardware that support hotplugging, or just lucky in general.

Of special note: At time of writing, there are no truly/fully PCIe<->USB bridge chips.They all only 'do' NVMe commands.
If I were inclined and experienced, I'd love to write a driver or something so other command-schemes could be used over those NVMe-USB adapters.
I mention this as I've been looking for a true USB 3.# to PCI-e adapter since USB 3.0's introduction. (also, I've tried PCI-e NICs on ASM NVMe-USB bridges. Because, why not. Doesn't work; no, it's not just power-related.)

 

[GreiverBlade]

i did it... when i replaced my TR200 240gb with a 870 EVO 1tb ... well it works ...

and did it again when i plugged my Icy Box USB3.0 to SATA with the aforementioned TR200 (or when i had my 2 CM HAF-XB Evo but it had 2 hot swap bay so i guess it was meant to do so...)

My favorite experience is plugging an '+12V/+5V standby' Molex off a 'plugged-in, switch-on' PSU, into a BFGtech 6800GT AGP,
upside-down
It died.
I did the 'young and dumb thing' and RMA'd it, except I went a step further and forgot about sending it out until ~30 days later. Why is this so memorable? The replacement showed up literally the next day. It seemed like magic!
Years-later I put 2-and-2 together, and realized BFGtech (the friggin 'bros' they were; may they RIP) sent out replacements for every 'open RMA' they had before shuttering their doors and liquidating their inventory. I'd still like to know exactly why/how they went under, someday...

ah... i killed a FX5900 Ultra Leadtek WinFast A350 TDH MyVIVO doing just like you ... she's sitting on my GPU collection shelf, but from what i see she could do with a re coil and re caps and still be fine i reckon...
the shop where i brought it told me the Die was fine... if i can trust them (not that i haven't got enough retro GPU for my needs but a FX 5900 Ultra is something special to me )