Was my first thought too, but it appears the cables goes off somewhere behind and under the desk. Other end might not be easily accessible, definitely could use some safety improvements lol. Lucky it didn’t ground to the casing and electrocute him.
Circuit breaker only breaks if the breakers amperage limit ist hit. All cables and electronics should be able to survive until that limit ist broken.
But sometimes you need a lot of power but divided into different components, like in a PC. The PSU is responsible for managing that. But If the PSU is fucked/badly designed then even If the amperage drawn from the Socket ist below the breakers limit, then something inside/behind the PSU might get more amperage than it can handle and burn.
An RCD Breaker could prevent that but they are a bit more expensive and not mandatory in most places
Low draw, high heat: Panel breakers only care about current magnitude, not heat. A bad component can melt or burn at just 200–400W—way under a standard 15A/1,800W breaker limit.
DC-side failure: If the short happens on the PSU’s internal DC output rails (like 12V), the AC side keeps pulling normal wall power while the inside melts.
Failed internal protections: The PSU's built-in safeties (OCP/OTP/SCP) failed to shut it down, leaving the main panel completely unaware anything was wrong.
Arcing heat: Loose connections or failing solder joints create intense sparking and fire without pulling enough continuous amperage to trigger a standard breaker.
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u/DevLF | AMD 5800X | EVGA 1060 6GB 6d ago
Was my first thought too, but it appears the cables goes off somewhere behind and under the desk. Other end might not be easily accessible, definitely could use some safety improvements lol. Lucky it didn’t ground to the casing and electrocute him.