There have been complaints for a few months now that one of PC case company NZXT’s products has been catching fire. This week, the company has finally apologised and removed the case from its store.
The issues concerned their H1 case, which is basically a very big, Xbox Series X-like box. As OC3D report, “It looks like the screws on the H1's PCIe Riser Card are causing a short circuit, causing sparks to fly, smoke to generate and burns on the H1's PCIe riser card.”
One owner managed to film the short circuit taking place, complete with ensuing flames.
After initially failing to address the issue when it was first reported last year, then putting forward a half-assed fix that involved swapping out some metal screws for some nylon ones, NZXT has finally—mostly thanks to increasing pressure from PC hardware sites—issued a statement on their company site and taken more concrete steps to make this right.
That statement reads (emphasis mine):
To our community,
We’re sorry.
The nylon screws were not the complete solution for the H1 fire hazard; they didn’t address the root cause of the issue. We didn’t account for scenarios where someone could replace the nylon screws with metal ones unknowingly. Our execution did not live up to the quality that our community has come to expect from us.
We will be removing the H1 from the NZXT Store and NZXT BLD. We’re going to send out redesigned PCIe Gen3 Riser Assemblies for current H1s and we’re going to help with installation for those who need it.
Going forward, we’re instituting more robust and thorough design processes. From the initial designs, QA, to additional testing, we’re committed to quality in both our products and our response to your concerns.
We want to thank Steve from Gamers Nexus. He and his team brought the issue of someone replacing the nylon screws with metal screws to our attention and raised the urgency surrounding it.