Question: How can one test whether a motherboard's SATA connections are faulty vs a PSU's SATA output?
Context: A couple days ago, I was replacing my old PSU (Corsair CXM 750W 80+ Bronze) with a new one (SuperNOVA G2 750W 80+ Gold). I unplug the power cord and all peripherals, ground myself, and carefully extract the old PSU from my tower. I kept most of the components' connections in (besides MB and CPU) so that it would be easy to insert into the new PSU. Everything is hooked up; I turn it on. Instantly, I hear an electric pop and see smoke coming from the docking station where I keep my SATA components (CD Drive, HDD, SSD). I immediately cut power. I am at a loss as to what could have caused this, as the six-pin SATA cables were properly connected and nothing was loose.
Troubleshooting: I unplug everything except 1 stick of RAM, CPU, GPU, power supply. I want to point out that all of the above is in working order. System boots and says "No bootable device is detected." This makes sense as I removed the SSD that the OS is installed on. I take a brand new SATA cable (that came with the new PSU) and use it to connect the HDD and SSD to the PSU. Still, same message. In BIOS, they don't even show up in the SATA Port info. At this point I'm concerned the SATA connections are fried. So I plug in my cheap CD drive via another new SATA cable and restart the computer. For a moment, the green LED on the drive lights up. It seemed like it had power for a moment (15-25 seconds) but then lost power and never worked again. Now frantic, I head to a local computer repair shop to see if I can get the data off my HDD/SSD. Both drives are completely fried. Their computers couldn't even recognize them.
I need to determine what exactly is wrong before risking another component failure.
Possibilities (in my mind):
Motherboard's SATA-component connections are fried - anything I plug in to these ports will, as a result, short out (I'm referring to the internal ports a bit lower than the GFX card that connect to SATA-powered devices, they are not actual SATA ports). Other than that, the MB seems to be working fine with all of its other connected components.
PSU's SATA output is fried - it can no longer power any SATA-related devices but can power everything else
Both the PSU and motherboard are faulty, frying any SATA-related components.
I already ordered a new motherboard, SSD, and CD drive that should be arriving tomorrow, but I just wanted to check in here to see if there's anything I can do first to make sure.
Specs:
CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8 Core
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing
mobo: Asus 970 PRO GAMING/AURA ATX AM3+
RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB G1 Gaming
case: Cooler Master Storm Stryker ATX Full Tower
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX
DVD: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD writer (fried)
SSD: Crucial MX100 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC (fried)
HDD: WD Black 4TB 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB cache 3.5 Inch (fried)