Plastic smell coming from Xbox

[Tim4885]

I just installed a new 80 pin IDE cable in my Xbox and when I started playing it I noticed a plastic smell coming from it. It didn't smell like burning plastic but just simply plastic. I thought it might be the new IDE cable so I re-opened my Xbox, took out the DVD drive and HDD and examined everything. Everything looked normal and the only thing I noticed on the IDE cable was a small indent on the cable that looked like maybe it was made with a finger nail. The actual wires did not appear to be damaged at this spot. However, I did smell the IDE cable and it smelled exactly like the plastic smell I noticed so my guess is that the cable got too warm and started giving off the smell of the IDE cable plastic casing. Initially I had folded this IDE cable so that it was resting on top of the HDD so to avoid the heat from the HDD I re-folded the cable so that it now mostly rests on the DVD tray in the middle of the Xbox and that did seem to reduce the smell.

Have you guys ever had an issue like this with an IDE cable creating a prominent plastic smell? I will note that I have a shorter Startech 80 pin IDE cable and that casing on that doesn't have a plastic smell at all. I am also wondering if there is a safety concern of me breathing in fumes being given off by my IDE cable?

[professor_jonny]

squashed it under the case screw perhaps?

[Wally12]

I have a 36" 80-wire cable with a large portion of the cable folded under my dvd drive and I haven't noticed anything yet.