DB charset/collation problem

[eluser]serans1[/eluser]
I got into it and I see that the chars are being corrupted once i am connecting to the database and getting the instance (I work with more then one DB).
the line
$db=$this->load->database($config, TRUE);
makes the charset goes bad and config is:
$config['char_set'] = "utf8";
$config['dbcollat'] = "utf8_general_ci";
$config['hostname'] = "x";
$config['username'] = "x";
$config['password'] = "x";
$config['database'] = "x";
$config['dbdriver'] = "mysql";
$config['dbprefix'] = "";
$config['pconnect'] = FALSE;
$config['db_debug'] = FALSE;