Installed my first cold cathode light and my power supply blew up! Need your thoughts on why.

[jeffkitts]

Looking for a little advice here?any comments/opinions are welcome. Here?s what happened to me over the weekend, wondering what you all think:

Two days after installing a Cooler Master Blue Ultra Aurora Cold Cathode (dual kit, but only needed one stick) and a Green Lazer LED Light Kit (both purchased from Xoxide), my brand-new Antec SL350 power supply blew up. Made a loud ?pop!? sound and died, right before my eyes. Machine had been running fine in the two days since I installed the lights, though there were two random reboots earlier that seemed curious to me.

The guts of the machine are:

AMD Athlon XP 3200+ proc
EPOX EP-8KRAI mobo
Chaintech Volari V3 128MB AGP vid card
Western Digital Caviar WD1200 BB 120GB ATA hard drive
Seagate ST3200822A-RK 200 GB ATA hard drive
1 DVD burner, 1 CD burner
Antec Super Lanboy Case


Now, given those components and the Antec 350, does it make sense that a single CCFL and a lazer LED would blow the power supply after two days? Are the two hard drives enough to push that PS to the brink?

Suffice to say, it?s put me off installing lights in my machines (this was a first attempt for me). Wife thinks I?ll burn down the house?and after smelling the burning PS, it was enough to freak me out....just glad I was there at the time.

And what would you do with the lights now? Is it possible one of them is defective and caused the problem? How to find out? I wouldn?t want to save them for a later date, only to end up blowing up another PS.

Thanks, everyone?I appreciate the help.

JK

 

[Arcanedeath]

It depends on what version of the SL350 you had, if it was the one w/ 21amps on the 12V rail you should have been fine, but if it was the older one w/ only 16 or 17A on the 12V rail I could easily see your rig toasting the PSU w/ all that stuff. CCL draw tons of power from the 12V line make sure you have enough to make it all work.

 

[jeffkitts]

Thanks for the response, Arcane. Looking at the PS, and it says 21A under "Max" in the +12V DC Output line. I take it I have the newer model...if that's the case, any other thoughts on why it fried?

 

[CrispyFried]

My Antec truepower 350 is the older 12v @ 16 amp and Ive run 4 HDs, two vid cards (256 meg ATI 9600, 32 meg ATI 7200), DVDRW and CDRW, 5 LED 80 mm case fans, SB Audigy 2 Platinum, one CCFL, Zip drive, and USB Logitech IFeel mouse. P4a 2.2 @2.4. No power probs and this setup runs 24/7 and is about a 1 1/2 years old. But I figure Im pushing it sometimes..

How much does a CCFL draw?

 

[DanDaMan315]

Coincidence?

 

[jeffkitts]

Dan, looked at your rig specs....what is the coincidence? Not sure what you mean. Thanks.

 

[RaiderJ]

That doesn't seem like too much stuff for a 350 PSU, especially an Antec which I've considered to be of decent quality. I did have a 550 Truepower die on me a month or two ago... might just be a bad supply?

 

[Saint Nick]

you didn't plug it in while it was on, did you? i've done that before

 

[imported_ArtVandalay]

Next time, just say no to PC rice.

 

[imported_Phil]

Definitely just unlucky.

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: ArtVandalay
Next time, just say no to PC rice.

QFT

 

[Mday]

It could be just a fuse. But opening the PS does void the warranty. Since it's new, you should still be able to RMA it.

How much RAM did you have installed?

 

[Insomniak]

Black Jesus is trying to tell you not to rice up your f*cking case and make it look like a Tonka Toy.

Just buy a new PSU and leave it at that.