What's The Worst Case Scenario If I disconnect the PLED Wire?

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Jeff Kaos

Jeff Kaos

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I just built a gaming PC in a DIYPC VT380-W case that looks great and has really good cable management and airflow. The problem is that the PLED lights are fairly large blue lights located on the front face of the case and when I shutdown my rig those 2 lights remain on and slowly pulsate. While this effect looks cool, especially when I'm playing games, I see it becoming old fast. And I don't know if I like the idea of my system drawing extra power when not in use; I mean that's why I shut it down in the first place. Interestingly enough those lights DO turn off when I put the system in sleep mode. While I'm not absolutely positive those are the power led lights I'm pretty sure they are and I'm wondering what's the worst thing that would happen if I removed the PLED wire from the pins? One other idea I had, which will probably be best, is to connect the PC to a separate power strip and just turn that off so the computer doesn't get any power when not in use. But I'm still curious about removing the PLED wire. My specs are below in case anyone sees something that I might've don wrong which is causing this issue.

CPU: i5 6600k
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR4 DRAM 3000MHz
MOBO: ASUS Z170 A
GPU: MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X
Case: DIYPC VT380-W
PSU: SeaSonic G Series SSR-550RM 550W 80 PLUS GOLD Certified
OS Drive: SanDisk SSD PLUS 120GB Solid State Drive
Gaming Drive: Seagate 4TB Gaming SSHD(Solid State Hybrid Drive)
 
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Eximo

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Well a pulsating LED is certainly non-standard. There may be a setting in the BIOS to turn that off.

Unplugging the LED power light won't do any harm at all.

I can't imagine them designing such a common circuit in a way that requires a load.
 
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Eximo

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I've seen it on computers before. Usually a motherboard 'feature'

My motherboard has a 'breathing mode' on the internal LEDs.

Indeed, most Red/Green/Amber LEDs only draw between 20-40 mW. Blue/White ones take a little more.

If you are concerned about that amount of power, it is best to put the machine on a power strip or switched socket as the power supply will be running in Standby mode and providing at least 1 watt to the system at all times. (I'm not sure if computers qualify for the 1W limit on standby required by the Energy Star Alliance / UK regulations.
 
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Jeff Kaos

Jeff Kaos

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I considered that the PLED wire isn't connected to the motherboard correctly but I can clearly see it from the side window and it's connected to the board according to the board instructions. The cable is a 2 pin connection and is right above the HDD_LED wire with the + (positive) connection on the left and the - (negative) connection on the right. I sent an email to DIYPC support but I thought I'd take a stab and ask the Tom's community if they have any ideas what's going on.

The support team at DIYPC got back to me almost immediately but seemed confused because I described the lights as front "panel" lights instead of front "case" lights and they said LED panel lights always remain on. That's fine and dandy if the power LED is a small green light or something but these are two fairly large lights. They also gave me the "did you connect it right" spiel but as I already said I'm 99% sure I did. I wrote them back with more details but haven't gotten a new response. I also realize that these lights probably draw next to no power but that's besides the point; as I said in my original post: there's a reason I turn my PC off in the first place.
 
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Jeff Kaos

Jeff Kaos

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Same here which is why I'm a little confused by this. And I wouldn't even know where to look in the BIOS to change this. And I'm also 99% sure it is the PLED because I forgot to mention that I DID connect them incorrectly when I first built the system, by having the negative and positive wires reversed, and those case lights didn't light up at all. It wasn't until I realized my mistake and put them on correctly that the case lights started working. I was relieved because they definitely look cool when the machine is running. But as I said when I shutdown the rig they stayed on. And that don't seem right.
 
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madmatt30

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Trace the wiring to those lights behind the front panel.
I've never known the pins on the motherboard pled header to carry voltage if the pc is off.

I have a sneaky suspicion you'll find them taking a feed off the case USB header somewhere , & normally the USB 5v feed always remains live unless the pc is physically powered off.
 
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Jeff Kaos

Jeff Kaos

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Thanks for this suggestion. Luckily the front of the case pops off so hopefully I'll be able to have a good look. Any suggestions about what I should look for though? Will there be a small plug or something connecting the case light to the USB wire or header? While I have experience building and repairing PC's this is the first time I messed around with what I consider a "High Concept" case. Most of the computers I worked on where basically plain boxes that went inside bigger boxes and they controlled stuff like CT Scanners and 3D Printers. And that was nearly 3 years ago.
 
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madmatt30

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Thinking about it when you say the lights pulse when off there has to be some form of control board built-in the case , the pled cable likely runs to that & the lights run from it.
It has to have a link to the USB 5v though to keep power while the PC is off.
 
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Jeff Kaos

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That makes sense but if it's there I have no idea where to find it because it's no in an obvious spot such as behind the case door.The thing that really bugs me is that the case only came with a sing sheet of paper that showed how to mount the HDD's into the removable slots hidden in the bottom of the case. There wasn't any user manual or something that explained any of the cases features. And the DIYPC website isn't much more useful. I don't mind that thes lights are on I'm just worried because like @mcnumpty said this shouldn't be something that happens when the system is powered off and it may be a symptom of something worse. And the only reviews I could find a re few on newegg and one of those were one I wrote before I realized this was a "feature". I went in and updated the review but it hasn't posted as far as I can tell.
 
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madmatt30

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You just need a bit of trial & error troubleshooting mate.

Unplug the pled pins while the PC is off but the lights are still on .
Do the light go out ??
If no then they're powered solely by USB power.
If yes they they ate obviously powered by the pled pinout.

Plug the pled pins back in , remove the case USB cable from the board header.

If they now go out then they have a backup 5v from the USB & just use the ground from the pled when power is off

If the above is the scenario then its either a diy hack with a pair of pliers or your board may have an option in bios to disable USB standby power , some do , some don't.
 
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Jeff Kaos

Jeff Kaos

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Thanks! I'll definitely give this a shot. I just wish I was at home so I can do it right now. I think I'll try disabling the USB standby power idea first because that seems like the simplest thing to do right away and will tell me what's going on right away.
 
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Jeff Kaos

Jeff Kaos

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All right I'll do that first.
 
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Jeff Kaos

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If it's connected to the USB header will it most likely be the USB 2.0 header or the USB 3.0 header? The reason I'm asking is because the 3.0 cable is a little easier to get to But I have no problems trying both.

 
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madmatt30

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try both then mate ;)

id assume usb2 more likely in all honesty seeing as not all boards have usb 3 headers.

 
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Jeff Kaos

Jeff Kaos

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Well I did some testing and its definitely the PLED wire. The weird thing is that the BIOS for my board has a setting that let's me adjust when the LED lights turn on and off but no matter which of the 3 settings I choose (Auto, Enabled or Disabled) the led case lights stay on. I'm not sure what to make of this. I hope it doesn't mean there's a problem with the board itself. I sent a detailed description of this situation to the case manufacturer so I'll wait and see what they have to say. Oh, and I also removed the front panel (as much as I could considering that it's tethered by a couple of wires) and while I saw the wires that connect the LED's to the board I didn't see any way to control the lights themselves. I suppose until I hear from the support team at DIYPC I'll just plug the PC into a separate power strip and turn it off when I want the lights off.
 
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mcnumpty23

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let us know if their support gets you a solution might come in useful for the future to know why its doing it

only ever had one motherboard where they had labelled the connectors wrong way round--but even if the pled were wrong way round labelled should just mean

pled shouldnt light up
 
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