i have been having some problems with my hdd and power led they keep buring out, thier 3mm super bright blue and white leds and thier hooked up right to the wires that come stock with the system so i'm not trying anything complecated but they keep buring out? i know its not my solder job because gods knows thier not moving once i solder them in
Add a resistor. I would guess around 50-100 ohms wouldn't affect brightness too much but save your led. If it's too dim, go lower. If they still burn out, go higher.
That's odd, usually the moterboard headers are current limited, so tha you can use a typical orange/green led on it. the white/blue leds take more current and voltage at spec, so I would think that you would have trouble with the leds not lighting at all. Do you leds light up then burn out and not work again, or just not turn on at all?
Maybe you're damaging them with too much heat from your soldering iron? Other than that, have you tried the LED's with resistors from a known (stable) power supply?
It seems to me that if they were damaged by the heat from soldering they would not work at all, rather than failing after a while. What wattage soldering iron did you use, and for how long was it in contact with each or the leads of the led?
