Vantec Nexus 201 - what to do. . .

[Fred Koser]

I got my Nexus 201 from the first batch (I was on the waiting list) at SVC. Wish I'd waited to see how they were before buying, but thats a whole different post. . .
I've had mine running (after fixing the screw/pcb-short problem) just fine for the last few months with a Tornado (80mm) on channel 1 and 2 AddAs (80mms - stock Lian-Li fans) on channel 2. Today I finally got around to cutting a hole for the switch to my lights (2x 12" blue Cold Cathods - NOT HOOKED UP TO THE NEXUS) into one of the 3.5" bays and after putting everything back together, I fire it up, wait for the boot to finish and when I turned on the lights the Tornado died! They aren't even on the same lead from the PSU and no matter how I switched around the wires I couldnt' get the problem fixed. I tried monitoring voltages from my PSU in MBM and they seemed fine, but when I switched on the lights the MBM fan monitor showed the Tornado zipping up to 40K rpm, obviously a false reading. What could be causing this? How could the fan or Nexus be affected by the lights? I've read enough about the Sunbeam to know I'd really rather stick with my Nexus (I like the fact that you can't turn off a Tornado with it and the LEDs are just the right intensity for my room.) Tomorrow, I'm going to add some insulation to the bottom of the PCB just to be super-safe, but I don't get how a short would ONLY happen when the lights are switched on.
Any suggestions are welcome.

(sheesh - just re-read my post & it would seem I've had a few too many John Courages. . .sorry for any mis-spellings or nonsensicle stuffs.)

 

[stan03]

if worst comes to worst, could it be your powersupply?

 

[Fred Koser]

I've always run the lights & fan off this power supply (350W Enermax) and never had so much as a hickup, so I don't think it's the PSU.

 

[stan03]

so this only started with the Nexus thing?

 

[Fred Koser]

No. Nothing was added to my system. I've had the Nexus and the CCLs for months. I just drilled a hole for the switch to the CCLs in one of my Lian-Li's 3.5" bays and put the switch there rather than dangling around. Certainly doesn't seem like anything that shoulc cause problems. . .

 

[nerdlogic]

Your case could be shorting it out...is your switch insulated from the case (I'm assuming the drive covers are also aluminum)?

 

[Fred Koser]

The switch is a plastic jam-nut switch (included with the CCL kit from SVC.) There doesn't appear to be any metal to metal contact between the switch and case. (or any other stuff I can see.) I took out the screw that was touching the trace on the PCB of the Nexus (I had used nail-polish or something before, but I guess it didn't work) so there is NO way it could be shorting there. Now I can turn on the lights and the fan doesn't turn off,. . .but it shows speeds of 10K and over! Like - when I've got it turned all the way down it'll be ~2500rpm one minute then it'll flash up to 12K (the fan doesn't actually change speed, just the rpm sensor that MBM reads.) This is so crazy. I don't know if the problem is with my CCL kit, my Nexus or something else. Everything else in my rig is working perfectly - it's just the lights and CPU fan that are acting up. So ****ed. Going to work.

 

[katka]

Maybe your Nexus (or Tornado) is going bad. No clue really, thats really odd.

 

[Fred Koser]

Okay -

Looks like it's my fualt. I had to cut & twist some of the power leads from the CCLs b/c they weren't long enough to reach the switch. I re-did it and now the fan doesn't cut out. The CCLs still flutter and the fan RPMs are showing up funny, but the fan doesn't cut out & the only thing I changed was the wiring to the CCLs. Looks like it was just a quick/sloppy job on my part. Thanks for all the help. I'm going to wire-up some new 4-pin molexes and solder the connections to see if that fixes it the rest of the way. I'll report back in a few days.

 

[nerdlogic]

Let us know how it goes.