Motherboard sparked while using MSI Mystic Light

psuczyns · January 16, 2021

(meant to copy/paste the reddit body not the link...don't know how to get rid of that on my mobile browser, sorry)

Hi all, I've got an MSI B550 Tomahawk and had just hooked up a Deepcool 350 LED strip to one of the RBG connectors to see if I could control it through Mystic Light. The strip itself has a remote control which worked to control it just fine. Once I booted the system and got into Dragon Center, I did not see a way to control the strip so I decided while I was in there to change the LED on the motherboard itself (located under the Tomahawk logo). As soon as I hit 'apply' on a new color, I witnessed a spark on the motherboard. The computer was still responding like nothing happened but I immediately powered it down and opened it up. It appears to have sparked right above the RBG connector I had the strip plugged into and has burned a transistor near it. (See picture). I have taken the MB out of the case and inspected the other side for damage and do not see anything.

Is it still safe to use the motherboard? How can I tell? I will be unplugging that strip from the RGB connector immediately, obviously. Should I try and boot it and do some benchmarks and see how it responds?

Thanks in advance

Here is my build in case that is necessary

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/psuczyns/saved/#view=fdGcHx

I am running Windows 10 64bit.

Edited January 16, 2021 by psuczyns

Mark Kaine · January 16, 2021

yeah the board might still work - however it's not safe anymore and I would suggest to stop using it.

You can try to RMA it maybe, if you do that just tell them what happened, it's obviously something that *shouldn't* happen and it's not your fault (unless you plugged in something incorrectly)