Moding a Case with a led strip
Hi,
First you need to know the total load for you LED strip. If you use all 5 meters than it is 72 watts. You also need to know what the available power is. If you bought your PC from a MFG (Dell HP IBM) it may have been manufactured with a custom power supply that was meant to supply just the needs of that computer. Adding anything greater than 10% of the rated power of the power supply will either trigger a shut down or blow a fuse internal to the power supply. I say 10% because that is probably the engineered tolerance for the power supply.
You can usually solve this problem by installing a new compatible power supply (some MFG use propriety designs) that adds additional power for the twelve volt rails. Power is the product of voltage times amperage. P=VI. So 72 watts divided by 12 volts equals 6 amps. You can find a good explanation of power supply rails at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_supply_unit_(computer)#ATX12V_standard
Your current PS should be marked with the maximum available power for each rail or the maximum amperage for each. (you will need to remove the PS on some types to find this) Use P=V*I to change between the maximum current or maximum wattage. What ever the previous wattage or amperage at twelve volts you will now need to add what ever the LEDS need to to run. That will give you the minimum needed extra twelve volt wattage or amperage required for your new power supply.
So adding 72 watts (24%) to a three hundred watt total power supply will probably not work but adding 14 watts (5%) to a three hundred watt will probably be ok.
