Re: How do I connect up a power supply?
- From: "Frank Martin" <fm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2008 16:13:02 +1000
"Paul" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:g9nquq$m3e$1@xxxxxxxxxxx
Frank Martin wrote:
I have had bad luck with power supplies,
the first a 350W unit must have been
undersized and it failed taking the HDD
control board with it.
The second was oversized but this failed
within 6 months, the room being filled
with smoke and an IDE DVD reader failed as
well, probably because of this.
Now I bought a "Toughpower" 750W "ATX 12V
2.2 & EPS" 12V unit with a 14cm fan with
"Imbedded Socket & Modularized Cable
Management".
The back of this unit has four banks of
sockets, vis: (L>R)
1/ "8pin + 12V power connector. (8-pin
socket).
2/ "6pin PCI-E connectors" sockets. (Two
sockets of 6pins each).
3/ "4pin peripheral & floppy power
connector". (two 6pin sockets.)
4/ "S-ATA connectors". (two six-pin
sockets.)
Additionally there is a large thick 24pin
cable leading from the unit which plugs
into the motherboard, and this I did.
I am not sure which cable plugs into the
top left hand side plug of the
motherboard, whether it's the one
black/yellow cable that runs with the
24pin one, or the "8pin+12V power
connector" socket-fed cable plugged into
the LHS of the power unit. Which one
should it be?
What do the "6pin PCI-E connector" sockets
feed? Do they have to be connected at
all?
I have plugged the "4-pin Peripheral &
Floppy Power Connector" sockets to he DVD
readers & writers I have, and this seems
to work OK.
Can I use the "S-ATA connectors" for this
too?
I am mainly confused as to where to plug
in the "6pin PCI express connector" which
runs alongside the 24pin plug cable.
Please help, Frank
It uses modular cabling for a reason. You
only
plug in the things you need to power your
computer,
and the other cables can remain unplugged
and stored
in the cardboard box.
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=7
In the picture here, the top connector
(blue), would be
used for processor power. Some motherboards
have provision
for a 2x4 connector near the processor
area. All the motherboards
I have here, use the more common 2x2
connector (two yellow, two black
wires). Some 2x4 connectors are hinged, and
split into two pieces,
giving you a 2x2 connector when you need
one. Other cable assemblies,
make both the 2x4 and a 2x2 connector
available, so you can deal
with either situation. Look closely at the
cable with four yellow and
four black wires, and see what connector
type is on the end.
((Thanks, I have used the top blue socket
cable to connect to the plug on the
motherboard closest to the CPU. This works
OK. It has 8 bundled black/yellow wires only
four of which seem to be connected. But what
is the purpose of the other main cable, not
the 24-pin one, which is wired into the
supply and which also has 8 bundled wires
also black/yellow ut connect to a plug with a
securing tab the other way about to the one
on the motherboard. When I present this to
the motherboard the black/yellow bundled
wires are opposite to the one leading fron
the modular blue-socket on the power supply.
What is this "PCI-express" - labelled cable
for? I don't want to experiment because the
colours are the other way around when I
try.))
((I haven't connected anything to the red
"6pin PCI-E" sockets on the powerboard. Is
this OK?))
((I have used the "4pin peripheral & floppy
power connector" sockets for everything else
such as the HHD (there are two) and the two
DVD read/writers and the small 3.5mb floppy
drive. Is it OK to parallel so many
prepheriferal units off these "4pin
peripheral & floppy power connectors"?))
((I will buy one of these clamp-on ammeters
as soon as possible, and thank you for the
advice. The motherboard is MSI945PNeo with
a dual-core CPU. The computer is working OK
but the powersupply and most of the cables
are temporarly connected.))
((When I pulled the failed power suppies to
pieces, the first had its capacitors all
swollen & leaking, and the second one had one
of its small transformer coils all blackened
and about to fail. ))
Regards.
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules/NDReviews/images/Toughpower750W/IMG_1009.jpg
The 24 pin connector can be hinged as well.
Many power supplies
allow separating the two pieces. That is so
you can handle motherboards
that have 20 pin main connectors, or 24 pin
main connectors.
To help avoid confusion with the 2x2
"leftovers" from the main 24 pin connector,
when you plug a 2x2 into the processor
power connector, make sure it
has two yellow and two black wires. The
"leftover" section of the
24 pin main connector, has wires of four
different colors, and is
quite different from a processor 2x2 cable.
You'll need peripheral cables, such as a
cable that powers the
hard drive, CDROM, and floppy. You'll
notice a couple of the
modular cables have a number of storage
power connectors in
a row on them.
The 2x3 "PCI Express" cables are for
auxiliary power on the end
of one or more video cards. Red connectors
are used on the
cable, and also on the power supply. You
don't need to hook
those up, unless you have a PCI Express
video card, and it
happnes to have those kinds of connectors
on it.
Any other questions, post back.
For peace of mind, I use a clamp-on DC
ammeter, to measure the
current flow inside the PC. That tells me
whether the hardware
is working normally or not. In your
situation, where you've
smoked a supply, it could be because you
used an underrated
PSU, or it could be because of a fault in
the motherboard. But
without some amount of diagnostic
equipment, it is pretty hard
to tell, until the next cloud of smoke. The
reason the clamp-on
meter is nice, is because it doesn't make
electrical contact with
the wiring. You simply clamp the meter
around one or more
wires, where the current is flowing in the
same direction.
So, for example, I can clamp all four +5V
wires on the main
motherboard power cable, and make a "total
+5V" current
measurement. I can measure all the current
flows inside
the computer, in a minute or so, while a
benchmark is
running (3DMark).
(The one in the right hand column here,
measures DC current. I
use the 40 amp scale when inside the
computer. I use the
400 amp scale when working on the car :-)
The jaws on
mine are a different color, not red like
the ones here.
The technology used is a Hall probe, which
measures the
magnetic field around the wire. Four wires,
with the
current flowing in the same direction, have
their magnetic
fields added together. You cannot measure
current in
an AC power cord, unless you can get at the
separate
wires inside the cable. I have an extension
cord which
is modified for usage with the meter.)
http://www.fotronic.com/extech/clampmeters/380947.htm
If you need to know what the wires are for
in the cables
on an ATX PSU, consult the connector
diagrams in the back,
here.
http://www.formfactors.org/developer/specs/ATX12V_PSDG_2_2_public_br2.pdf
HTH,
Paul
.
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