Power supply plugs are diffrent!

[Sgnob]

so my friend gave me a custom built tower that has a bad PSU, The bad PSU is a antec Sp 500 which I opened and has a bunch of swelled up caps.. I dont have the time or money to replace them this week so I want to switch the PSU out with one I know works. The problem is that all the connections for the Drives and the video card plug into the antec PSU with a square 6 pin plug, and my PSU only has the old school style white 4 pin red, black, black, yellow plugs. What I'm thinking of doing is making up my own cables for the sata drives and video card by just splicing them together color for color, Im pretty sure the sata drive with work with out the orange connected.. Any one have any input on this, oh and the PSU's are the both 500 watts!

Thanks

[mariushm]

Re: Power supply plugs are diffrent!

Hard drives and optical drives connect to the power supply with regular molex connectors or sata connectors :



Video cards connect with either 6pin or 8 pin connectors. These connectors only use 12v so you can create one cable from 2 regular molex connectors (with some cards even one molex connector is enough)

See this and the pictures attached: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812706017

Be careful though, if the power supply has no pci express and it's old, it may be based on an old design that's not capable of producing the 12v required to feed both a processor and a video card reliably - it may be 500w but on 3.3v+5v+12v combined, where 12v could be very little.
Mention the name and model of this 500w power supply and maybe post a picture of the label on the power supply and if you can what cpu and video card that system has and we'll tell you if you're safe to use it.

[Sgnob]

Re: Power supply plugs are diffrent!

Ok thanks for the input, my video card that came with the new tower is a geforce 7800 gt, it also has a weird square 6 pin connector looks like its 12v with just yellow and black wires the three yellow seem to be connected together on the same trace and the black seem to be going to two different traces on the card, I will post pics soon, Im doing a fresh Ubuntu install on another pc thats is updating now and is using my iphone for a Internet connection and my phone is the only cam I have.

Thanks for the quick reply

[dmill89]

Re: Power supply plugs are diffrent!

Your SP500 is a modular PSU that 6pin connector for the drives is a modular connector for either multiple Molex or Sata connectors. If you get another PSU with the same type of modular cable interface you can re-use these and save having to re-run the wires to all the drives if you get a PSU that is either non-modular or uses different modular connectors you will need to re-run the cables to the individual drives however any standard ATX PSU with enough Molex or SATA connectors for your drives, and sufficient motherboard & PCI-Express connectors (if applicable) and sufficient watts/amps should work. I would recommend Seasonic, Delta, PC Power & Cooling, Enermax, Corsair (except for builder series), and the Antec's built by Seasonic or Delta (all current models except for some Basiq [BP] Models [specifically the BP350 and BP500 which are built by FSP], and the TPQ series built by Enhance [TPQs are decent but excessive for that system at 850w+]). FSP isn't that bad but they do tend to use CapXion caps on their lower-end models and there are many other options out there in the same price range these days.

[Sgnob]

Re: Power supply plugs are diffrent!

OK thanks for the info, I do have some molex to sata adapters around some where, the PSU I'd like to use is a OKIA-550ATx with just molex connectors for the drives, so I still need to make up a cable for the video card. On the PSU end of the video cable it has two yellow and two black wires can I just splice them and connect the two yellow together and connect the and use the two black to the two black of a molex connector? I'm not sure why they would have the black wires connected on different traces on the video card!
Thanks again

Will post some pics as soon and my phone is free..

[dmill89]

Re: Power supply plugs are diffrent!

OK thanks for the info, I do have some molex to sata adapters around some where, the PSU I'd like to use is a OKIA-550ATx with just molex connectors for the drives, so I still need to make up a cable for the video card. On the PSU end of the video cable it has two yellow and two black wires can I just splice them and connect the two yellow together and connect the and use the two black to the two black of a molex connector? I'm not sure why they would have the black wires connected on different traces on the video card!
Thanks again

Will post some pics as soon and my phone is free..

If you only plan on using it temporarily the OKIA might be ok but most OKIAs are built by Yuelin, horribly overrated, under built, and loaded with junk caps. If it is even capable of running that system (the 7800gt may overload it since it likely actually outputs something in the 300-400w range even though it is rated for 550w) I wouldn't expect it to last very long. If there is nothing wrong with the SP500 other than bad caps it is probably worth repairing when you get the time since aside from the crappy caps they are decent PSUs and a good set of caps can generally be had for <$20, a decent 500w PSU would usually run $50+. I usually use Panasonic, Nichicon, or UCC primaries rated for 105C and 3000 hrs+ and UCC KY/KZE or Nichicon PW (you can also use the panasonic or rubycon equivalents but those tend to be more expensive) rated for 105C 5000 hrs+ on the secondary since Smart Powers run hot and there is not much cooling especially on the secondary. You can usually find the caps on digikey.

[mariushm]

Re: Power supply plugs are diffrent!

This Okia is not a particularly good power supply, it is as I said an old design.

Just the fact that it advertises:

+3.3V / 32A
+5V / 40A
+12V / 24A
-5V / 0.5A
-12V / 1.0A
+5VSB / 2.0A

tells me this is a design from the times of Pentium 3, beginning of Pentium 4 .... -5v or -12v (one of them, not sure which one without looking) was even marked as optional in the ATX power supply standard a few years ago and new power supplies don't even have it anymore.
Also, the psu's of that time had lots of Amps on 5v because that was the voltage the processors were fed from - all motherboards that require that 4pin cpu connector feed the processor from 12v instead.

So the 24A on 12v would equal about 250w on 12v but this is highly inflated - in reality this power supply probably won't do more than 200 watts.

The good thing is that the video card you have (7800gt) is not that power hungry. The PCI express connector with 6 pins is supposed (standard says so) to deliver up to 75 watts of power to the video card and the video card can "suck" about 60 watts more from the slot. The card itself probably doesn't even use 75 watts in real world.

So I think the 12v load caused by processor and video card will be low enough that you will be ok, but as dmill89 says, you're cutting it close. Make some effort to buy a new power supply, but try to get one from a good brand: Corsair, Antec, Seasonic, Kingwin, Superflower etc

Even the Corsair 430w CX v2 as 45$ here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139026 (25 dollars after mail in rebate) is way better than that power supply. More efficient, less noisy, reliable etc..

[Sgnob]

Re: Power supply plugs are diffrent!

OK guys thanks so much for the info, I will recap the sp500 soon I need the practice any way. I did dig out some molex to sata adapters for the HD's, But I still need to make a cable for the video card, can I simply connect the yellow wires and black wires to a single molex connector?? for the most part I just need to see if this machine works and is worth my time and money. Thanks again for the help.

[dmill89]

Re: Power supply plugs are diffrent!

can I simply connect the yellow wires and black wires to a single molex connector?? for the most part I just need to see if this machine works and is worth my time and money. Thanks again for the help.

That's pretty much what the adaptors you can buy do. Of course make sure the wires are in the right places. You may have difficulty getting all 6 wires from the PCI-Ex connector into a single moles though, that's why most adaptors split it among two Molex connectors.