Need a little help

[Pals23]

I have a ATX250-12ZD6R power supply that I use in my HP Pavilon
AMD ATHLON Model#A6242N I wanted to know if its possiable to use a FSP350-60PLN power supply to replace it does any one know????

[mariushm]

Re: Need a little help

That ATX250 is a standard ATX case. Any ATX power supply will work, so yeah, that FSP350 will work.

[Pals23]

Re: Need a little help

That ATX250 is a standard ATX case. Any ATX power supply will work, so yeah, that FSP350 will work.

Thanks for your help every supply place that I contacted didnt want to give me a answer i was afraid to hook it up. I noticed on the 20 pin connectorFSP350 there was one extra white wire that wasnt on the atx250 and a few extra wires on the 20 pin on the FSP350 so im guessing it will be ok??

[mariushm]

Re: Need a little help

The white wire is for -12v if I'm not mistaken - it's no longer used in more modern systems, and even old systems didn't use it much.

It was marked as optional quite a few years ago so some manufacturers don't even use it anymore.

Quite a few wires in that 20pin connector have the same function, there's just several of them so thinner cables can be used instead of one big cable. It's not out of the ordinary to not have some cables in that connector of the 250w power supply

ATX power supplies initially had 20 pin connectors, newer ATX power supplies have 24 pins but usually the extra 4 pins can be detached from the connector to get the standard 20 pin connector.


The extra 4 wires in a 24 pin connector just provide more power, if the motherboard needs it. So if your old motherboard has a 20 pin connector, or your old power supply had a 20 pin connector, you'll be fine. It would only be a possible problem if the motherboard had a 24 pin connector and you try to use a power supply with a 20pin connector.

[Pals23]

Re: Need a little help

The white wire is for -12v if I'm not mistaken - it's no longer used in more modern systems, and even old systems didn't use it much.

It was marked as optional quite a few years ago so some manufacturers don't even use it anymore.

Quite a few wires in that 20pin connector have the same function, there's just several of them so thinner cables can be used instead of one big cable. It's not out of the ordinary to not have some cables in that connector of the 250w power supply

ATX power supplies initially had 20 pin connectors, newer ATX power supplies have 24 pins but usually the extra 4 pins can be detached from the connector to get the standard 20 pin connector.



The extra 4 wires in a 24 pin connector just provide more power, if the motherboard needs it. So if your old motherboard has a 20 pin connector, or your old power supply had a 20 pin connector, you'll be fine. It would only be a possible problem if the motherboard had a 24 pin connector and you try to use a power supply with a 20pin connector.

So are you saying that if all power supplys have 20 pins and they are close to the same watts and the correct ourput they will work?

Thank you for your quick respone to my question

[mariushm]

Re: Need a little help

(Checked the pinouts, the white wire is actually -5v, not -12v ... -5v is now optional, not -12v)

Otherwise, not quite but you're not far away.

The old power supply conforms to a standard called ATX.

You can replace it with any power supply that conforms to the ATX standard.

This ATX standard, just like other standards such as SATA or USB, has been improved over time, but each change was made in such a way to make the new ATX power supplies as backwards compatible as possible.

The initial ATX standard said the power connector has 20 pins and that in those pins there must be 3.3v , -5v , +5v , -12v, +12v

In a later version, they decided -5v is no longer required, so if manufacturers want to make power supplies simpler, they can remove the white wire in the 20pin connector and the circuitry inside the power supply that was required to make that -5v.

A while later, a new ATX version said 4 pins are added to a side of the connector, for motherboards which require more power on 5v and 12v.

A lot of power supplies actually have these extra pins optional - the 24 pin connector can be split in two, leaving you with the old 20 pin connector and the 4 pins you can leave hanging.

So your particular 250w power supply has a 20 pin connector, with the white wire missing.

The 350w FSP has that white wire, which just means the manufacturer decided to leave the -5v circuitry and the wire in the connector. It makes no difference.

Your motherboard is probably equiped with a 20 pin connector, so it doesn't care if you use a standard ATX power supply with 20 pin connector, or one of those power supplies with 24 pin connectors that can be separated into a 20pin + 4 pin connectors.

There are power supplies with 20 pin connectors but they're wired differently (Dell I think was doing these tricks).

[TELVM]

Re: Need a little help

You'll find great info on the subject in these links Pals23:

All about the various PC power supply cables and connectors

Uncle Tom's Power Supply 101