Stan Hoeppner wrote: > Bob Proulx wrote: > > Most newer motherboards now require this addtional power connector. > > But if your power supply does not provide one then you can add an > > adaptor and convert one of the 4-pin power connectors to the ATX12V > > 4-pin motherboard power connector. That works fine. I have done that > > on a couple of systems. > > This method is usually fine for lower wattage CPUs. Be aware that using > this method provides only one additional +12V lead (wire) and one ground > from the PSU. The 4 pin aux CPU power standard provides two +12V leads > and two grounds. The new 8 pin aux standard provides 4 +12V leads and 4 > grounds. I have two of those adapters. One uses one 4-pin power plug. The other uses two 4-pin power plugs. I take it that you would approve of the one that uses two but not the one that uses only one. :-) And now I could be cantankerous and plug those two power plugs into a single power feed wire that had two connectors? Obviously for more power I would at the least try to use a second power supply rail and connect one each to two different rails. So the one with two 4-pin plugs could be plugged into two different supply rails and everything would meet spec just fine. Or I could plug it in oppositely and use a cpu that needs excessive 12V current and over stress things. I am sorry but I am just being cantankerous in this paragraph. > If running an 80+ watt CPU I recommend against this converter strategy > as you'll have only 1/2 of the aux +12V conductors needed to safely > carry the current load. You may sneak by at 80W, but at 95W you're > tickling the dragon, and with a 135W CPU you will fry some wires, > ruining your PSU, and likely the mobo as well. Decent PSUs with the > proper aux connectors are really inexpensive. Why gamble? If you are running that much power then I think upgrading the power supply is the best answer. In actuality I have only used these adapters on low power Atom motherboards. I am down in the 20 watts of power envelope area. So for me the single rail is more than enough. On every other system I have simply upgraded to a newer power supply. The new supply has the newer power leads and no adapters are needed. Being new I feel that it should reset the age clock on them. Being new they tend to be more efficient and draw less total power. They have become extremely cheap (and I say cheap instead of inexpensive) and replacing the power supply for $15 and keeping a couple of spares around to replace them as they need it has become very cost effective. But even expensive supplies fail. I just saw a rather expensive 700W supply in a friend's system burn up shooting sparks out the back fan and burning a large hole in the circuit board. It appears that heat and vibration caused it to rub a part through a soft insulator and short a component against a frame member. That is by far the most violent failure I have seen for a long time! Most of the cheap ones fail by fan bearing failure and without a fan it simply gets too hot and goes into thermal shutdown. Be sure to use oven hot pads when handling such items as they are extremely hot. Bob
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