Power supply connectors:

[pzkpfw]

Power supply connectors:

The power supply in my Son's PC was squeeling (I'm sure it was "electronic", not the fan) so I decided to replace it. Went from 400W to 650W at the same time.

Got it in, and everything works - he's even stopped getting weird interference noises in his headphones, so very happy.

But one thing I noted:

His video card has a 3x2 socket (similar in style to the 4x2 CPU socket) that had an adaptor going to two old style Molex connectors, which connected to two Molex plugs on his old supply.

The new supply seems more modern, and had a couple of "PCI-e" connectors, that the old supply didn't have, in a 3-or-4x2 arrangement. That is, a 3x2 with another 1x2 next to it, so it can be used in a 3x2 or 4x2 socket.

It seemed possible these were for cards like his (it is in a PCI-e slot ...) so I tried to connect, but it seemed to not want to connect (I had it the right way around), so instead I just used the 2-way Molex adaptor again. The new supply still had 3 Molex so that was fine.

When I looked again at the adaptor, it turned out one of the pins was missing (as in, possibly a "key"), and this wasn't "missing" on the connectors on the new supply, so maybe that's a sign they weren't meant to be used there. (I couldn't look at the socket on the video card without pulling it out).

Anyway, anyone got wise words on what that's all about? Should I have just pushed harder on the plug? Or is this length-of-string stuff that's too vague to have any comment on?

Cheers,


(Edit: picture of what I'm talking about here. Except the plug on far right in pic has socket missing in middle of one row http://www.playtool.com/pages/psuconnectors/connectors.html#pciexpress ) .

[bogan]

I'm not aware of any card version being incompatible with connectors like that. As you surmised, the 6+2 connector is designed for that backwards compatibility. For a lot of cards and supplies the connectors aren't too critical, the power flows from a single supply rail in PSU, to a single rail use on the card. Only get multiple wires in the to minimise voltage drop / electrical losses, which are only a factor on the really power hungry cards anyway.

[Gremlin]

First up, the 2nd CPU plug can be 4x2 or 2x2, it varies. Usually higher end boards have the 4x2 arrangement.

As you say, for the pci-e connector, it's 3x2 and 4x2 (3x2 + 1x2) for max compatibility. Lowest end cards get power from the bus and then go up to 2x 4x2 (so imagine having 3 cards in SLI etc).

Same as the CPU plug, there will be a clip on the plug plus the notch on the socket to indicate which way around, plus if you have a look at each of the plugs they're not symmetrical (look at the main CPU one for comparison as well, some are square, some are 6 sided with 2 cut corners). This should also indicate exactly which way they're meant to be plugged.

There shouldn't be any issue with them not plugging into each other, that part is quite standard. If you can, upload a pic? I've now idea how many computers I've built, and bar manufacturing issues, never had issues with plugs not connecting to cards etc.

[Lelitu]

In my experience building computers, if the plug doesn't fit with minimal force either way around, it's the wrong plug for that socket.

Still, that does sound odd, and pics would help sort it out if possible?

[bogan]

In my experience building computers, if the plug doesn't fit with minimal force either way around, it's the wrong plug for that socket.

Still, that does sound odd, and pics would help sort it out if possible?

Nah, a lot of the GPU plugs take a bit of force behind em, you have to hold the card as well though, pushing it through the PCIE slot on the mobo gets a lot of flex (an possibly worse), especially when the plugs can be 150+ mm off to the right of the slot.

In each case you'll feel the plastic bit locate before the connectors actually connect and it gets trick to push in, so you know you're going the right way.