PSU Hack

[theinfamousbob]

I've been looking at new motherboards, all of which have the new ATX specification including the four new pins from the PSU. Two are ground and two are +12v. Would it be safe to take an existing PSU without the 4 pin adapter and hack it on to a 4 pin connector? I'm not sure if I'd be over-stressing the PSU by pulling more wattage on one of the 12v lines than it can handle, but it'd save me $50....

I have an ATX connection from and old PSU that I cut off and that I could modify with a dremel to fit the four pin connector on the motherboard.

Thanks for any input.

-Infamous

 

[justDIY]

you can use a regular atx power supply, that doesn't have the ATX+12V connector ... but rather than hacking something with a dremel, just get a molex to +12v adapter cable ... they're like $5 and will fit perfect.

psu manuf would lead you to believe the +12v connection is something special, and on really expensive psu it is ($150+), but on the ordinary psu, it leads back to the same capacitor all the yellow wires originate from... the single 12v rail.

what sets apart the $150-$500 psus is they have multiple 12v rails, one or more for periphals like drives, one solely for the switchmode power supply built into the motherboard that converts 12v down to 1.?v for the memory and processor(s) ... you mainly need this in a server that might have 2, 4 or more processors and 8-32 banks of ram

 

[theinfamousbob]

Thanks for the info...I didn't know if there were adapters and if the 12V connector needed a seperate rail.


Thanks again! (although I might buy a new power supply anyways...I don't know where mine came from )

-Infamous