Okay, so I screwed the pooch on a new computer. I'm building a compact computer for my family as a Christmas gift, and I assumed that since I was using a mATX motherboard it'd use a 20-pin connector. Yeah, stupid on my part for ordering without checking. Anyway, so I'd rather not wait the week for a 20-to-24 pin adapter to get here (especially because I won't be able to check if everything's in working order until it gets here), so I was wondering--exactly WHAT is the difference? I mean, if they can make an adapter with just a few extra wires, is it possible to make my own? Or jury-rig one temporarily to get the thing booted up and see if everything works?
You can use a 24 pin PSU plug on a 20 pin motherboard (as long as the extra 4 pins on the plug dont hit anything on the board). Or you can use a 20 pin PSU plug on a 24 Pin motherboard. Don't expect the latter to overclock well!!! The extra 4 pins offer extra voltage to help stability. A low end system can manage without them if you only have a 20Pin PSU. Some motherboard manufactures (eg. Gigabyte) actually fit a removable cap on the extra 4 pins on their motherboards sockets to indicate a 24pn PSU in not necessary if you don't have one.
^ what he said. The 20 > 24 pin adapter doesn't really help things anyway as there are still the same 20 wires to carry the power to the mobo. The extra 2 x 12v's & 2 x gnds are connected via the tracks on the mobo, which kinda makes the adapter pointless - the point of the extra 4 wires is to lower the resistance from the psu to mobo to improove oc'ing, voltage/pc stability, etc as cmberry said. If you are using a powerfull graphics card & cpu then you probably want to install a decent powerfull psu, which would have 24 pins. But even if the pc is weak however, a decent psu is important for reliability - crappy psu's can blow every part in the pc! Especially old/worn crappy brand psus. If you give FULL system hardware specs (cpu, gpu, hdd's, dvd's, psu make & watts) we'll tell ya if your psu is good enough, and if not, what psus would be good for you.
You can't (normally) use a 24-pin atx connector on a 20-pin board, but you can use a 20pin psu on a 24pin board. However it is better to use a 24 with a 24 if possible.
You can use a 20 pin psu on a 24 pin mobo, i currently have one running in cupboard as a server. The work fine, i think it reduces the power availble to the usb, or thats what i understood when i tried to look it up.
yeah, you can - as long as there arent any motherboard components in the way - like capacitors or resistors - the spare 4 pins just sit on the outside of the 20 pin motherboard connector. I've done this many many times & its worked fine. But I've also not been able to do it many many times due to stuff on the board being in the way - thats why a purchased a 24pin to 20pin adaptor.
Depends on the ATX socket used - if the outsides are thicker than the internal partitions then it won't
Well, it's a pretty low-end system. Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H AMD Athlon X2 4800+ Rosewill 350 W PSU It should have more than enough juice, I mean, I'm not even using a graphics card, just the integrated stuff. Haven't ordered RAM yet, I was just using 256 MB of old, old 400mhz RAM from my old Compaq. Anyway, I suppose that means I've got problems elsewhere, since I've already tried booting with the 20-pin PSU and nothing happened (No fans spinning up at all).
Yes, the four-pin is plugged in. I'm checking over everything now. Might check it with my gaming PC PSU to see if it boots. Might have a fried MoBo.
If it's old old 400MHz RAM it will almost certainly be DDR1, I think You'll find that the GA-MA69GM-S2H only takes DDR2 RAM I'm in agreement with everyone above on the matter of the power cable, a 20 pin ATX cable in a 24 pin socket will work fine. Best of luck
Perhaps I was wrong about the 400mhz then. Not sure, it's just the default junk from the Compaq. Anyway, tried it with 2GB of my 800mhz from my other computer, and it didn't work either. I push the power button and the LED up front turns on for less than half a second, the fans just barely start to turn, and then it shuts down again. I checked with my other PSU (a 500W Antec), and it didn't work either (though it did give me a hell of a time getting my gaming PC running again, trying to reach in and plug the four-pin without unsetting the heatsink). I checked the motherboard to be sure it wasn't shorting out on anything, checked all the power connections, everything. I'm stymied. Anybody got any ideas?
gigabyte ga-ma69gm-s2h boot problems hi all i have just got a gigabyte ga-ma69gm-s2h motherboard and 2gb of memory and a 3.2ghz am2 cpu i only have a 20 pin power supply which i conected to my new motherboard and i got it to boot for 2 or 3 seconds then it switch's it's self off. i think i may need a new power supply with 24 pin connecters on it to make my system stable does anyone know if this will solve my problems. thanks!
Mine worked fine with the 20-pin PSU, and it's the same MoBo. I just sent it in for replacement, it was a faulty motherboard, not a PSU problem. Does yours have the same symptoms mine does? You say it boots for two or three seconds, which is much longer than mine, so it probably isn't the same problem. First things first, remove the motherboard from the case, remove everything but the processor and ram, and plug ONLY the 20-pin connector (not the four pin processor power). Switch it on (short the power switch pins with a screwdriver is the easiest way, as mentioned by somebody earlier). If it stays powered up, move on. Otherwise, make sure RAM is seated properly, processor is in the socket correctly, and try again--still nothing, and you've probably got faulty hardware. If it did stay powered up, try plugging in the four pin processor power and try booting again. Repeat with adding one component at a time until you find the problem.
new motherboard boot problems Thanks for your help, When i first got the motherboard out of the box and i plugged in two sticks of ram which i had to put into slot 3 & 4 as my cpu cooler is the scythe infinity which is massive ,and it blocks ram slot 1 on the gigabyte motherboard so i i'm using 3 & 4 which i checked in the manual and this is ok. I did start to reinstall windows xp a fresh, I did get it to boot from cd and hit any key to install xp,It started to check my computer but the blue warning screen came up and locked up ,but now like i said it just reboots for about 3 seconds then switches off . I will start from scratch ,I hope it is just a bad connection and not motherboard fault. Thanks again for your help.
