I have never come across it and will never use it, but I just thought, all those ugly power wires can mess up otherwise awesome cases, could you get rid of molex's and ATX connectors completely? You could just solder directly to the motherboard or HD etc. It would be an ambitious project, but could look way better, plus there are only a few voltages coming from the PS so you could take apart the PSU, find what wires are actually needed (There will be a ground wire going to the motherboard and optical drives and molex's etc, even though they will be connected inside the PS) and hard-wire them directly to the back of the motherbooard, removing all connectors on the cable and motherboard, and then lead some off there to the HD and DVD drives. Like i say, I wouldn't dare something liek this, but if someone does, it could look amazingly proffesional if done well.
its very ambitious indeed, actually i had the idea of if i was doing that, thatd id solder all the atx and p4 power behind the mobo... so thatd be 100% outa sight, and i dont know if id go as far as the hd's and optical drives, but what would be cool, is to find a spare male atx and male p4 connector, and solder wires from the back of ur mobo, and have it run to the other side of ur case, so you could plug ur psu cables inot there, so that u could still remove ur mobo, and/or powersupply, w/o having to resolder...
Do you (or anyone else) know how many wires need to come out of a PS and what voltages? I always thought there were about 5
Sort of would defeat the object of upgradability, would it? Not to mention replacement in the case of component failure... It would be better to look at slim, small connectors. SATA power connectors are already heading that way. A PS needs to just have fairly minimal load to function. So three lines (+5V, +12V and GND) would be enough in theory. However you cannot hook a massive ammount of equipment on just three lines --there is a maximum rating for the Amps that they will cope with.
well i think he was talking about to the motherboard, which has a range of voltage wires it needs basically i will outline "theoritically" what a motherboard will need to operate on the bare minium of wires, one thing you must keep in mind, every single wire in the case needs to travel back to the case ground or powersupply black wires (ov) to work, so all load that you send across all the +/- power wires all need to travel back through the ground, for example, why molex lines carry 2 black(0v) 1 red(5v) and 1 yellow(12v), so that any power carried by either the 12v or 5v lines can be properly grounded, however it is silly to think that every line on your motherboard will carry its maxium voltage, far from it, sooooooo to your motherboard you will need: 2x orange(3.3v), you may only need 1, 2 just to be safe 2x red(5v), you probaly need both of these 1x yellow(12v), not including p4 cable wires 3x black(0v), you may need more, but 3 should do it 1x green(PwrGood), this is the power good wire 1x purple(5vsb), this is the usb power, and or standy power wire Note: the following lines arent required on all motherboards 1x blue(-5v) 1x brown(-12v) i hope this helps in some way cheers
If you want to stealth it, get an ATX extension cable and cut off the end that plugs into the Mobo. Then remove the Mobo ATX header and solder the wires from the cable into the PC Board there, from the back side. Repeat with the 4 pin CPU power header (if your board has one of those) and route all the wires under the Mobo. You can then plug the power supply into the ATX extension socket end. Nice and Clean. One Tip.. The ATX power supply header is going to be an utter b***h to remove, the pins connect to large areas of copper in the Mobo and if you dont have a very good iron, you're either going to have problems getting the solder hot enough to melt, or overheating and burning your Mobo. The best way is to carefully cut apart the ATX header and remove the pins one by one. I'd suggest getting a helper to hold an iron to the back of the pin, while you hold an iron to the front, let the pin get nice and loose then yank it with a needlenose pliers. Dont do adjacent pins unless you have regulated temperature soldering irons to avoid damaging the board with heat. Add some solder to help transfer heat, you can clean it up later. You may want to cover the rest of the board with foil to prevent solder shorts. Just leave a window around the ATX header, front and back.
