In Over My Head

[goosegas]

I recently made the huge mistake of buying a Cyberpower Computer with an Xtremegear 600W Power Supply. (2 mistakes actually)

I guess I read one too few threads before choosing the components for this build.

After 2 months, my monitor has begun to dim and my Aerocool 2000 Fan Control, Temp Sensor unit is considerably dimmer than 2 months ago.

I followed the advise of just about everybody and ordered a Corsair 750TX PSU.

I already knew I was going to find quite a wiring bundle on the new PSU, by reading and looking at the Newegg photos. What I didn't expect was what I found when I opened the wiring side of the Coolermaster HAF 912 case.

I guess this should not have been a big surprise to me as the build has a DVD Drive, Card Reader & the Aerocool unit taking up 4 bays in the front of the unit. Between the fan control wires, the temp sensors and the power cables, you wouldn't believe what it looks like.

I took a deep breath and said "I just need to follow the wires from the power supply and label them as I disconnect them. I quickly found out that this was going to be a task and a half.

The peripheral cables on the existing power supply were plugged into other peripheral cables, which then branched off to either a component or split to two two wire plugs, which I can't even see where they are going.

Even the Geforce GTX 460 GPU is confusing. The old power supply has two 6 hole plugs, but one of the plugs is a dummy, so there are only 5 wires per plug. The Corsair has the two 6 plug holes, with 6 wires in each.

I still didn't want to give up, so I said maybe I can just disconnect at the very first connection for each bundle coming out of the old PSU and just connect the new PSU to those points, forgetting about where all these other branch offs go to. I quickly noticed that each individual wire coming out of the Corsair was almost twice as thick as those coming out of the XtremeGear. To me, I think the only way to do this properly would be to go from the PSU to the component, not using all these thin wired connections and branch offs.

Even the AC cord to the Corsair is considerably heavier than the XtremeGear.

If I didn't already take a beating from Cyberpower, I might just take it somewhere and pay to have it installed.

Cyberpower refused to do anything but send me another XtremeGear PSU, even though they must be aware of the poor quality, especially if they read their own forums. They wouldn't even allow me to pay them the upgrade for the Corsair. Even if they sent me the same XtremeGear unit, which would make no sense, they wouldn't do that until I returned their $25.00 POS first.

My head is spinning over this and I am afraid that if I don't get this Corsair in there, my components will be degrading by the minute.

I understand that without seeing the unit, it is very difficult to make suggestions, but I really need some help on this one.

Thanks All!!!!

 

[cabinfever1977]

Unplug all old power supply cables,don't worry about labeling as there mostly all the same anyway. I would write down how many devices you need to plug back in.
Take out old power supply.

Install new power supply. Hook up new power cables to everything that needs power,doesnt matter what cables goes where except the main mother board cables have to be pluged into the board according to the directions.

 

[Aastii]

You will only have 5 types of plug:

20 + 4 pin motherboard connector:

It should be pretty obvious where on the motherboard it goes, it is the only large connector. You want to count, on the motherboard, one row of pins for if there are 10 or 12. Now clearly, there are 2 rows, so that means you have either a 20 or 24 pin motherboard connector. If you have 24, push the "extension" onto the 20 pin connector. These are together from your power supply and will just click together.

4 + 4 pin CPU power connector:

This also goes to your motherboard, however to a smaller socket. If you look at your CPU (top left as you look in your case, it is under the heatsink), either to the top left of that, or sometimes the bottom left, rarely anywhere else, you will see either a 4 or 8 pin connector. Much like the motherboard connector, if you have 4, just put it straight in, if you have 8, snap the 4 pin + extension together.

Because they are both 4 pin, look at the connector on the power supply. You will notice one has 4 square blocks, one has 2 square, 2 rounded at opposite corners to each other. It is this one which goes into the motherboard.

SATA power connector:

These are general power connectors that go to either your hard drives or optical drives. Rarely will they be used for devices such as fan controllers or displays, but there are some which do use the SATA interface. These just slide into your hard drives/optical drives which have a SATA power connector. Look at the notch on one side though for which way it goes in.

Molex & Floppy:

On that pictures there are 2 connectors. The larger one is a molex connector, and like the SATA, is used as a general power cable for hard drives, optical drives, and for other internal devices. 1 side is flat, the other has diagonal edges so will only go in one way.

The second is very rarely used now, it is a floppy drive power connector which few devices use.

Finally, PCIe power connector:

This is what plugs into your video card. You will have some with only 6 pins, some like the one in the picture with 6+2 pins which can be used for PCIe cards that require an 8 pin external power source. Again, these plug straight in.

So long as you can recognise the shape of the cable that you need, it will work. You don't need adapters because the power supply has all of those on it and can just be plugged straight into a device, even if tehre are several connectors on one lead. The only time you will need an adapter is if the device does not use one of those, but a different power source, in which case you will need the adapter for it. Don't worry about everything having to go in the exact same place, it doesn't, all molex cables are the same, all SATA cables are the same, so long as the device uses it, plug em in.

I should also point out, some devices have multiple power inputs, for instance you may have a hard drive which has a SATA and a molex port on the back. DO NOT plug in both, this will kill the component. You need only ONE of the cables