[geeks] Experience with using 20 pin ATX PSU in motherboard that takes 24 pin EATX power connector?

Nate nate at portents.com
Sun May 2 03:41:53 CDT 2010


It's designed to work, the extra four pins are just more 12V and ground, it's
just not ideal if it doesn't have the extra 12V.

That sounds like a *really* old power supply (or a really old design) you have
there if it has such a beefy 5V line, which stopped being used for CPU power
back with socket 423, i.e. 10 years ago.  Since both CPUs and video cards draw
off of 12V starting with socket 478 and later, how many amps you have on the
12V is what matters.  And the most advanced power supply designs out there
right now are 12V primarily, with some secondary 12V DC to 5V DC and 3.3V DC
converters, which allows the bets of them to achieve greater than 90%
efficiency under any load.  Whatever power supply you have is going to be
converting a lot of electricity into heat.

On May 2, 2010, at 3:51 AM, Jonathan Groll wrote:

> I've got an Asus cheapie motherboard (P5KPL-AM SE) that has a 24 pin
> EATX power connector on it with which I would like to use a 20 pin ATX
> power supply. I know that some motherboards will let you plugin a 20
> pin and you'll be okay, what has the experience on list been of this?
> The machine does start up with the power connected in this manner and
> seems to be fine, but I haven't put it under any kind of load yet.
> By the way, I'm not asking about the supplementary P4 4 pin CPU power
> connector (I've made a plan with that using an adaptor).
> The ATX PSU that I've got can give 12V @5A and 5V 22A, if that helps.
> Cheers,
> Jonathan
> _______________________________________________
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