Can 20-pin PSUs be used in 24-pin boards?

[Steve]

(Disclaimer: I got to this many posts with a lot of neffing)


A friend called me last week with a computer problem, it turned out that his chipset cooler failed and he fried his board. So he ordered a new on from The Egg and we thought it was the same, but this one has a 24-pin receptacle and his PSU only has the 20-pin connector. I thought maybe he could use the 4-pin connector too but it's already plugged in to its receptacle. So, can he get away with 20 into 24 or does he need a new PSU?

 

[keeleysam]

Yes.

 

[mpilchfamily]

Yes so long as the PSU has enough power to support the system. The older PSUs like that put more of its power to the 5V rail while newer systems require more power from the 12V rail(s) then the 5V rail.

 

[Steve]

Thanks, nobody on Ventrilo knew for sure last night, so they all recommended an adapter. Fair enough, but about how strong on the rails should his PSU be to try this without the adapter?

 

[SparkyJJO]

What hardware is he running, like what CPU and gfx card and such? What is his PSU?

As for the adapter, it won't do a darn thing to help the PSU support anything power-wise. The PSU still only has a certain amount of power available. Now some mobos require the 24 pins be all connected, but so far all the ones I've hooked up to a 20pin PSU have worked fine since typically all the 12V lines are connected together in the board anyway (same with the 5V, 3.3V, and ground).

 

[Steve]

Not sure what his PSU is, but he's got a 939 x2 3500 (or 3800?) and I believe his video card is a 6600 or a 6800.