- Nov 7, 2001
- 9,380
- 26
- 101
Long story short, I'm replacing the stock PSU in a Dell Inspiron 620 (Core i3), to get the header for the PCI Express connector for an old GeForce 8800 GS that I'm adding to it. This is a standard ATX PSU, so no problem, I've done this dozens of times before. The PSU I am installing is a BFG 650w, which has been working just fine in another machine.
It turns out that the Dell motherboard only has one 4-pin ATX 12v connector, while the BFG PSU provides two. This is also fine and I've seen this before. Just plug the one that fits, and leave the other one dangling, and everything should be fine. But it's not. The Dell won't power up. I could see the led on the board turns on when I connected the power and flip the switch, showing that the main power connector is plugged in and working, but power button doesn't do anything. I double checked by connecting the original PSU, and it powers up just fine.
Did some searching and found people with similar problem, but no solution. The only thing that I noticed is that the original ATX 12v connector cables are brown and black, instead of yellow and black in the replacement PSU, I'm not sure if this makes any difference at all.
Anyway, what do you think are my options now? This is supposed to be a simple 'side grade' type effort to combine the best available components from two old computers. It's so irritating that something that I thought would only take 20 minutes tops (opening up cases, little dusting, replace PSU, add video card) and I ended up spending more than an hour already trying stuff and googling, and still I have no idea how to achieve what I want.
It turns out that the Dell motherboard only has one 4-pin ATX 12v connector, while the BFG PSU provides two. This is also fine and I've seen this before. Just plug the one that fits, and leave the other one dangling, and everything should be fine. But it's not. The Dell won't power up. I could see the led on the board turns on when I connected the power and flip the switch, showing that the main power connector is plugged in and working, but power button doesn't do anything. I double checked by connecting the original PSU, and it powers up just fine.
Did some searching and found people with similar problem, but no solution. The only thing that I noticed is that the original ATX 12v connector cables are brown and black, instead of yellow and black in the replacement PSU, I'm not sure if this makes any difference at all.
Anyway, what do you think are my options now? This is supposed to be a simple 'side grade' type effort to combine the best available components from two old computers. It's so irritating that something that I thought would only take 20 minutes tops (opening up cases, little dusting, replace PSU, add video card) and I ended up spending more than an hour already trying stuff and googling, and still I have no idea how to achieve what I want.
Facebook
Twitter