Help with 24 Pin ATX Adapter!

roder

March 2, 2005 1:42:19 AM

Here's my situation. After a video card and hard drive failure I decided that I was sick of my old Athlon 1400 system, and decided to sell all of the parts on Ebay (Except for the Case, a <A HREF="http://www.startech.com/ststore/itemdetail.cfm?product_..." target="_new"> StarTech Cool Alluminator</A>). I purchased a new P4 530J with an Asus P5AD2-E Premium and a CoolerMaster RealPower RS-450-ACLY Power Supply.

As I was assembling my new system, I went to hook the power up to the case that for the motorized front door and temperature display and realized that it requires a proprietary 5-pin connector in order to hook it up to the power supply. The case ships with a 20-Pin ATX Male to 20-Pin ATX Female Adapter with a 5 pin lead for this purpose. (See <A HREF="http://home.gwu.edu/~roder/IMG_1864.JPG" target="_new"> here </A> for a picture) However, my new powersupply and motherboard have 24 Pin ATX Connetions. I have search the web and called every manufacturer that i can think of, including StarTech and SkyHawk whom make these cases, and several custom cable manufactures to try and get this cable and nobody has it or is able to make just one of these (if i want 500, it's not a problem)

So I'm left with two choices

1. Get a 24 to 20 Pin Adapter, hook up the case's adapter, and then use a 20 to 24 Pin Adapter to hook it up to the motherboard. This is obviously not ideal, and was not reccomended by Asus.

2. Buy a new case, which i would rather not do as I am a college student on a limited budget and don't really want to spend another 100+ on a case

Does anyone have a better solution, or is anybody able to make this cable for me?? I am willing to pay for your time and troubles, I really just don't want to buy a new case!!

And if i have to buy a new case- i need something with good airflow, is quiet, and can hold 4-6 hard drives.

Thank you!!

-roder

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arnold873

March 3, 2005 4:35:54 AM

can`t you just pry the door off?
at least until you can afford a new case

or actually you can cut off the adapter they gave you and splice it in to the new one making sure you go to all the same leads they did.

your all just a bunch of slaves
how long you gonna let them push you aroundEdited by arnold873 on 03/03/05 01:39 AM.

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mozzartusm

March 3, 2005 10:31:45 AM

I think you have alot more problems ahead of you than you may realize. First thing that hits me is the specs on that PSU. Is it the split rail with 12 AMPS on 1 12V rail and 10 on the other? Also what video card are you using? For the CPU that you bought, you have the absoulte best MOBO on the market. However you have power hungry MOBO and CPU and I doubt that your PSU is going to be up for the task. I know this board well and the CPU also. How are you cooling this system? Do you realize that this line of CPU's has heat issues? If you dont have a very high quality Heatsink and fan like the Zalman $50.00 or better than that water cooling then you are screwed before you even start.

What brand RAM did you get? I need to know the details. List your system specs, all the hardware and model numbers. Some boards will do fine with a 20 pin PSU but this is not one of them.

Dont take this reply the wrong way, I realise that I didnt have very many positve things to say so far. I have one of these setups so I know first hand what it takes to get these things running. I can promise you one thing. If its setup properly then it is one bad MAMAJAMMA, but if it is not done just so it will be a nightmare.

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roder

March 3, 2005 2:50:05 PM

No worries about the negatives, I'd rather find out about potential problems now rather than later. In terms of the exact specs of the PSU, i'm not really sure, I purchased it cause i thought it would be powerful enough to power this system, but here are the specs, so you can give me a better idea.

This system is to replace an old Athlon 1400MHz that was basically used to store digitial media (until one of my 160GB HDD's crashed and I lost a good portion of my stuff), and to replace my aging series 1 TiVo. Soo..

OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows Media Center Edition 2005
MOTHERBOARD: Asus P5AD2-E Premium
PROCESSOR: Intel 530J P4 3.0GHz
HEATSINK: ThermalRight XP-120, Artic Silver5 Thermal Paste, w/ Panaflo 120mm fan
RAM: WINTEC 512M 3AMD2533-512M2-R (PC 4200, DDR2)
HDDs: 160GB Western Digitial IDE for Main Drive (Parititoned into 40GB for OS / 120GB for LiveTV)
4 Western Digitial WD2000JD 200GB SATA Drives using the Silicon Image's Sil3114 RAID-5 option (i know it's Software based, but after losing my data, i want something redundant, but don't want to lose 50% of my storage for RAID 1- i should get 600GB out of this config)
OPTICAL: NEC ND-3520A DVD+/-RW 16x
VIDEO CARD: ATI Sapphire X300 128MB TV/DVI Out (no separate power req)
TV TUNER: Happauge PVR-500 Dual Tuner
PSU: Coolermaster RS-450-ACL
CASE: ???

The current case i have has one 80mm fan near the harddrives, one 80mm on the side panel, and two 80mm on the back near the processor. But, I will probably have to end up buying a new case for this system, because of the problem in the original post.

I don't really feel comfortable splicing the wires, i feel like that is a recipie for a fire inside of my system. I'm still trying to find this adapter, but feel that it is definatley a lost cause because of this stupid 5-pin adapter.

Heat/Nosie are definately still a concern espeically with all of these HDD's running, any suggestions?

Thanks for your help

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mozzartusm

March 4, 2005 2:16:13 AM

Is that 1 stick of ram or 2X256? I am not familiar with that brand so I cant comment on the quality. I dont see it listed on the ASUS MEM compatibilty chart and that would really bother me. Just because its not on there doesnt mean that it wont work, but there is no promise that it will function well with this system. Heres the link to the chart, double check it to make sure that I didnt overlook it. <A HREF="http://www.allstarshop.com/shop/product.asp?dept_id=268..." target="_new">http://www.allstarshop.com/shop/product.asp?dept_id=268...;/A>

Can you get a refund or exchange the case and PSU? I dont want to lead you in the wrong direction and have you spend money that you could have saved. The thing here is that these setups in particular will stress componenets such as the PSU, CPU, Northbridge, Southbridge if not setup properly. The good news is that this is one of the most advanced and user friendly Motherboards on the market. I love mine. I personally have a Thermaltake Shark for a case. Its a great case in all respects. Looks really good, and builty very solid. It has room so that you can work without getting to cramped. The case is designed so that it the ventilation is outstanding. It comes with a front and rear 120mm fan and it has a honeycomb side panel. I have another system that has a case with a side fan but it doesnt stay nearly as cool as the SHARK.

I dont know anything about that particular heatsink, but just in case it doesnt cool the CPU well enough be sure that you dont let anything happpen to the thermal material that is on the stock Intel heatsink. They seem to do a fairly good job of cooling and their thermal paste is probably better than an aftermarket paste. I would try the other one first, and just see what happens.

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