I want to fix up my old PC!

[Advice Pro]

I bought a new PSU & Y adapter for my old PC. The PC has 2 drives, a SATA HDD, a spare internal IDE HDD & the PSU has:

1 x 20 Pin Molex Power Connector
2 x 4 Pin Molex Power Connector
3 x 4 Pin Molex Connector
1 x 4 Pin Berg Connector (Floppy drive connector)

This is a diagram of the mobo:



From the PSU, I've connected:

The 20 Pin Molex Power Connector to ATXPW1 of the mobo.
1 4 Pin Molex Power Connector to ATX12V1 of the mobo.
2 of the 4 Pin Molex Connector, which were connected to each other, to the DVD drives
The 3rd 4 Pin Molex Connector to a Y adapter which connects to the IDE & SATA HDDs

The SATA HDD connects via SATA cable to SATA1 of the mobo.

If you don't know what some of those things are above, see these illustrations:

PSU parts http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Ts4RFzi
Y adapter http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812200214&cm_re=Y_cable-_-12-200-214-_-Product
SATA cable http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812120076&cm_re=SATA_cable-_-12-120-076-_-Product


Please check everything to see what else I need to do! I have an IDE cable and I don't know what it's for.

 

[hunter315]

For the SATA drives you will need SATA power cables. What PSU did you get that has so few cables and no SATA power cables?

You will need the IDE cable to connect the IDE HDD to the motherboard. If your optical drivers are IDE as well you will need a second, your motherboard appears to support 2 IDE cables luckily.

 

[Advice Pro]

For the SATA drives you will need SATA power cables.

The Y adapter has the piece that connects to the SATA drive.

If your optical drivers are IDE as well you will need a second

What are optical drivers and how do I tell if they're IDE?

 

[runswindows95]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ATA_on_mainboard.jpg <IDE

 

[Paperdoc]

"Optical drive" is a general term for any drive based on light for storage and reading - CD reader, CD burner, DVD reader, DVD burner, BluRay. They are available either with IDE or SATA data interfaces. Most use the 4-pin Molex power connector like IDE HDD's, plus a data connector.

You have one IDE HDD and one SATA HDD. On them you will see the different cable connectors. IDE drives have one 4-pin connector for its power input from the PSU, and one 40-pin (2 x 20, with one pin missing) for a ribbon data cable. An IDE data ribbon has 80 wires in it, but only 40 holes in each of its connectors (minus one that's blocked off). It also has a bump on one side so you can only plug it into a socket one way. Modern ones had three connectors on them - a Blue one that plugs into the IDE mobo port pinout, a Black one on the opposite end that should connect to the Master device on this port, and a Grey one in the middle for the Slave device.

A SATA device has a wider connector for the power supply input from the PSU, and a narrower one for the 7-wire ribbon data cable that connects to the SATA mobo port pinout. The data cable is identical on both ends, so it does not matter which end goes where. In SATA devices there are NO Master and Slave things to set - only one device per port. So on that basis you can tell whether any device is IDE or SATA from its back edge connectors.

To connect things to an IDE port you must set jumpers on pins on the unit's back edge between the cable connectors. There is a diagram on the unit. On any IDE port there MUST be one Master device, and it should be plugged into the end connector of the cable. IF you have a second device on the same cable / port, it MUST be set to Slave, and should be on the middle connector. If you have one HDD and one optical drive sharing a port, the HDD ought to be the Master.

On a SATA device, even if it has jumpers on pins on its back edge, do NOT change them - there is no Master or Slave setting to make. Well, there is one jumper on those you might want to change. Some SATA HDD makers use a jumper on a particular pin pair to slow down a SATA II (3 Gb/s) drive to work with older original SATA I (1.5 Gb/s) mobo ports if that's what you have. Some HDD makers actually put that jumper on by default and IF you know you have SATA II ports on the mobo you are supposed to remove that jumper. See the instructions that came with your SATA drive, or look up its exact model number up on the maker's website to check whether this applies to your unit.

 

[Advice Pro]

1) I need a new power button configuration. I.e. the thing that connects to the motherboard.

2) Why won't my IDE cable fit my DVD drives? Either the pins on the drives are bent or are fewer than the holes in the port on the cable? Anyway I need a longer IDE cable for those drives since the mobo ports are at the bottom right.

3) Will my currrent IDE cable suit the IDE HDD to the mobo even though it has a master and slave port as well as mobo port?

 

[Paperdoc]

1. The Power button on the case front (and also the Reset button) is just a simple momentary-connection (normally open) pushbutton. It is NOT a latching on / off switch. Even a doorbell button would do it electrically (might not fit in your case front, though). Polarity of the connections to the mobo on the F_PANEL1 connector does not matter.

2. Why won't it fit? Maybe bent pins, all right. Maybe you've turned it the wrong way? The connector had a bump on one side in the middle which is supposed to mate with a cutout in the drive's connector shell so you can only push it in one way. Is that the way your pieces are made? Third possibility: the HDD is old enough its IDE connector is different slightly. Current 80-conductor ribbon cables have ONE hole in each connector blanked off, and the mating pin on the mobo and HDD connectors is missing (see your mobo drawing for an example). I once had an old IDE drive with ALL 40 pins in its connector. To make it work I carefully drilled a small hole in the cable's connector to accommodate the pin that should have been
missing. It did NOT need electrical contact - just physical space for the pin to slip in.

3. Your mobo has two IDE ports, IDE1 and IDE2. These are called the Primary and Secondary IDE ports. The terms Master and Slave are for distinguishing the two devices that share one IDE port. EACH IDE port can have up to TWO devices attached via its data ribbon. That is why they have to be set differently, one as Master and one as Slave, on EACH port. You could have up to 4 IDE devices on this mobo - a Master and a Slave on the Primary port IDE1, plus another Master and Slave on the Secondary port IDE2. But in your particular case you will have only a Master (IDE HDD) on the Primary IDE1 port, and MAYBE (not clear from the posts so far) a Slave unit on that port that is an IDE optical drive. For this the IDE cable you have with 3 connectors on it is the right one (see my earlier note on typical color coding of 80-conductor IDE ribbon cables). You will not need to connect anything to the Secondary IDE port.

 

[Advice Pro]

Paperdoc, response to your answers:

1) What happened was the wires of the piece behind the power button broke off and I rather not solder them on.

2) It must be bent pins on both of my DVD drives because I have tried pushing in the cable connector's with the bump on the side matching that cutout in the drive's connector shell.

3) I found my other IDE cable, so I'm okay there!

 

[Paperdoc]

1. If you have to replace the power pushbutton, you might be able to order an exact replacement (with or without wires) from the case manufacturer. Otherwise you'll have to look at electronics and computer parts shops for a simple pushbutton that physically fits into the place, and then solder the wires onto the new terminals.
The OTHER option is to re-designate the RESET pushbutton to being the Power button. They are the same switch type, so you can simply connect the Reset button's wires at the F_PANEL1 pinout to the Power button pins and it will work. Of course, this means you have no Reset button, and the front panel has a mis-labeled pushbutton.

2. Did you check that the drives in question have one pin missing in the right spot in their connectors? Oh, and this is the first time you have mentioned having an optical drive to use - maybe two of them? Are they both IDE units? I guess if you want to hook up one IDE HDD plus two optical drives, that would explain why you need two IDE cables so you can use both mobo ports. Just be sure that each IDE port has a Master device on it, and the second device on any port is set to Slave. If you have both a HDD and an optical drive on one port and cable, make the HDD the Master device, and the optical unit the Slave.