Powering a Gx620

[miller-brandon]

I have a Dell optiplex gx620 without the proper power adapter. With my knowledge of Computers the power input on the back of the computer looks like a 8 pin cpu power socket. I was wondering if i could power this computer using an old 160watt psu with a dual molex to 8-pin adapter. I didnt know if the power worked correctly or if there would be a over powering or underpowering on one of the pins, so i havent tried it yet.

 

[MU_Engineer]

I have a Dell optiplex gx620 without the proper power adapter. With my knowledge of Computers the power input on the back of the computer looks like a 8 pin cpu power socket. I was wondering if i could power this computer using an old 160watt psu with a dual molex to 8-pin adapter. I didnt know if the power worked correctly or if there would be a over powering or underpowering on one of the pins, so i havent tried it yet.

The issue to worry about in doing such a setup would be the pinout of the Dell's power supply connector. It may be completely different from a standard 8-pin EPS12V or 8-pin PCIe power connector even if the connector may be physically identical. You would risk putting +12V where ground should go and vice-versa, possibly frying the computer in the process. Dell used to pull this trick a lot back in the day with the ATX PSU connectors in their machines- they looked like normal 20/24-pin ATX connectors but had a different pinout. Using a non-Dell PSU fried the motherboard, so you had to either use a Dell PSU or correctly rewire a generic ATX PSU's connector to match the proprietary Dell pinout. I would not try to use anything besides the correct Dell external PSU brick until I was able to attach a multimeter to the correct Dell external PSU brick and verify what voltages are on what connector pins.