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View Full Version : Cut power cables from PSu i dont use ????



Josh
03-19-2005, 12:03 AM
Hi,

i was wondering is it ok for me to snip the cable to a short length like my SATA cables i dont use and 6 pin aux i neva use. Im electrician have crimps and that if i eva need to use these again. They both on there own seperate rails and neva used. I was gonna snip them off and put connector blocks on the end is this ok to do ???????

tesco
03-19-2005, 12:05 AM
I cut some of mine off and have had no problems.

Supernatural
03-19-2005, 12:29 AM
What if you need them in future? Tie wraps work well.

S!X
03-19-2005, 01:17 AM
What if you need them in future? Tie wraps work well.

Zap straps? :blink:

lynx
03-19-2005, 02:26 AM
There's usually a gap between mobo back panel and the outer case panel (assuming you've got a tower). It's a far better solution if you can hide them in there somehow.

If necessary cut a hole in the inner wall to feed the cables through, and line it with strip grommet. Easiest way is to drill 3 holes in a line with a 10mm drill, then link the middle hole to the outer 2 with a flat file, takes about 3 minutes.

The result is tidy wiring, with no permanent damage apart from one neat hole.

Josh
03-19-2005, 08:58 AM
lynx im doing that now when i get my new case will see how it goes its just new case has side panel and trying to make it all look nice and neat will see how it goes

clocker
03-19-2005, 01:34 PM
You need to keep the future in mind.
Is this a PSU that will carry forward to another build or will it stay with this box forever?
SATA will be the interface of ALL of your drives in the near future (optical as well as HDD) so removing the connectors effectively consigns the unit to this build.
Those stupid 6-pin Intel connectors aren't even used on newer Intel boards either, so they are useless to almost everyone.

It's kinda amusing the amount of legacy crap that we are forced to deal with, your PSU is a good example.
I was reading a review of a new motherboard where the author complained that there was only one IDE header (the board has 8 SATA ports).
I wish the IDE was totally gone along with the floppy header too.
Space on motherboards is already at a premium and losing those (relatively) large plugs would free up some valuable real estate and maybe make the arrangement of useful components more rational.

Virtualbody1234
03-19-2005, 02:42 PM
I wish the IDE was totally gone along with the floppy header too.
Yeah but how will you get access to the SATA drivers without the floppy? :P

clocker
03-19-2005, 04:41 PM
My next board (Gigabyte, socket 939) presents the SATA drives to Windows as IDE...no floppy required. You load the SATA drivers after you're already in Windows.
MS says that the next gen OS's won't require the F6 move anyway, SATA drivers will be packaged in the driver .cab (along with all the other useless crap that's already there).

Supernatural
03-19-2005, 10:55 PM
I don't see the big deal with SATA anyways. It offers little to no advantages over PATA in desktop solutions.

Snee
03-19-2005, 11:04 PM
I don't see the big deal with SATA anyways. It offers little to no advantages over PATA in desktop solutions.
'cept for the wee matter of the speed. Eventually standard SATA drives are going to be noticeably faster. They are only slightly faster as it is tho', 'cept for the raptors. All in all it seems to be a bit closer to SCSI.

It is going to replace PATA sooner or later anyway, which means that you get some futureproofing.

And the cables are thinner and smaller compared to round ide cables, which means that airflow improves slightly.

The lack of jumpers also means that they get a little bit easier to mount, which is a good thing for the computer illiterate, tho' messy driver solutions and whatnot have made the installation procedure less than easy for some.

lynx
03-20-2005, 12:43 AM
messy driver solutions and whatnot have made the installation procedure less than easy for some.There needs to be a default driver set which will work for all SATA chips, just like there is for IDE. Full drivers could then be installed later just like chipset drivers do for IDE controllers.

Supernatural
03-20-2005, 02:47 AM
Show me real-world, non-server benchmarks that show SATA (or even SCSI) faster than PATA.

SATA won't help Windows or programs load faster. It won't make your games run faster. So what's the point?

lynx
03-20-2005, 10:08 AM
Show me real-world, non-server benchmarks that show SATA (or even SCSI) faster than PATA.

SATA won't help Windows or programs load faster. It won't make your games run faster. So what's the point?PATA speed has had to increase to match faster media<->drive electronics speeds, but the PATA interface (and the much more expensive SCSI interface) are just about at the limit of possible technology. Getting all the signals to arrive at the same time causes delays and raises costs. On the other hand SATA is just getting started, SATA2 (3GHz) controllers are now available, and the simplicity will drive costs down.

Initially Sata drives are simply PATA drives with a serialised interface, but there's no need for that. Data is written to the media serially, so why convert it to parallel just to convert it back to serial. The next generation of drive electronics probably won't bother.

What else is just coming onstream? PCI-Express. And guess what, it uses high speed serialised data transfer. So why bother to convert from serial PCI-Express to parallel in the controller chip and back to serial for the cable - once again it is something that will disappear reducing cost, complexity and bottlenecks.

Parallel interfaces are dead. Wake up and smell the coffee.

Snee
03-20-2005, 02:06 PM
I still luv SCSI, but SATA is the future, there's no denying that.

@the PATA fanboy: IDE/PATA has never been as reliable on avererage as SCSI is, and SCSI drives running at 15000 revs have been available for quite some time.

Both SCSI and SATA have obvious technological advantages over PATA (although I've never come into contact with a mobo with an inbuilt SCSI controller), tho' SATA is going to make SCSI obsolete along with PATA one day.

TheDave
03-20-2005, 02:45 PM
ive just stuck mine above the dvd drive. i wouldn't bother cutting them cos if you need them in the future its a messy pain in the arse to get them back

lynx
03-20-2005, 08:14 PM
I still luv SCSI, but SATA is the future, there's no denying that.

@the PATA fanboy: IDE/PATA has never been as reliable on avererage as SCSI is, and SCSI drives running at 15000 revs have been available for quite some time.

Both SCSI and SATA have obvious technological advantages over PATA (although I've never come into contact with a mobo with an inbuilt SCSI controller), tho' SATA is going to make SCSI obsolete along with PATA one day.There are plenty of high spec servers with SCSI controllers, and many don't even bother with IDE controllers. I suspect that their days are numbered though, particularly as SATA is going to offer the same full hot swap capability as top level SCSI cabinets, something which has been lacking in cheaper drives until now.

Supernatural
03-21-2005, 05:22 AM
SATA reduced costs? That's a completly unfounded statement. And saying serial interfaces are the future is complete BS. Anyone still use the Serial ports on their computers? Heck, most motherboards these days don't even have them.

I don't deny SATA being the future, because it is. But I'm talking about the situation as it stands today. SATA has (as in, currently) no advantages for the average user.

clocker
03-21-2005, 02:11 PM
I don't deny SATA being the future, because it is. But I'm talking about the situation as it stands today. SATA has (as in, currently) no advantages for the average user.
Not true.
Seek and read/write times are definitely lower.
But, even discounting that, the cabling is easier to deal with.

Furthermore, if IDE was dropped, valuable space on the motherboard PCB would be freed up and maybe designers could rearrange components better.
A good example would be the southbridge chips on nForce 3/4 boards which are currently crammed too close to the AGP/PCI-E slots for active cooling.

Snee
03-21-2005, 02:17 PM
There are plenty of high spec servers with SCSI controllers, and many don't even bother with IDE controllers. I suspect that their days are numbered though, particularly as SATA is going to offer the same full hot swap capability as top level SCSI cabinets, something which has been lacking in cheaper drives until now.
Damn, obviously I've been buying my high-spec servers in the wrong place. :blink: nah.

:lol: I've never had a mobo with an inbuilt scsi controller, but I've never really had a hi-spec server either, so that kinda' works out.

@sn: the fact that it is the wave of the future makes it a good thing to get today. Then you know your drives are going to fit on your next mobo. And they are slightly faster already, not much tho', except for the 10000 rpm drives, 'cos those are faster any way you look at it.

So there are too very obvious advantages to choosing SATA today, for one thing future-proofing, for another speed, if you buy a raptor.

And the cabling makes for slightly better airflow, like I said, and I think it makes your case neater as well, airflow and order is of course not that important tho'.