Upgrading a PC Power Supply

by siloraptor

5.1K164

Intro: Upgrading a PC Power Supply

Just recently my hard drive died, my motherboard provided SATA connectors, so I ordered a new disks online.  My shinny new SATA hard drives arrived and when it was time to plug the power connector I realized my power supply didn't provide SATA power connectors.  Power adapters go for as high as $5.99, so that meant about $12.00 minus $S+H for 2 pieces of plastic and 4 bits of wire, maybe even more If bought locally, bleh.  Plus, and this was the deciding factor for this project, that it was already late night and I didn't want to wait till morning to play with my new drives.

STEP 1: Getting the Ingredients...

Rummaging in my spare parts box, found a damaged Dell power supply which had the SATA power connectors I needed.

STEP 2: Performing the Transplant...

After making sure my old power supply could put out enough juice for my new drives without burning out it was just a matter of doing some cable splicing.  I might be a procrastinator and a bad speller, but you would never see me doing a sloppy cable splicing work.  Heat shrink tubing is your friend and a perfect excuse to play with matches if you don't have a heat gun.

STEP 3: Conclusion

Recycling, reusing, reducing (and re-purposing) have always been important, but with planned obsolescence economy and natural resources on the decline, not throwing away stuff and not rushing to the store to buy the new ultra-hyper-mega-extra phone, video card, motherboard, printer, music player is becoming more and more important.  To understand how (and why) manufacturers change screw sizes, connector and adapters constantly (such as the ATA -> SATA, eSATA, slim SATA, micro SATA, eSATAp, mSATA and SATA/I), watch the Light bulb conspiracy.

Trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=251qoGOqpdk
Full movie here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5DCwN28y8o

4 Comments

arzola1 11 years ago

I added some cables to a power supply that I use only with hard drives, I also use it to light some leds and some case fans

punkatsub 12 years ago

no, no and no you don't add cables to power supplys you will blow them, you must get another powersupply.

xaenon 11 years ago

not necessarily. true, if the PSU is operating at or near its limits already, then adding an additional load could cause problems - but in this instructable, he was replacing the original hard drive (presumably IDE) with a SATA drive and needed a different power connector. The draw from the HDD's electronics and motors should be about the same as the original, he was just installing a proper connector for it. And, as has already been pointed out, the PSU was well capable of handling an additional load without difficulty.

siloraptor 12 years ago

AMD motherboard consuming 160W, no 3D graphics card, 2 x 500GB Samsung Spinpoint T Series @ 7200RPM consuming 11W on heavy use, 7W on average while idle. Total, even after RMS variations < 200W, well bellow the 600W of the power supply so It's safe even accounting for power spikes.