ATX Power

[d]

I jus noticed that the Asus K8N-E has a 4-pin ATX power connector apart from the normal Big power connector.....as an owner of a 815e(yeah, 815e yeah shut up!) which has only the big connector, and as some1 who's gonna upgrade to an asus k8n-3 motherboard, what are those 4 pins? What do they do?

Also, is there any necessity that i should change my full tower cabinet that I was using with my p3 n 815e? Or is it okay if i jus change the Power supply?

How much does a power supply cost?

[magnet]

they r for connection with graphic card if i m not mistaking

[aadipa]

Originally Posted by d

Also, is there any necessity that i should change my full tower cabinet that I was using with my p3 n 815e? Or is it okay if i jus change the Power supply?

How much does a power supply cost?

You can keep your old cabinet, provided mobo fits in it. Only PSU is to be changed.

A mid range PSU like VIP/Powersafe 400Watts will cost you 1.5K while simillar local brand will be at around Rs 500. Higher end will be Antec and I don't know about that price range.

[pimpom]

That extra 4-pin connector provides additional power lines mainly for the processor. CPUs upto P3 took most of their power from the 5-volt line, but more recent CPUs take it from the 12V line. Moreover, CPUs are consuming more and more power, so that the usual 20-pin connector is no longer sufficient. Hence that extra connector.

If you buy a new PSU with the 4-pin connector and your motherboard does not have one, don't worry - you can just leave it unconnected and everything will work fine.

If your cabinet is a standard ATX tower, the new motherboard will fit, but the backplane design (at the rear of the cabinet where all those ports peek out) will be different. But the mobo will most probably come with its own backplane plate that you can fit on to the cabinet.

And hey, don't put yourself down just because you're using an 815e mobo and a P3. The 815e is a good mobo. Are you using the onboard video or a separate graphics card ?

Suggestion : If the new system you're buying is going to be based on an AGP-type mobo (instead of PCI-E), why don't you buy the graphics card first and try it on your P3 machine ? You may be quite happily surprised at the result.