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Hi! I am planning to move my pre-built HP system to a new case and get a new PSU to power it (for easier future upgrades) and I have a question about the pinout of the 24-pin connector. Since pre-built systems sometimes have proprietary power solutions I've measured the voltages from the old PSU and they are correct. However the PSU lacks the white -5V and blue -12V cables. The motherboard do however have pins for them. What would happen if i plugged in a new PSU that does have the white and blue cables? I don't want to fry the motherboard... pinout: https://www.flickr.com/photos/133858386@N03/31887794647/in/dateposted/

I am hoping to get some advice here to track down a potential ground loop, or serious source of EMI/RFI (not sure if conducted or radiated). I figured there are some techie folks on here so maybe I can get some advice. I have a host of non destructive computer and peripherals related problems. The issue manifest as input lag (mouse, keyboard), degraded sound quality (muddied, and shallow sound), degraded wireless (throughout the house) and wired internet performance, screen artifacts (noise), and degraded display (hitching, tearing). I have confirmed that it is not hardware related: 4 different PC's (Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and 1 laptop (Windows 7) 3 Monitors Multiple Keyboards, Mice, Headphones, Speakers Multiple Modems, Routers, and all new cables (shielded and non- shielded Ethernet and Display port cables do help slightly I believe. Observations: Using different circuits and configurations (power strips, or conditioners) around the house which changes the input delays and performance. Moving cables away from each other helps even data cables are messing with each other. Placing a phone on PC makes the mouse sensitivity feel two times as fast. Placed ferrite cores and toroids onto data, and power cables changes mouse tracking, sound and display quality, and internet performance. Different power strips, Gold and Platinum rated PSUs, a Furman power conditioner, and a Tripp Lite double conversion UPS. UPS does something makes the input latency better, and the power conditioner helped for a few days. The power conditioner helped the most with the sound and display issues. Seems to be better at night but only slightly. When an appliance in the home is switched on the amount of data latency, input lag and display issues amplifies. Any setting in Windows or BIOS changes how the mouse preforms (power settings, and fans speeds do the most), however after some time it seems to degrade back to the same point. Wifi in the home continually cuts out and some weird stuff like if my modem and router are one the same power strip the Wifi will not work. Desktop PCs connected to Wifi even two feet away from router makes the input latency lower however there is full one second stutters in games, browsers and video streams. Used my PC at a friends house in another city and it works perfectly fine, night and day from my setup at home. I am actually shocked at how much deeper sound, colors and consistency of mouse tracking is compared to at my house. I have had the power company out twice, and had two electricians check my grounding, neutrals, and outlets. All come clean. I poked around with an AM radio and while there are some sources of noise around the house, nothing stands out. My laptop on battery works better at random times yet still has the same issues. Found several posts relating to the issue and it seems they all observe the same symptoms: https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/1055893-power-issues-can-cause-input-latency-issues/ https://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3641 https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/bafhfe/update_after_years_of_mouse_input_lag_and_other/ http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?16546-Major-input-lag-caused-by-Power-issues-in-House I have tried a few power conditioners (Furman) that work pretty good for a day or two then its back to the same old degraded quality. I believe this is similar to what I have seen with ferrite and toroid cores in that they seem to saturate and once they do the filtering qualities are pretty much gone. Now this is where it gets interesting. I have a Tripp Lite double conversion UPS which helps a bit with the consistency of inputs and the display quality but ultimately the issue is still entirely there. This does not make much sense if the problem truly stems from the power company but one thing I have noticed is if I pull that plug for my UPS, then for the few minutes I run truly off of battery, everything is perfect. Then when I plug the unit back in the lag comes back fully within a minute- almost like it builds up resistance or something. I believe what is happening here is by unplugging the unit (UPS) I am effectively floating the ground which seems to be the source of the issues here. In a double conversion unit like mine the only thing that is not filtered is that passed through connection to ground. I have spoken to other folks with Online UPS and this very problem and they say the exact same thing. Now I am not sure how the ground connection could be faulty in some way, and simultaneously measure clean at the panel (verified with two electricians using a clamp meter). After reading several posts about this very issue and seeing first hand how ferrite cores, moving cables, and power conditioners etc affect it I have concluded that it is indeed an electrical noise issue in my home or from the power pole/utility. In the thread on r/buildapc some of the comments stated it is likely an issue with grounding. I am wondering if maybe an Isolation Transformer, or just lifting (floating) the ground would solve it. If there is anyone that is knowledgeable in these areas of either breaking groundloops, or at least finding them, or dealing with finding sources of EMI and finding out what frequencies I need to filter please let me know. I understand any skepticism about what I have posted here as it seems absurd to me as well but it is the truth and I would love to know what the cause is and how it can affect digital devices in these ways. Thanks

I am hoping to get some advice here to track down a potential ground loop, or serious source of EMI/RFI (not sure if conducted or radiated). I figured there are some techie folks on here so maybe I can get some advice. I have a host of non destructive computer and peripherals related problems. The issue manifest as input lag (mouse, keyboard), degraded sound quality (muddied, and shallow sound), degraded wireless (throughout the house) and wired internet performance, screen artifacts (noise), and degraded display (hitching, tearing). I have confirmed that it is not hardware related: 4 different PC's (Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and 1 laptop (Windows 7) 3 Monitors Multiple Keyboards, Mice, Headphones, Speakers Multiple Modems, Routers, and all new cables (shielded and non- shielded Ethernet and Display port cables do help slightly I believe. Observations: Using different circuits and configurations (power strips, or conditioners) around the house which changes the input delays and performance. Moving cables away from each other helps even data cables are messing with each other. Placing a phone on PC makes the mouse sensitivity feel two times as fast. Placed ferrite cores and toroids onto data, and power cables changes mouse tracking, sound and display quality, and internet performance. Different power strips, Gold and Platinum rated PSUs, a Furman power conditioner, and a Tripp Lite double conversion UPS. UPS does something makes the input latency better, and the power conditioner helped for a few days. The power conditioner helped the most with the sound and display issues. Seems to be better at night but only slightly. When an appliance in the home is switched on the amount of data latency, input lag and display issues amplifies. Any setting in Windows or BIOS changes how the mouse preforms (power settings, and fans speeds do the most), however after some time it seems to degrade back to the same point. Wifi in the home continually cuts out and some weird stuff like if my modem and router are one the same power strip the Wifi will not work. Desktop PCs connected to Wifi even two feet away from router makes the input latency lower however there is full one second stutters in games, browsers and video streams. Used my PC at a friends house in another city and it works perfectly fine, night and day from my setup at home. I am actually shocked at how much deeper sound, colors and consistency of mouse tracking is compared to at my house. I have had the power company out twice, and had two electricians check my grounding, neutrals, and outlets. All come clean. I poked around with an AM radio and while there are some sources of noise around the house, nothing stands out. My laptop on battery works better at random times yet still has the same issues. Found several posts relating to the issue and it seems they all observe the same symptoms: https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/1055893-power-issues-can-cause-input-latency-issues/ https://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3641 https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/bafhfe/update_after_years_of_mouse_input_lag_and_other/ http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?16546-Major-input-lag-caused-by-Power-issues-in-House I have tried a few power conditioners (Furman) that work pretty good for a day or two then its back to the same old degraded quality. I believe this is similar to what I have seen with ferrite and toroid cores in that they seem to saturate and once they do the filtering qualities are pretty much gone. Now this is where it gets interesting. I have a Tripp Lite double conversion UPS which helps a bit with the consistency of inputs and the display quality but ultimately the issue is still entirely there. This does not make much sense if the problem truly stems from the power company but one thing I have noticed is if I pull that plug for my UPS, then for the few minutes I run truly off of battery, everything is perfect. Then when I plug the unit back in the lag comes back fully within a minute- almost like it builds up resistance or something. I believe what is happening here is by unplugging the unit (UPS) I am effectively floating the ground which seems to be the source of the issues here. In a double conversion unit like mine the only thing that is not filtered is that passed through connection to ground. I have spoken to other folks with Online UPS and this very problem and they say the exact same thing. Now I am not sure how the ground connection could be faulty in some way, and simultaneously measure clean at the panel (verified with two electricians using a clamp meter). After reading several posts about this very issue and seeing first hand how ferrite cores, moving cables, and power conditioners etc affect it I have concluded that it is indeed an electrical noise issue in my home or from the power pole/utility. In the thread on r/buildapc some of the comments stated it is likely an issue with grounding. I am wondering if maybe an Isolation Transformer, or just lifting (floating) the ground would solve it. If there is anyone that is knowledgeable in these areas of either breaking groundloops, or at least finding them, or dealing with finding sources of EMI and finding out what frequencies I need to filter please let me know. I understand any skepticism about what I have posted here as it seems absurd to me as well but it is the truth and I would love to know what the cause is and how it can affect digital devices in these ways. Thanks

I literally just made this account to ask this question before I trash this cord. Since out of the blue today my original Xbox One console has been shutting off and having trouble turning on. Ive deduced it to be a problem within either the power cord or power supply. When I plug in the cord from the supply to the console, it shuts off, however the power supply itself seems to have no issues, since when plugged into any outlet it turns bright orange as it should. Im asking if its maybe an issue within the power supply itself, I have tools to open it and engineering friends who can help, or whether if its a problem with the cord, which can easily be replaced. Or both, which both can be replaced

Motherboard LEDs Stated on the motherboard's specs, there are two RGB headers both supporting 12v by 3A, and one iaRGB header supporting 5v by 3a. It states for all three headers that it supports up to two meters. I don't feel like burning up my board lol, so I'm looking for input on my execution. I'm not sure if the LEDs listed above are 100% the exact same, but they should be in the ball park of what I have now, the listing from my order history was deleted. So what I did to get my numbers was start with the mobo - 12V(3A) = 36W Then the strip - 60W / 300LEDs = 0.2W 0.2W / 12V = 0.016667Aroughly 0.02A Then checked how many LEDs fit in that spec - 0.2W ( X ) = 36W | X=180 LEDs 0.016667A ( X ) = 3A | X=179.9964 LEDs ~or 0.02A ( X ) = 3A | X=150 LEDs Then the density of the LEDs - 300LEDs / 5Meters = ~60LEDs So according to the numbers I have roughly 12 watts per meter at full bright, and 60 LEDs in that meter, suggesting a total of 120 LEDs per header. So, am I to understand that the board can only push 12v up to 2m max? What If I have 80 LEDs on one side of the case and and the rest on the other, and ran an extension there to continue the stream. Would that count towards my 2m? I pretty much get that this is either a voltage drop scenario or perhaps related to load, but I'm not sure if that even matters because it would seem to me that the resistance of the wire is irrelevant at such small distances, especially at 12v to be a voltage drop issue, and the LEDs wouldn't necessarily draw more power the further away they were would they? I just want to make sure for the safety of the mobo, that the traces won't get stressed. I was thinking of powering the LEDs directly from the PSU, but isn't the voltage throughput what directly controls its overall brightness by passing through the R,G,B common rails? If there is a way to get RGB control form the motherboard, but power the strips separately, that'd be cool! And safe! :D I totally was going to do that for the iaRGB strip, but idk if the 80 led hard cap is due to software limitation or not... Thanks for reading my run on sentence, any help or input is highly appreciated!

So... I am currently in Year 11 of Secondary School and I am building a skateboard that generates electricity when it is used that can then be used to provided electrical assistance for my project. Any suggestions on how do wire this us and what components I will need? Cheers UwU

So, I'm wanting to build a Sleeper PC. I've got parts figured out for the most part, but one thing that has me stumped is how to utilize the old style rocker switches from way back when as a power button. Of course they were the actual 'power' switches, but now it's just an electronic switch that signals the PC to boot up from a dormant state more or less. Basically I need a way to make a rocker switch into a temporary switch, so that it does not shut the PC off immediately after getting turned on. If this is possible, I'd really appreciate the help. Thanks!

Well I finally got around to shunt-modding these Titan Xp cards, installing their waterblocks and getting my main rig going again today... but ran into a rather odd snag. I'm using Bitspower blocks for the 1080 Ti / Titan Xp, and these came with a short LED strip pre-installed in the plexi (which is nice since I had to buy them separately for the Titan V blocks), but one of them seems to have an electrical problem. I noticed that none of the RGB-header-powered lights were on when I booted up and started disconnecting 1 at a time to see if something was wrong. Sure enough, as soon as I unplug the 1st card's LED plug, everything else turned on. Plugged it back in and poof, all dead again. Unplugged, they all come on. I noticed that when the connectors are about to touch, there's a visible electric arc on the +12v as it kills the rest of the components. Next, I tried unplugging the other strip and using that connector for the 'faulty' card, but the issue was the same. Is there any easy way to sort this out or do I just need to take the card out, block apart, and somehow replace the strip? *EDIT* Didn't realize we have a separate "Troubleshooting" section under Workbench. Mods can you please move this?

Ok, my family just went through a blackout for three days straight. No power, no refrigerator, no heating, everything was dead. Our worst problem was not having our cell phones for communication (Towers were still working for a while) as they were quickly depleted of power. Now I've considered getting a UPS before but never got around to it and after some research I'm confused on how long they last. I understand based on what you are running on them and how much power they are drawing a USP can deplete at different rates. But I keep seeing conflicting information on the subject especially if people are using the exact same set up. What we want to do is set up a USP to charge cell phones when they get too low and recharge flashlights during these emergencies. My questions are: 1. How many times could we charge our cell phones? (We have 1 Samsung Galaxy S5, an IPhone 5 and an old Blackberry) 2. How to calculate how much power each device needs (a flashlight, cell phone or any device) to charge it fully? I understand there might be alternatives but at this moment we're looking at several and want some clarity on this option please.

Ever plugged in a power cable to a wall outlet and seen a white electrical light emit from the wall? Yeah, I saw that in my case when I pushed the power button for the first time. Has anyone ever seen this behavior before? Is it normal or plausible? I just checked posting, and I don't know if I got a solid post because I used a TV and don't have a graphics card installed. I had no trouble with ESD during the build, so nothing should fail. I mean, the CPU fan and PSU fan spun up as normal. Should I expect no problems or a botched component set? any experience or opinions greatly appreciated. Part list: - Ryzen 5 1600 - Wraith Spire cooler - Gigabyte AB350 Gaming 3 mobo - 2x8 GB G.Skill DDR4 3200 RAM - EVGA 650W G1 PSU - Crucial MX500 500GB SSD

This is an elaborated topic, generically. The purpose is to gather knowledgen extensively. Who make the main components or the electrical parts on the PCB of GPUs (asking from Firepro/Quadro to HD 5450/Geforce210)? Like the Capacitors, IC, V-RAM, Controllers, RAMDAC, Bus e.t.c. Quality control is another concern too. Like Nvidia doesn't care 1000 or 900 like their high end Quadro series. Asking this because I recently judged two self-contradictory things(completely my opinion). Firstly, Strix of ASUS uses high quality stuffs while others like Sapphire or Zotac in GTX 950 probably didn't put parts that up to mark things which can resist anti forces up to some points. Though I am not sure about it at all. I have seen people are selling more Strix cards than Zotac, EVGA or MSI but somehow I realised that in this year ASUS dealt with it's RX 460 with good things but lagged in performance even to a year old 950. This is a sure thing to abhor. On the other hand, 950 really attracts many wallets because of P2P (price to performance). Vexing bafflement! I am not biased with either companies. Thinking about spending father's money in a more efficient way. The partners' cards can't be the best because nobody will buy for a long time then. 'Malfunctioning? Let's change.' Sorry for my poor wits. I want to know these things by our upcoming conversations.. (If my queries are not clear enough, please ask me)

I want to connect 2 outlets one one ground wire going to my breaker panel.

so, i am getting tired of pedaling my ass off up steep hills and getting muscular legs isnt my priority ethier. my solution involves the following Components: Cheapo winch from ebay An old Bicycle (it must be functional before you mod it and it must have a beefy luggage rack) two large 12v motorcycle batteries. one luggage bag for Your Bicycle. "Recipie": Step one, preparing the driveline: remove the wire off Your winch, remove the pedal Assembly from Your bike (keep the large sprocket) now file or grind the inside of Your large sprocket so it will slide onto the winch`s cable drum and put it flush With one of the side walls on the cable drum and weld it into Place. Step two, assembly: reinforce Your luggage rack (if nescesary) or get a beefier one and weld a flat steel plate onto it. when the steel plate has been secured to Your luggage rack you can measure and drill mounting holes for Your winch in a suitable location on the steel plate. (make sure to Mount it so that both gears are propperly alligned to avid the Chain jumping off) Mount Your Chain and remove/add links to make sure it fits tigthly onto both sprockets With minimal play in it. Step 3, wiring: first Connect Your batteries in Serial and wire Your winch controll unit and winch. Step 4, Ride that b!tch: Get a running start and put Your winch at its max forward speed.

Hi LTT Im looking for some advice on an upcomming build of mine. I want to build a desktop computer into a black plastic instrument case. The case im planing has room for a 22" monitor up top and enough room in the bottom to house an ATX psu, an mATX mobo and (with a riser) an ITX gtx 960 (which i already have). I have 2 main questions but feel free to poke holes in my plan otherwise, I'd much prefer this to fail on a forum before it fails irl and costs me a whole bunch of money 1. Will an ATX psu be electrically safe in a black plastic case? I plan of ventilating the space well and im not going to do any soldering on mains wires but ive got this notion that the motherboard and psu need to be grounded on metal? 2. I would love a mechanical hdd, I spend alot of time away from home for work and having my movie collection on tap (as well as my steam library) would make motels alot more enjoyable. While im using the pc it will be stationary but i will be driving it and carrying it around, just like a suitcase. Will a standard 3.5" hdd survive bumps and knocks (when off) that a suitcase would encounter? I'll just head off the alternatives to this at the pass. A ps vita / nintendo ds is under powered and a good laptop with a decent gpu is way too expensive at least (1600 AUD). I've costed this plan out to about 600 AUD by re using some stuff i already have. Im not worried about battery because I will always have a powerpoint when I want to game and i know it will be a brick but I only ever drive to my live-aways. Thanks peeps, any input would be appreciated

Hey guys and gals, So.. I was wondering. Between an SLI/crossfire-capable board is there any special links/connection being done to the PCIe lanes when compared to a normal board with the same pcie electrical connections? Or is it just that theres enough bandwidth and thus certified by Nvidia/AMD to be SLI/CF capable? Thanks again

So, I have this corsair CX430m, that I thought was dead/dying, and I bought a new PSU. Turns out that it was the power strip I had the computer attached to, not the PSU (I think, and hope). I'd like to be sure of that of course, so how can I test the PSU? I did some searching online and got some conflicting results so I figured I'd ask here and see what people have to say, before really digging myself. Thanks in advance for any help.

Hello, all! I've been told by a good handful of forum members that the power supply unit in the PCPartsPicker list linked below is a horrid choice. It would be great if anyone could point me in the direction of a better, sturdier choice that fits the parts of my build. PCPartsPicker List: http://pcpartpicker.com/user/mackhack321/saved/b2nxFT Thanks a lot! Any other notes on the build would be appreciated as well.

Ok, first thing first. This is for pure fun. I am not planning to carry a 11KG UPS to school everyday(but maybe on a camping trip?).I become curious right after I got it since it is very heavy and can power a computer for a reasonable amount of time. The UPS I got is a Cyberpower CP1500PFCLCD. It is rated as 1500VA/900W(which mean nothing to me) on the website. So my question as I already mentioned, how many time it can charge a iPhone? How much capacity of the battery have? If it can only charge iPhone battery for a very limited amount of time, why? It is significantly larger and heavier than the power bank I have. Again, this whole thing is just for fun and I am using iPhone here just as a example. Thanks a ton!

When I touch my pc and my rooms radiator (big metal heater thing that goes through the whole house) at the same time, I feel a current flowing (tickling) through my fingers. Now I know that's because my wall outlet isn't grounded, making my touch the ground "wire". Should I ground my pc? Are there benefits? Are there issues? Would it help (overclocking) stability?

Where is the best place to learn mechanical and electrical engineering online for free . I'm only in high school but I would like to familiarise myself with basic and advanced concepts.

Hello LTT community. I have Turtle Beach headphones and whenever I plug them in my desktop PC, I hear a lot of distortion and crackling noises even when I'm just idling on the desktop. I looked up ways to get rid of it, and a video I watched said DACs are great at removing Electrical Interference(the distortion/crackling noise). So do DACs remove this electrical interference? If so, can you recommend good DACs that are not too expensive? Average cost I saw for a DAC was ~$70 :mellow:

Does anyone know of a type of software that would allow me to make this drawing in a more professional means? I've been using Word 2010 to do the ones in color.

So just now my graphics card (At least I think its my graphics card) started making a squealing noise. The noise sounds like an electrical-ish squeal.... or something like that? It's definitely not the fan, just checked that (first time i've ever stopped any fan with my finger and i feel terrible about it!) When I load a game or a video up, the squeal changes pitch very uniformly... like ____----""""---""____ (higher is higher note haha) I'm not too worried because my GTX 970 is on delivery so that should be here in the next few days What the hell could it be?

Hey guys, DIY electrical project in mind only a bit stumped when it comes to varying intensity of LEDs. I recently purchased a 5m RGB LED strip which came with an included control circuit to change the colours and other features such as decreasing the brightness. Now since the strip only comes with one control circuit (which I am already using with part of the strip) I am quite limited when it comes to any projects I want to make with the remainder. Basically I want to construct my own control circuit that operates in the most effective and efficient way. The LEDs are common cathode so there are four leads in total: 1 for each colour (Red, Green and Blue) and one common lead as shown below. My question is what is an effective and efficient way to dim LEDs so I can have some control over the colour (as in if I can dim each colour individually and independent of one another then it would be theoretically possible to make any colour in the visible light spectrum)? So far I have brainstormed the following: [simplest method] Using a potentiometre in series with each anode lead Problem with this is the potentiometre consumes a lot of power when higher currents are applied to it and is therefore not as efficient as desired [Ghetto method] Place a switch in line with each anode lead so that each colour is either on or off Want to avoid this one as much as possible. Also only provides a maximum of 7 colours (ewww) [Not fully researched method] Using pwm (pulse width modulation) to vary the intensity of each LED. By far seems like the most reliable method only unsure how to set up the circuit [Again not fully researched] Somehow incorporating MOSFETs into the control circuit to vary LED intensity (this is similar to the one used on the control circuit that came with the strip) Any ideas on which method would be most effective and how to proceed in setting up the circuit and also what electrical components would be required? Right now I am mostly leaning towards using pwm.

It seems like I've been doing a fair bit of soldering and in general messing around with electrical wires so this will be used on a semi-regular basis. Which crimper would you guys buy? I don't mind paying additional for the more expensive one but I'm not really sure which one to get considering my needs. expensive option (linked Pep Boys since they have an image but I would actually buy from Amazon) cheaper option