SATA -> ATX on Single Rail PSU? +Intel WiFi

Zubkover · June 21, 2016

Hi,

I do consider myself "little" savvy in terms of IT and electronics, but few questions I have unanswered and I'd rather have them answered, then literally pay for my mistakes.

So the 1st question would be, whether is it possible to unsolder from my Tacens Radix VI one full SATA cable (since I have two of those and only one HDD) and resolder 12V only 6-pin ATX in place (ofc using only proper 12V and ground lines, no 5V). Full +12V rail is capable of 540W, and stock I have two 6+2 pins, so technically it should be possible, using cable with 6-pin(8pin) with correct number of wires?

+ I plan on buying Intel 6300 wifi card to replace shitty wifi card in vaio laptop I have, but it's triple-band, so should I just plug 2 antenas and leave the 3rd empty, or plug 3rd I have lying around and place it "anywhere safe" in the body?

mariushm · June 21, 2016

You should open the case first and see if there are empty holes on the 12v area on the pcb - most power supplies have lots of holes to plug wires in and solder them on the pcb and some holes may not be "populated". So you may not have to unsolder a strip of sata connectors.

You can add as many pci-e 6pin connectors as you want, the power supply doesn't make a distinction between 12v on sata cables or pci-e cables or atx connector. As long as the components of your pc don't consume more than what the power supply is capable of producing on 12v, it outputs 12v on all yellow cables with the same "priority".

If there are no empty holes to solder 12v wires directly on the pcb you could carefully strip a bit of insulation from a few 12v wires (let's say a couple of yellow wires going to molex or sata strips ) and solder your wires to the existing wires. Be sure to insulate them.

A single AWG18 cable in the power supply is capable of about 6-8A of current (about 70-100w) with absolute safety, more if not caring about safety. You can connect the 3 yellow wires of a pci-e 6pin cable to two or three yellow wires going on molex/sata strips and the 2-3 A on each wire pulled by the pci-e 6pin connector won't affect the sata or molex strips, you won't overload the wires.

as for the wireless question, don't care about that so can't answer it.

Zubkover · June 22, 2016

17 hours ago, mariushm said:

*snip*

Yea. Ok. I am aware of the holes and cabling issue, wasn't sure about "prioretizing"...? Yup.
Anyway. I seriously don't need 8 SATA connectors. srly. And actually Tacens has remastered this PSU into 800W with the same connections mostly, but double lane of 2x6+2 ATX 12pins, so I guess it's more than capable.

Thanks mate. : )