Tuesday 23 October 2012

New Motherboard

Yesterday after my exam I picked up an old motherboard that the IT guy said he was going to give to me. I'm not exactly sure what it is but it has 8 DDR(1/2?) slots and as far as I can tell 4GB in it so far. It also appears to have 2 PCI-X slots and 3(I think) normal PCI slots.

The really exciting thing about it is that it has 2 separate CPU's!! So naturally when I got it home my brother asked if I was setting it up for gaming... not yet...

I'll try and get some good pics and upload them sometime soonish too...


I plugged it in today and discovered that my PSU's are all really really old... as I only have the 20 pin connectors... but I do have a few of them so I'm going to see if I can hack a few together and get them to drive the board... The biggest problem at the moment is there is another socket next to the main 24 pin ATX power plug, this means (according to wikipedia) that I need an EPS type power supply. on the Wikipedia page for PSU's there is a reference to a .PDF calling itself the EPS design guide so hopefully that will help me hack together something that will work...

2 comments:

  1. I’m going to ask something obvious, if you don’t mind. :D What are your plans for the PSU? I know that you can still use it, provided that you have an adapter to convert the 24-pin cable to 20-pin. But, you and I both know that this won’t be good in the long run because the motherboard might melt or burn due to the excess current it receives. I’m looking forward to hear from you, Rex!

    Benita Bolland

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  2. Currently my plan is something along the lines of one of the following:
    1. Buy an EPS12v type power supply... probably least likely due to cost restraints but the safest option.

    2. Buy the 24 and 8 pin plugs I need and lash 2 ATX PSUs together with some sort of protection like a fuse or something. This is a little dodgy and will still cost me :(

    3. Learn how to design a PSU from scratch and build one myself. This would certainly be the most interesting for me, but also probably most expensive and dangerous...

    So... depending on how cheap I can find an EPS12v PSU I'll probably lash 2 together until I find a proper power supply at the right price...

    Cheers,
    Rex

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