[pyro-manic]

I'm currently building a shiny new puter for a mate, as follows:

Antec PlusView 1080AMG tower case
Athlon XP3000+
Asus A7N8X-E mobo
1Gb DDR RAM
120gb HDD
GeForce FX 5900XT
CDRW, DVD, etc.

However, while putting the thing together I've run into an interesting problem:

It's got a Maxtor Plus9 120Gb SATA hard drive, and I'm not sure what goes where with regards to power cables, as this is the first one I've actually seen. There's the usual socket for a 4-pin plastic connector thingy, but there's also a thin, flat socket next to the SATA cable socket. The mobo came with an adaptor to convert a 4-pin connector to this flat socket thingy. Which one do I use? I don't fancy wrecking the thing before it's even got an OS on it.

Cheers for the help in advance!

[IceFire]

SATA doesn't use MOLEX?  Interesting!  I've got a SATA capable motherboard but everything is still IDE.

I'd love to know but I don't have the answer for you...what about the floppy disk power cables?  Those don't fit either?

[Splinter]

my motherboard came with those flat thin connector thingys right on the mobo with 2 cables for them. so i have no idea how that would work on the stupid asus... HA! yay gigabyte :thepimp:

[pyro-manic]

Er, right....

Think you've got the wrong end of the stick-shaped-thing there Splinter - the mobo's got SATA sockets on. That's not what I'm asking. I'm talking about the power connectors for the actual drive itself.

These piccies should show what I'm on about:

The back of the drive:
www.freewebs.com/pyro-manic/HDD1.jpg

The adaptor wotsit:
www.freewebs.com/pyro-manic/adaptor.jpg

Apologies for the shocking quality of the pics - the camera is a piece of crap. And my handwriting isn't that bad - it was done with a trackball....

[Splinter]

oooh ok... no idea

however i do have a question for you.

in that first picture that thing attached next to the HDD area that is plastic... looks like a cheap plastic "brass knuckles" with all the slots/holes... wtf is it? its light blue in that pic... I have one as well and i cant for the life of me figure out what its for.

[Taristin]

Beats me, but I have the same mobo. Tis a good one, she is.

[pyro-manic]

Splinter: it says in the case manual that it's a "card guide", for pci cards I assume. Though you'd have to have a bloody huge card to fit in it - it's about 40cm from the back of the case!

[ChronoReverse]

There's a new power connector for SATA drives.  My Enermax power supply came with the convertors too.


But since it has a molex connector, use that.

[Splinter]

Originally posted by pyro-manic
Splinter: it says in the case manual that it's a "card guide", for pci cards I assume. Though you'd have to have a bloody huge card to fit in it - it's about 40cm from the back of the case!

yeah ill say

[mikhael]

The drive SHOULD have a manual that tells you what that extra connector is. However, if it fits the molex-to-SATA-power-connector, its a pretty damned good bet that's what its for. If I were you, I'd see what the drive manual said and if that IS the SATA-power, I'd give preference to that over the molex.

[redsniper]

I have that exact mobo and a similar hard drive. I don't think it matters what you use. I used the 4-pin connector and it works fine.

[Fury]

I have two Seagate 7200.7 drives which are natural SATA and Maxtor Maxline Plus II drive which is not a natural SATA drive.

When you're looking the drive from back, in the very left you see a wider thin black line, That's the SATA power plug. Very next to right you see narrower thin black line, that's the SATA data plug. Howewer, unless HDD manufacturer otherwise advises, it should be safe to use the molex plug in drives which are partially still PATA and not natural SATA drives.

Most today's power supplies have SATA power connectors, if not and you need to use SATA power plug, then use a converter.

[Xelion]

Using the picture below as reference, you already know by now the one circled in yellow is the SATA cable. The cable next to that is the SATA power cable which has one molex connector and two SATA power connectors (flat plugs). The molex connector plugs into one of the power supply's molex connectors and you can plug either one of the SATA power connectors to the power connection (WTF) on the SATA HD.



heres a tutorial on installing a SATA drive that I found online, that might be easier to follow then my babbling

[Bobboau]

hey! woohoo, I just realised that I have two open SATA ports on my MOBO! ha!
well I'm off to buy a new HDD

hey, is a SATA 150 drive able to run on a 133 slot?

[pyro-manic]

mik: I thought of that, but it's an OEM drive.

Thanks for the advice peeps - it works on both connectors. I've stuck it on the MOLEX though, cos the SATA one looks a bit flimsy to me.

EDIT: Linkage to the official Maxtor installation guide: http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/products/ata/desktop/diamondmax_plus_9/index.htm

[Grey Wolf]

Originally posted by Bobboau
hey! woohoo, I just realised that I have two open SATA ports on my MOBO! ha!
well I'm off to buy a new HDD

hey, is a SATA 150 drive able to run on a 133 slot?

No. 133 is the old ATA-133 standard, and although I've seen 133 to 150 convertors, I haven't seen any 150 to 133 convertors.