- Let's discuss the main power supply connectors
you ought to know for the exam.
The most common form factor used in PCs today
is advanced technology extended, ATX.
Depending on the type of ATX,
the main power connector to the motherboard
will usually have 24-pins,
or 20-pins and a separate 4-pins over here
which can be separated if necessary.
Or 20-pins only for much older ATX power supplies
but generally you'll see 24-pin.
And today's systems use power supplies that adhere
to one of the ATX 12 volt, 2.X standards.
The key is compatibility.
When replacing or upgrading you need to find
a compatible power supply
according to those specifications
and get it from a reliable power supply manufacturer.
So that's the main power connector, your 24-pin ATX.
Most of today's motherboards have an additional
4-pin or 8-pin,
more likely an 8-pin 12 volt power port for the CPU,
which is referred to as EATX12 volt.
A typical power supply offers one or two
4-pin connectors, or more commonly,
a single 8-pin connector as shown here.
And this is for that extra power to the CPU.
And you can see it's labeled here.
Let's look at two examples of ATX power and CPU power ports.
First here, we have a CORE i5, bit of an older system
as of the recording of this video,
and you can see the main power connector,
24-pin ATX down here,
and over here, you can see the 4-pin CPU power
for this particular CPU.
So for this CORE i5, we just need a 4-pin CPU connection.
So the power supply has to match up.
But here we have CORE i7
and here's your main 24-pin ATX power, once again,
and here we have the 8-pin and
here's a blow up of that.
An 8-pin CPU connector, EATX12 volt,
also known as a 4+4 pin.
So definitely know the ATX 24-pin
and the CPU 4-pin and 8-pin connectors.
It's also important to know how many of each type
of power connector you need when planning
which power supply to use.
You must be familiar with each type
of power connector for the A+ exams.
So be prepared to identify them by name and by sight.
So here we have an SATA power connector,
serial ATA, that is a 15-pin connector.
It only uses five wires though.
And those are 12 volt, 5 volt, and 3.3 volt
in order here, yellow, red, and orange.
So we use those for hard drives,
for optical drives, and so on.
Here we have a Molex power connector
also known as a peripheral connector,
and that's the old school connector
that we used to use for IDE hard drives.
But you might also see it used for internal case fans
or other heat related devices.
And so that's a 4-pin connection, four wires.
You've got your 12 volt and your 5 volt.
And the blacks are usually grounds.
Now, in some cases, all the wires are blacks,
but in this case, we do have color coded wires.
So we know the black ones are grounding wires.
And finally here, PCI express power connector.
This is a 6-pin or an 8-pin.
You can do either one depending on
what your video card requires.
Many video cards just require 6-pins,
so you could do that.
If it requires an 8-pin,
you'll kind of put them back together
and connect them as one.
And here's a little table of that information.
You want to be able to identify them by sight
and by name.
SATA, serial ATA hard drives and optical drives.
It's a 15-pin power connector with 3.3 volts,
5 volts, and 12 volts.
Then Molex, also known as peripheral,
used for case fans, older IDE hard drives,
older IDE optical drives.
4-pin connector, has a 5 volt, a 12 volt,
two grounding wires.
And PCI express, for video cards.
You've got the 6-pin,
which is version 2.1 for ATX 12 volt power supplies.
And then the 8-pin, which is version 2.2 and higher.
So memorize it, know your power connector types,
your ATX 24-pin, your CPU 4-pin and 8-pin
connector or combo connector,
which is a 4+4, also your SATA power,
your Molex power and your PCI express power.
And that's it for this video.