20 pin PSU to 24 pin mainboard

I have an ATX 550w JSP EZ Cool PSU. I want to get an ATX2 motherboard but I'll be plugging a 20 pin power supply into a 24 pin socket. Is this likely to cause problems?

(Excuse any poor terminology, I'm a bit of a novice.)

 

Its been my experience that no, it will not.

However, download the manual of the motherboard you are thinking of buying and double check to see how they handle 20 pin PSUs.

 

It depends on your system.

The 24 pin was made to add extra juice to the motherboard due to the power requirements of the new power hungry graphics cards and CPU's.

I ran a 20 pin 420w Antec TP on my DFI/3200 X64/X800 setup. It did run, but any attempt to overclock would not work.

I upgraded to a Fortron 500w and I was able to overclock. I assume that the 20 pin was putting out just enough power on the 12v rail to run the PC, but nothing extra.

Moral of the story, the newer hardware needs more power. And it will depend on your system if it will run properly, or not.

 

Well I have no plans to overclock my new system. It'll still way outperform my current build on the basic settings.

No idea what exact board the guy at the store had in mind but it'll be running an AMD 3800 Athlon 64 and have 1gb DDR2 533 and an Nvidia 7300LE 256mb PCI card plugged into it so it'll be something compatable with all that.

 

Well, if you experience stability problems, then I think you have a pretty good idea of what may be the problem.

 

You can buy 20pin to 24pin adaptors for e few quid. My problem is the reverse.

 

From what I have read, there are mixed results with the 20-24 converters.

As I have said before, but perhaps have not gone into it in detail, it is a matter of the power consumption on the 12v rail that your PSU can supply.

If you are in question, read the differences between the older specifications and the new 2.0.

Buy hey, if you can get around it, then fine. But if your wondering if you have reboots, BOSDs, and poor performance, then you know.

 

Thanks for the tips. Seems I was worrying about nothing though. Turns out my PSU actually has 24 pins. Didn't realise 4 were seperate and plugged in to a different part of the board.

 

Yea, it does depend on the motherboard.

My DFI for example needs a 24 pin, along with the 4-pin, a molex, and a FDD. That is a lot of power connections that go the the motherboard.

 

If you have a MOBO that has a 24 pin Main, why would you even consider using a 20 pin PSU?

Good Luck