Are all PSU wires created equal?

[InorganicMatter]

This is a wierd question, so bear with me. On a PSU, are all black/yellow/red/orange cables identical? Like, do ALL black cables provide grounding no matter what? Do ALL yellow/red cables provide 12v/5v no matter what? Or is one connector's yellow line different from another connector's? The reason I ask is, my PSU cables are tangled up. I would like to pull all the molex connectors, straighten the cables out, and reconnect the molex connectors. If I did this, could I just reassemble the molex connectors using any 2 blacks, a red and a yellow? Or would it be more complicated than that?

 

[Ice Czar]

they are all the same

though some supplues will identify the second +12V rail (+12V2) with a yellow w\ Black Stripe

also the wire guage can be a little thin on cheaper and older supplies

 

[aznx]

I say just untangle, its so hard getting those things out and putting each individual one back in. But also, they all should be the same.

 

[NickN]

though some supplues will identify the second +12V rail (+12V2) with a yellow w\ Black Stripe

also the wire guage can be a little thin on cheaper and older supplies

Yep. When I got my Antec power supply, I made a comparison bewteen its wires and the wires of my previous generic 300 watter. Antec's wires were way thicker.

 

[superlyduper]

i use a cardas power cable instead of the regular black generic crap. the image quality is so much better, as is the stability.

 

[larrymoencurly]

They're all identical except for any voltage sense wires. If you look at the connector, you'll find that some pins have two wires going to them rather than one. The second wire, sometimes thinner than the power wire, is for measuring the voltage, and inside the PSU it goes to a separate location. Almost always, one orange +3.3V wire is paired with a sense wire (it's sometimes brown instead of orange), but on better PSUs you may also find one red +5.0V wire paired with a red sense wire (Antec TruePowers but not SmartPowers, even though the latter contain the circuitry needed to support it) and even one black ground wire paired with a black sense wire.

 

[InorganicMatter]

They're all identical except for any voltage sense wires. If you look at the connector, you'll find that some pins have two wires going to them rather than one. The second wire, sometimes thinner than the power wire, is for measuring the voltage, and inside the PSU it goes to a separate location. Almost always, one orange +3.3V wire is paired with a sense wire (it's sometimes brown instead of orange), but on better PSUs you may also find one red +5.0V wire paired with a red sense wire (Antec TruePowers but not SmartPowers, even though the latter contain the circuitry needed to support it) and even one black ground wire paired with a black sense wire.

By this do you mean I might have a Molex with 1 red, 1 yellow, and 3 blacks, with two of the blacks in one connection?

they are all the same

though some supplues will identify the second +12V rail (+12V2) with a yellow w\ Black Stripe

also the wire guage can be a little thin on cheaper and older supplies

So if I find this, I just have to make sure those mixed-color ones end up in their original plug?

 

[Ice Czar]

youd only see that in an ATX12V v2.0 or EPS12V supply
where there are multiple +12V rails (3 or 4 rails in a EPS12V)

in which case its best to keep track of which wires went where with labeling them (tape)

as mentioned untangling is far easiler than pin removal from the connectors
and even though with the proper tools you can repin
making sure the pins are properly seated in the connectors again is a real pain in the ass, ensuring good connections throughout being very important

 

[Dillusion]

No, not all wires are the same. The standard is like 8-10 gauge wire, but my friends Raidmax PSU has like 4-6 gauge wire on it, much thinner than any normal PSU.

 

[Ice Czar]

18 AWG is the "normal"
16 AWG being very rare and high quality
20 AWG being junk supplies or very old school

 

[Dillusion]

18 AWG is the "normal"
16 AWG being very rare and high quality
20 AWG being junk supplies or very old school

Ya thats what i meant..

 

[n64man120]

So if I was to buy wire for extending cables in general, might as well go 18AWG? I got some stuff, I don't know what guage it is, but it's so damn thick its a PITA to splice to normal comptuer wires.