Are you joking me? ATX Power Connector Won't Fit

E

el_jackhole

Gawd
Joined
Jun 10, 2001
Messages
675
This is absolutely ridiculous.

I just got an Epox 8RDA3+ motherboard in today, naturally I nearly ambushed the postman in my rush to play with my new toy.

After about two hours of the usual tricky foreplay - mounting the board in my case, cutting the poorly machined I/0 shield, appling the paste, mounting the dangerously large TT9 HSF, and plugging in all the necessary dowackies - I can't get the f$(%!^& ATX power connector to fit. Mind you, the 4-pin 12V connector works just fine, but not the 20-pin. It will depress halfway in, but no amount of shoving or jiggling will get me a millimeter farther.

I've tried three power supplies - an older 24-pin FSP-350BN, an Enhance 2.03 ATX supply, and a shitty no-name supply so light it would hover under fan power if it wasn't attached to a case - and none of them will go. Naturally, they all fit in my old 8KHA+. Nothing appears to be broken or bent in the ATX header.

Has anyone else had problems with shoddy Epox manufacturing? How do I make the hurting stop?
 
el_jackhole said:
This is absolutely ridiculous.

I just got an Epox 8RDA3+ motherboard in today, naturally I nearly ambushed the postman in my rush to play with my new toy.

After about two hours of the usual tricky foreplay - mounting the board in my case, cutting the poorly machined I/0 shield, appling the paste, mounting the dangerously large TT9 HSF, and plugging in all the necessary dowackies - I can't get the f$(%!^& ATX power connector to fit. Mind you, the 4-pin 12V connector works just fine, but not the 20-pin. It will depress halfway in, but no amount of shoving or jiggling will get me a millimeter farther.

I've tried three power supplies - an older 24-pin FSP-350BN, an Enhance 2.03 ATX supply, and a shitty no-name supply so light it would hover under fan power if it wasn't attached to a case - and none of them will go. Naturally, they all fit in my old 8KHA+. Nothing appears to be broken or bent in the ATX header.

Has anyone else had problems with shoddy Epox manufacturing? How do I make the hurting stop?
Click to expand...


You probably already looked, but do the holes on the motherboard match you power supply plugs? Did they accidently key the holes wrong?

Me
 
i had a really difficult time installing the atx cable on my a8v, i had to press so hard i thought the board was gonna snap :eek:
 
lordsegan said:
i might be drunk but wtf does that mean?
Click to expand...

What does what mean? What Dephcon wrote? He was just saying that he had to push in his 20 pin motherboard connector really hard into his ASUS A8V motherboard to get it to fit. This thread did start off with some guy complaining about not being able to plug anything into his 20 pin motherboard connector. Dephcon was just saying he had a similar problem once. :p
 
Arvig said:
You probably already looked, but do the holes on the motherboard match you power supply plugs? Did they accidently key the holes wrong?

Me
Click to expand...

Good advice, but that was one of the first things I thought of. They are all keyed correctly. That's why I can slide the connector at least halfway in.
 
are you sure you arent trying to plug it in backwards...try flipping it around...
if that doesnt work, put it in halfway and stand on the mobo, that should work
 
Clindst said:
are you sure you arent trying to plug it in backwards...try flipping it around...
Click to expand...
Yes, yes, quite sure. Believe me, I've been working at this for hours, with a night's sleep in between.

Clindst said:
if that doesnt work, put it in halfway and stand on the mobo, that should work
Click to expand...
I'm surprised no one has reccommended a hammer yet. :p
 
look inside the holes on the mobo plug and the PSU plug - any piece of plastic or junk stuck in there?
 
Any chance we can get some pics of what the headers and connection looks like? Doesn't make sense that it wouldn't fit..! :confused:
G'luck w/ it tho!
 
Alright, thanks everyone for the comments.

Nothing in the header or connector was bent or broken, I'm afraid, and there was no debris blocking the slots or anything. I ended up having to manually bend each and every pin in the header to match up with the appropriate slot in the PSU connector. Most (over half, I think) of the pins in the ATX header were too low, and were hittitng the metal rims of the connectors. I used a small flat screwdriver, and it took well over 2 hours because those pins and slots fit very very snugly and there isn't much margin of error. It was like some kind of demented Myst puzzle that you end up doing over and over again in the vain hope that some lucky combination will work.

After all that it went in with only a little bit of jiggling. Totally anti-climatic. I was expecting an explosion of confetti, or the shrill death cry of whatever little demon had possessed my board.

I don't suppose they test for this sort of thing in the factory.
 
el_jackhole said:
Alright, thanks everyone for the comments.

Nothing in the header or connector was bent or broken, I'm afraid, and there was no debris blocking the slots or anything. I ended up having to manually bend each and every pin in the header to match up with the appropriate slot in the PSU connector. Most (over half, I think) of the pins in the ATX header were too low, and were hittitng the metal rims of the connectors. I used a small flat screwdriver, and it took well over 2 hours because those pins and slots fit very very snugly and there isn't much margin of error. It was like some kind of demented Myst puzzle that you end up doing over and over again in the vain hope that some lucky combination will work.

After all that it went in with only a little bit of jiggling. Totally anti-climatic. I was expecting an explosion of confetti, or the shrill death cry of whatever little demon had possessed my board.

I don't suppose they test for this sort of thing in the factory.
Click to expand...

Well, at least it fit, even if you pretty much had to reshape the connector on your own. Um...err..yeah. ;)

They probably do test for it, but it's probably something like pull a random board from a batch, if that plug looks good, then declare the whole lot good...otherwise, you got the one out of however many in a batch that slipped through.

Not to ask a dumb question, but have you dared trying pulling the plug out, then putting it back in to see if it still fits?

Me
 
Arvig said:
Not to ask a dumb question, but have you dared trying pulling the plug out, then putting it back in to see if it still fits?

Me
Click to expand...

Yeah, did that a couple times. It goes in with a little bit of pressure and jiggle.
 
I had a similar problem just yesterday. I found with a nice pair of needle nose and about 15 minutes of presicion tunning it went in with little effort
 
i returned my first agp videocard (way back in the day it was a tnt 16meg) because my pc wouldn't boot when i installed it. I took the replacement home, installed it and had the same damn problem! I was so pissed off i used all my feeble might to smash the videocard into the slot and it went "crunch" i thought i had broke it, but alas the computer booted up just fine. i guess the moral of the story is, if it isn't going in push push push that fucker into place. either it will work or it will break.

Of course that doesn't apply to cpus. don't push push push them or you will be straightening pins for the rest of your life.
 
Retro Rex said:
This is a serious sign you need to start working out.
Click to expand...


I am still laughing at this one. :p My friends are asking me what is so funny because I will just bust out snickering all of the sudden, and it is because I am thinking of what Retro Rex said. Thank you, I needed that. :)
 
Tiny said:
I am still laughing at this one. :p My friends are asking me what is so funny because I will just bust out snickering all of the sudden, and it is because I am thinking of what Retro Rex said. Thank you, I needed that. :)
Click to expand...


Yeah, same here. I am in my school library right now, and I snickered a bit and everyone heard me. Its dead silent in here (infact, I feel disruptive typing, its so quite), so it seemed very loud. Oh well, it was funny.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top