do you have to ground your psu?

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flat4

[H]ard|Gawd
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Mar 21, 2003
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my psu came with a ground wire, im just making sure i have to ground it. it says to hook it up to the mounting spots on the mobo.also another question do u have to connect the 4 pin auxiliary cable to the mobo?

sorry if this is a n00b question. i just want to make sure
 
its the wire on the left
psu_2.jpg

i can get better pics if i have to
what about the 4 pin auxiliary cable?
 
heres a better pic:
groundcable.jpg

look what i just did to my end table/work table. oh well it was only 25 bucks
 
the metal case of the PSU should be tied to earth ground, which in turns grounds the computer case.

It shouldn't be neccessary to use a seperate grounding cable.
 
So just a normal screw-down ground; never seen one on a PSU before. Just to keep it out of the way you may as well slide it under one of the case screws and tighten it.
 
Set up in a block like the ATX connector? If your motherboard has a socket for it, plug it in.
 
flat4 said:
its the wire on the left
psu_2.jpg

i can get better pics if i have to
what about the 4 pin auxiliary cable?
Click to expand...
Hmmm... Nice bed.... Specs on it? Might be nice to have a nice big comfy bed sometimes ;)
 
As the consensus seems to say, the grounding wire isn't necessary but it doesn't hurt either. If you ignore it, your computer and all of its components will still be appropriately grounded.
 
It's mostly for Acrylic cases where the mobo isn't grounded, so you hook that up to a mount point on the mobo.
 
I would definitely connect that wire to some bare metal on the computer chassis because it won't hurt, and a few PSUs have their earth/case ground kept separate from the black wire ground. With a metal computer chassis this won't hurt because the mobo will ground itself to the PSU case through the mounting holes or the rear brackets of the plug-in cards, but not so with a plastic chassis. I first learned of these separate grounds when I tried to measure the voltages of a mobo without a case. I plugged one meter probe into the ATX mobo connector and the other probe against the PSU case and read zero volts even though the system was running. I opened up that PSU and found that it was designed that way but had room to solder a jumper wire to tie both grounds together. I've seen only one other PSU like this, but my Soyo/MaxPower and Antec SmartPower are built similarly, only their jumpers were installed at the factory.
 
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