ps and fan questions

[cronus1914]

Hey everyone! Got a few questions that I can hopefully get answered.

1.) If you have an 80MM fan, is that 80mm from left to right or from top to bottom? (stupid question i know)

2.) What does it mean when they say a power supply is Pentium 4 ready? I noticed that my new motherboard which uses a Pentium 4 has 2 different types of power connectors besides the normal 20-pin ATX connector. Does it mean that the P/S has power connections that go into those new connectors on the motherboard? Also, what does those extra power connectors provide exactly?

3.) Im getting a new video card (ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 7500) and I was wondering if I should upgrade to a newer, more powerful power supply. Im currently using a 300W P/S. After I get the card Ill have the following components in my computer. Hard drive, cd-rom, dvd-rom, 2 fans, 4 pci cards, video card, pentium 4 2GHz cpu, and 256 MB of DDR-RAM. Should I get a new P/S???

4.) I was at a computer show and I saw a place selling new motherboards that had a sticker over the AGP slot that said don't use older 3.3V AGP cards in this slot, you will damage the motherboard. What's the deal with this? I thought the new versions of AGP were totally backwards-comptaible? Also, why won't my old AGP 1x work in my new motherboards AGP 4x slot? Again, I thought the new versions of AGP were totally backwards-comptaible.

5.) When u buy a case fan that connects using a 4-pin connector can you use that other connector that they give you to plug in another device? It's called a pass-through connection right? I heard that you can't becuz the voltages get switched around or something. What's the deal with all that?


Sorry, for all the rambling. Thanks in advance to anyone who helps answer my stupid questions.

BiLL

[BigBlue66]

1) An 80mm fan is square, mostly, so it doesn't make any difference which way you measure it.

2) A PSU that is P4 ready comes with that extra 4-pin power lead that your motherboard has. It supplies 12volt power to the processor. Even some older AMD motherboards use that connector, such as the MSI K7T Turbo2.

3) Yes, judging from what you will be running, I would suggest at least a 400 watt PSU.

4) Not sure about no. 4

5) Yes, it's a pass-through connector. Manufacturers of fans use these connectors so that when you plug your fan in, you won't lose a power connector. And yes, you can plug another device into the spare connector that's left over after plugging in your fan. And no, the voltages don't get switched around, unless you manually do it, but that's for another thread. In brief, you can switch the wires around in such a way as to provide only 7 volts to a high powered noisy fan for example. But that's the only time you would do something like that.

[ski]

4) The Intel i845 and i850 chipsets only support AGP video cards compliant with 1.5 Volt signalling. All true AGP 4X cards are able to operate on 1.5 Volt signalling. AGP2X and AGP1X cards support 3.3 Volt signalling as well as 1.5 Volts. In fact, many of these older cards operate at 3.3 Volts only.

Because of the lower voltage signalling, the AGP 4X slot on i845 and i850 motherboards is notched so that 3.3 Volt only cards cannot be inserted. The problem occurs with older AGP cards that have the correct notch, but do not comply with 1.5 Volt signalling, asking for 3.3 Volts from the motherboard instead. In such cases, the video card and the motherboard can be permanently damaged.

A number of cards have been identified that have the 1.5 Volt notch, but are actually 3.3Volt cards. These are:
- some nVidia Riva TNT2 cards
- all nVidia Vanta, Vanta LT cards
- all SiS 6326, SiS 305 cards
- all S3 Savage4 cards up to, but not including revision 3.0
- all 3dfx AGP Voodoo 3, 4, and 5 boards (officially non-AGP 4x anyway)
- some nVidia GeForce2 GTS/Pro.

These cards will short the Vddq and VCC3.3 lines and permanently damage the i82845 Memory Controller Hub, rendering your motherboard useless.

[BigBlue66]

Thanks for clearing that up Ski. I knew it had something to do with the voltages of course, but you explained it much better than I ever could.