In the previous post, I wrote about how I ended up buying the Corsair HX650 Gold PSU for my current rig. Actually, this PSU will eventually end up in a SFF build. I’m in the verge of slowly moving from my current rig to a SFF rig. Since I have no idea when I will be able make the complete translation, it ended up going in my current rig for now.
The PSU was ordered from Sofmap where the PSU was available at the cheapest price. The PSU arrived within two days and I quickly installed it.
It felt a bit harder to push it into the PSU compartment of the Silverstone Raven RV-03 case. But finally it went in. First hurdle passed. I hope I won’t have a hard time pulling it out.
Then there was the 2nd hurdle - a much more problematic than before. The orientation of the power socket at the back of the PSU seemed problematic. It was 90 degrees rotated compared to the TX850 and at first I thought the internal power cable of the case wasn’t long enough. (The following pic shows how they end up when installed inside the Raven RV-03 case. The power cable comes from the top right hand corner.)
But luckily it fit OK. I had to pull it with all my might though. After I plugged it in, it went back to a relaxed position. The installation was the hard part. (Later I found that there was a easier way to do it.)
OK, so far so good.
Then it was time for the cabling. First I connected the 24-pin cable. Wish these were fully braided cables. The area near the connector looks ugly.
It was quite easy. Then I tried to connect the 8-pin EPS cable. Oh dear! The CPU cooler gave me a such a hard time. Apart from no having enough space to work my hand, the power connector was split into two 4-pin connectors and connecting them both at the same time was the hardest part. But in the end I managed to connect it.
Then it was time for the modular cables. The general accepted procedure is, first you connect the ends to the devices and then to the PSU. When you do that, you would know which cables will be required and which one should plug into to which socket. You might not be able to reach some devices if you plugged the cable to the wrong socket on the PSU. Of course some of the sockets have predetermined purposes such as the PCI-E power cables. Anyways, due to the way the hard drives were arranged behind the motherboard tray, I had to use both SATA power cables to connect the drives. This is something I should keep in check when I finally start looking for that ideal mini-ITX case. I also had to connect the cable with the old Molex connectors because there were some fans running directly from the PSU. They were quiet enough and didn’t require controlling though Fan Xpert 2.
I wish there were separate cables for 6-pin and 8-pin. The ones provided are dual purpose cables and they don’t look nice when plugged into graphics cards that require only 6-pin connectors. The extra 2-pins keep dangling from the end.
Anyways, now that everything was connected to the PSU, I turned on the PC. Just like expected, the PC booted and went into the desktop. The PSU was not a DOA. That’s my biggest concern these days when buying stuff. Dead on Arrivals. Good! Now I could send away the old TX850 PSU.
Nothing more can go wrong, right? So I tried to close the side panel of the case to finish the installation and put the case back where it was. But I couldn’t. An issue that I never foresaw popped up. I couldn’t close the side panel. The internal power cable plugged to the back of the PSU was blocking the installation of the side panel. Oh boy! Time to panic. I pulled out the plug and thought about it for a second. Then I figured out that you could the cable in a different way. This way, the cable didn’t have to stretch as well.
It still seemed to be blocking the installation of the side panel. But then I looked at how the side panel would fit and figured out how I could fit it without doing any modifications. I first inserted the panel in an angle and then straightened it out. That worked!!! It was still a tight fit, but it worked. Phew!
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