Power Supply Pinout Repository

Ladies and gentlemen, modders and moddettes or all ages! Welcome to the Modders Inc power supply pinout repository! What’s this you might ask? Well as we all know cable sleeving isn’t what it used to be over the last few years as we have gone from bundled sleeved cables to individually sleeved masterpieces! Well just like with anything else modding related there is a bit of a risk involved with cable sleeving, mostly the possibly of making components release the magic smoke…. but I am here to help you with preventing that! You see rather than take the wild west approach and let anyone and everyone post their pinouts, we take a much stricter let’s call it Soviet Union approach and lock down our pinouts where only we can post them. Control freaks? Possibly but this way we know what pin outs are posted at all times and we make sure to only post pin outs that have been tested with the physical units.

How do we get our power supply pin outs?

Well, that is easy! I make sure to jump-start each PSU (Power Supply Unit) and using a voltmeter I get a list of what voltage registers to each terminal.

Why do we do this?

Well, manufactures have gotten smart and know that people like to stealth their cables. This means the old way of telling wires by their colors is out the window. With that said however it is always best to use a voltmeter as manufactures sometimes don’t follow the standard color to voltage chart and will use random colors or colors of a different voltage. So by taking the voltage rather than relying on the color code, you have a much more reliable pin out chart and can move wires of a similar voltage for cleaner pin outs.

So what exactly is a pin out?

A pin out can be defined as the pattern/order that the cables of the PSU go leading from the PSU to the components.

Why is it important?

Although most modern-day PSUs have built-in surge protectors which will trip an automatic shut off if they detect a surge of power that may cause damage, some may not catch certain mis-pinned cables which over time can result in poor power delivery which will lead to components failure. One way to test this is by investing in a PSU tester, I use the Thermaltake Dr Power II. The method in which is test the power supply is that it allows for a very small bit of power to come through, if the test sees that something is not registering right on the component side (component side is always constant) the tester will flash red and beep angrily at you, if successful it will beep once and stay blue.

*Please note, although the Thermaltake Dr Power II is a great tool for testing your PSUs, I have found that it will always result in a failure reading on certain digital PSUs. This readout is due to the trip sensor recognizing a weak power flow but does not necessarily mean you have pinned your PSU out incorrectly.

Warning!

While I make it a point to test all PSU pinouts I post, please understand that Modders-Inc is not in any way responsible for any damage or harm that may come to you or your equipment, so please proceed with caution. Please be mindful of PSU revisions as well as geographic locations where a 110v and 220v PSU may have different pinouts to accommodate for the regions power delivery system.

Changelog:

This article will be continuously updated as more information is on hand and more power supplies are tested:

• 2015-11-16: Be Quiet! Power Zone, EVGA SuperNOVA G2, Seasonic Platinum 1000, Seasonic XP3, Corsair Type 3, SilverStone Strider added.