Aurora 480W with an 850W on hand-how to proceed with installation?

[omenrip]

Hi,

I purchased a new Dell 850 Watt PSU for my Aurora R7. Now, I know my way around a pc, but never had I had to replace s PSU and get all the connections in the right place. If I had a schematic of the 850W as it relates to the system, I think I’ll be alright. Unfortunately I haven’t seen one around the web.

I’m thinking of taking advantage of one of Amazon’s services - professional pc part installations (including mb and cpu). For about $90 and the part in-hand I can have a professional come to my house and replace the power supply. (Some items like adding water cooling are not available in my area, but many other replacements are)

Sounds to good to be true. But is it? Any folks have experiences with changing out a 480W “hard wired” PSU to the modular 850W? Are there schematics around somewhere? And for the big elephant in the room - has anyone used Amazon’s pro pc techs?

Thanks. Michael

Here’s a pic of the faceplate of the 850W Dell - https://www.dropbox.com/s/b75vydmdrx941eb/Dell 850 Watt PSU.jpg?dl=0

 

[hang-the-9]

Not sure what you mean about schematics, there is not much to plugging in a power supply, you have motherboard main connection, secondary power to the CPU and then the drive connections and video connections. They are mostly standardized and you can easily match up what the connectors are now to what is on the new power supply. You can find all the pictures and instructions online. Or you can drive the thing to a local computer shop and they will probably swap the thing out for $20,30 or so. Takes like 10 minutes.

 

[omenrip]

Not sure what you mean about schematics, there is not much to plugging in a power supply, you have motherboard main connection, secondary power to the CPU and then the drive connections and video connections. They are mostly standardized and you can easily match up what the connectors are now to what is on the new power supply. You can find all the pictures and instructions online. Or you can drive the thing to a local computer shop and they will probably swap the thing out for $20,30 or so. Takes like 10 minutes.

The problem for me is there are 7 or 8 bundles of wires (lighting, etc) that just come out of the PSU in a bunch. OTOH, the 850 w PSU has several colored/ labeled plugs with most of saying things like Plug1, etc. the 480w PSU has no such things. That what worries me; I plug in the wrong connection because I don’t have something to follow from the 480 PSU.

 

[hang-the-9]

Not sure what you mean about schematics, there is not much to plugging in a power supply, you have motherboard main connection, secondary power to the CPU and then the drive connections and video connections. They are mostly standardized and you can easily match up what the connectors are now to what is on the new power supply. You can find all the pictures and instructions online. Or you can drive the thing to a local computer shop and they will probably swap the thing out for $20,30 or so. Takes like 10 minutes.

The problem for me is there are 7 or 8 bundles of wires (lighting, etc) that just come out of the PSU in a bunch. OTOH, the 850 w PSU has several colored/ labeled plugs with most of saying things like Plug1, etc. the 480w PSU has no such things. That what worries me; I plug in the wrong connection because I don’t have something to follow from the 480 PSU.

Why did you get a Dell power supply instead of a normal branded one, EVGA, Seasonic, etc...? The reason the cords are marked in this way is because it was designed for a particular system so you can follow the numbers for the connections on the motherboard that matches the power supply it was made for. Also why are you changing power supplies, is yours dead?

 

[omenrip]

I bought the R7 pre-built for a good deal, so I had no choice in the parts used.

My PSU is fine now; no problems. But I’m looking forward to the future, and I want to be sure the R7 approved Dell PSU could be put into use.

 

[omenrip]

I recently bought a Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 G1 Gaming 8G. After numerous tests with the paid version of 3D Mark, i encountered no problems with it. So the 450 W psu is holding up.

A strange thing my tech support said the first time I called is that the R7 has to be plugged directly into an outlet, not a power strip. When I did this I fixed my intermittent black screen booting problem. He said the R7 would have no problem handling brownouts or over voltages.

 

[omenrip]

After reading dozens of threads, I also bought a Seasonic Focus+ 850 watt Platinum, which folks say fit the size of the existing Dell PSU. I also bought a mini SATA connector to go with it.

So now I have a Dell branded Huntkey 850 watt PSU Bronze with all cables, and the Seasonic. The thing that worries me about the Seasonic is the larger bundles of cables, making routing much more difficult than the Huntkey. I wish the Seasonic had 3rd party custom cables like the eVGA PSU’s, but I can’t find any.

Being that I want the 850 watt version for a subsequent RTX purchase (implying that my 450 watt is running fine so far), which one would you get? Bear in mind that I’m still under warranty, which may or may not affect the choice of PSU. This the last upgrade I’m making to my R7, other than replacing the front fan with a Noctua NF-F12.

Thanks for your opinions to an “intermediate” PC knowledgeable person.

Mike

 

[hang-the-9]

Not sure why you are worried about the cables with the Seasonic, aren't those modular? So you just plug in the cables you need to use.

 

[omenrip]

I’m not worried about plugging the cables into the modular PSU. I’m worried that I’ll plug in a wrong cable into the motherboard. That I’ve never done before. If each connector on the motherboard is properly labeled, then I should be able to get the cords right.

The video on YouTube shows removing the power supply by unplugging the connections from the motherboard and taking out the PSU. But, and this is a big but for me (no pun intended), the power supply they removed was the Dell modular 850 watt PSU. My 450 watt baby PSU has just a bunch of wires coming out of is (I’m not trying to belittle you excellent experience. I’m trying to show where my comfort zone is low). No correlation to the Dell PSU or the Seasonic Focus Plus PSU.

This alteration of psu’s with no wire diagram for where the cables attach to the motherboard is my concern. If I plug in the wrong cable on the motherboard, I could fry it. Now, since I’m still under warranty for 1.5 years, how would Dell react to my tinkering?

Mike

 

[hang-the-9]

I’m not worried about plugging the cables into the modular PSU. I’m worried that I’ll plug in a wrong cable into the motherboard. That I’ve never done before. If each connector on the motherboard is properly labeled, then I should be able to get the cords right.

The video on YouTube shows removing the power supply by unplugging the connections from the motherboard and taking out the PSU. But, and this is a big but for me (no pun intended), the power supply they removed was the Dell modular 850 watt PSU. My 450 watt baby PSU has just a bunch of wires coming out of is (I’m not trying to belittle you excellent experience. I’m trying to show where my comfort zone is low). No correlation to the Dell PSU or the Seasonic Focus Plus PSU.

This alteration of psu’s with no wire diagram for where the cables attach to the motherboard is my concern. If I plug in the wrong cable on the motherboard, I could fry it. Now, since I’m still under warranty for 1.5 years, how would Dell react to my tinkering?

Mike

Well first thing, why are you swapping the power supply in the first place? From what I see the system is working fine as it is, best way to break something is to try to "fix" an non-existent issue.

If you are that worried you will plug something into the wrong place but really want to swap the power supply for some reason, have a computer tech do it. Will take 10 minutes.

 

[omenrip]

I’m not worried about plugging the cables into the modular PSU. I’m worried that I’ll plug in a wrong cable into the motherboard. That I’ve never done before. If each connector on the motherboard is properly labeled, then I should be able to get the cords right.

The video on YouTube shows removing the power supply by unplugging the connections from the motherboard and taking out the PSU. But, and this is a big but for me (no pun intended), the power supply they removed was the Dell modular 850 watt PSU. My 450 watt baby PSU has just a bunch of wires coming out of is (I’m not trying to belittle you excellent experience. I’m trying to show where my comfort zone is low). No correlation to the Dell PSU or the Seasonic Focus Plus PSU.

This alteration of psu’s with no wire diagram for where the cables attach to the motherboard is my concern. If I plug in the wrong cable on the motherboard, I could fry it. Now, since I’m still under warranty for 1.5 years, how would Dell react to my tinkering?

Mike

Well first thing, why are you swapping the power supply in the first place? From what I see the system is working fine as it is, best way to break something is to try to "fix" an non-existent issue.

If you are that worried you will plug something into the wrong place but really want to swap the power supply for some reason, have a computer tech do it. Will take 10 minutes.

 

[omenrip]

Hang-the-9,

You’re probably right. I guess I got the “power supply fever” when the RTX’s came out. And all this talk about the quality of Huntkey made me nervous too. Since I really want a good PSU in my R7, I’ll take it to a tech to put it together.

Thanks for your input. I really appreciate it.

 

[omenrip]

Well, I surprised even myself by buying a Seasonic 850 W Platinum PSU and getting someone whom HomeAdvisor recommended to put in the new PSU. Well, after 4 hours of this, while consulting the Aurora Service Manual and copious amounts of pictures, he did get the PSU in on the 1st try. Of course, he broke the connectors to my dvd drive and left the main PSU wires just lumped to the side of the water cooler. But it does work.

I’ve already bought and replaced a blu-Ray drive to replace the broken dvd one and I’m starting to tidy up the wires a bit.

But I learned a couple of things:

1) try it yourself first. I could have put the PSU in myself.
2) take your time. Rushing causes messes and mistakes (don’t I know it); and 3) while you’re looking inside the case, plan your next project - which I did. I replaced the front 2penny fan with a good one like the Noctua NF-F12 fan.

I feel like I’m building Frankenstein from the neck down. I’ve put in 32gb Intel Octane for the new WD Black 2Tb that I put in first, then 32 gb HyperX DDR4, the 2 WD Blue 3D 1 tb SSD sata, then on top of all a Samsung 970 Pro SSD 500 gb nvme (boot) on an nvme PCI card.

Now what’s on the agenda for next week?