Question Replacement cable compatibility for a Modular PSU ?

[janos]

Greetings altogether,

As I'm in the middle of a hardware crisis right now and thus trying to debug as good as possible, I stumbled over one crucial compatibility question while trying to exclude the Power cable connected to my GPU from the dysfunctional hardware pieces.

So my PSU is a Enermax 750W Revolution DF 80+ Gold but I can't find any replacement cables in case the delivered ones are broken for some reason, so I was wondering if someone around here has an idea about what cable to actually get as a harmless option from a different brand without getting me to a short circuit on the darn thing...
The needed cable would be a PCIe 8 pin to 2x 6+2 Pin one. I've heard the Corsair ones are pretty universal compatible, but I simply can't verify this without ordering, pluggin it in and risking a meltdown.

Sry, if this appears overly careful here, but I am simply no expert for things like this and not long ago I still thought they all were universal compatible... luckily I never had to replace a PCIe cable before like this, bc the former ones all were all-in-one solutions without any modular plugs.

Anyways. As you can hear, I'm a bit exhausted by now, bc I am busy with the whole debug since two weeks now and every time, issues like that that shouldn't be an issue at all normally pop up and I am delayed for another session of hours with trying to find alts or workarounds.

Please someone help me with this one in hope this finally may solve my very weird, overall system issue.

Best wishes and thanks in advance,
Janos

 

[Lutfij]

so I was wondering if someone around here has an idea about what cable to actually get as a harmless option from a different brand without getting me to a short circuit on the darn thing
The simple answer to that is that not all PSU's have the same pinout. As such you should contact Enermax and see if they can send out a cable kit for a fee even. if that's not an option, you can probably contact a custom cable sleeving company and have them fabricate a custom set of cables that are meant specifically for your PSU with the right pinout. If you want to source the cable through another avenue, you can look up Ebay listings for the exact same PSU, you should be able to pick up cables for cheap.

I've heard the Corsair ones are pretty universal compatible, but I simply can't verify this without ordering, pluggin it in and risking a meltdown.
You might want to pass on where you've read or heard of this.

Further reading.

 

[Eximo]

My limited research says that the PSU is potentially a licensed modification of a CWT made unit, so it could very well be compatible with Corsair's Type 4 cables. The cable connectors on the PSU end do appear to match up with Corsair's standard layout.

As the further reading link suggests, plugging in the end to the PSU and checking the pin out between it and the original cables would be a way to make sure.

If it doesn't plug in easily to begin with, then it is keyed differently and you should stop there.

 

[triplex1]

Connect the cable from Corsair, get a multimeter, check if pinout corresponds

 

[janos]

so I was wondering if someone around here has an idea about what cable to actually get as a harmless option from a different brand without getting me to a short circuit on the darn thing
The simple answer to that is that not all PSU's have the same pinout. As such you should contact Enermax and see if they can send out a cable kit for a fee even. if that's not an option, you can probably contact a custom cable sleeving company and have them fabricate a custom set of cables that are meant specifically for your PSU with the right pinout. If you want to source the cable through another avenue, you can look up Ebay listings for the exact same PSU, you should be able to pick up cables for cheap.

I've heard the Corsair ones are pretty universal compatible, but I simply can't verify this without ordering, pluggin it in and risking a meltdown.
You might want to pass on where you've read or heard of this.

Okay, thank you for clarifying.. And sry for saying so, but dear gods, why can't PSU manufacturer's go by a certain standard, this is ridiculous, same as the Mobile Phone Charging cable adapter madness about 10 yrs ago. Also not having replacement cables available to order for a modular PSU... to me this seems pretty half-baked of a solution in the very end, as it always forces you to spent a lot of money for either a total new PSU or a whole new cable set. ~ I mean you can order SATA cables in every color, but you cannot get a certain PSU-GPU cable replacement cable just like that? I'm sorry, I'm frustrated after all these obstacles on my debug path since I started so apologies, if I sound too demanding here, it's just maybe much weirder for a non-expert to comprehend, I guess, so no offense meant.

However... except Ebay, the methods you mentioned seemed pretty costly and I need to watch the spendings, as I still need to either cover for new RAM on my device still or a new GPU, while I can't still exclude the PSU, as I cannot get a spare cable to check if it's only the silly wiring creating larger issues. I thought it wouldn't be a big deal to get a cable replacement for this GPU power wire; this is how you underestimate the compatibility scale on the PSU cable market... ~

I've heard the Corsair ones are pretty universal compatible, but I simply can't verify this without ordering, pluggin it in and risking a meltdown.
You might want to pass on where you've read or heard of this.

It's pretty simple of an answer here: An acquaintance of mine said it as I asked him for a brand with the best compatibility spectrum for its cable setups with mine. *shrugs* That's it, I am rly grabbing straws here, so verifying this intel was one intention to process it for me right now. In the aftermath I imagine he didn't say much about it, because maybe to him checking a wiring with a ... multimeter wouldn't be a huge new thing to do?

Further reading.

My limited research says that the PSU is potentially a licensed modification of a CWT made unit, so it could very well be compatible with Corsair's Type 4 cables. The cable connectors on the PSU end do appear to match up with Corsair's standard layout.

As the further reading link suggests, plugging in the end to the PSU and checking the pin out between it and the original cables would be a way to make sure.

If it doesn't plug in easily to begin with, then it is keyed differently and you should stop there.

Connect the cable from Corsair, get a multimeter, check if pinout corresponds

Mh. Thank you for the suggestions, I didn't expect this to be that deep in tech in fact.
The Reddit link I have visited before already, but let aside the small-fee-for-being-sure-price for the test device, I in first place don't have the self-understanding manner of using electric voltmeters on my own and do a valid evaluation that would lead to the right cable in the very end, you know.
Trivia:
This is kinda natural reality check on what I dare to do on my own, while not being delusional of being no expert for these depth of hardware. A lot of what I did with hardware more was right due to intuitive comprehension imagination for me so far. Still, to my understanding I am already much deeper into the field than I should be and I'm glad after 20yrs of managing to get through it, that nothing happened so far, while working with all the PCs' guts of ours.
Nobody else in our environment would do it, so I was forced to learn the necessary to plug together the hardware stuff with the parts you usually get your hands on, but while knowing one thing or two about what to do and what not, I am no educated electrician or an enthusiast for hardware in general for sure. Which made me naturally exclude this expert's tool solution for that moment, in high hopes I can find "a simple cable in the world wide web". Well... Normally this is even seems a thing too, but it seems I chose the wrong PSU brand for that one.

Main intention for the cable and alts...
As I wanted to get a spare cable in first place to switch it out real quick to check if the old one was broken or faulty, I think I need to do the workaround differently for diagnostics. Guess it's much easier to try to launch the PC with only one 8 Pin at a time attached to the GPU and see if one of the two 6+2 ones bug out on launch to see if one of the two wiring branches is off.

Lucky coincidence?
I also ordered an additional cable yrs ago for a different PC once from BeQuiet (be quiet! Power Cable CP-6610, 1x PCIe cable 6+2-pin, BC070) as the original setup the PC had (Enermax Revolution DF 850W) didn't have the necessary 6+2 x2 pins necessary to power a 3080 and higher. Mine (still) is a 2080 Super and only needs 8 pins + 6 pins to work, so kinda what's delivered in the package.

Yet anyways, the point was, that apparently the cable seemed to work out without creating a short circuit, which, to me now seems like a miracle, according to what you guys are telling me about the huge incompatibility gap between most brands on PSUs... So the question is: is this only a delusional functionality and a ticking time bomb? I mean I plugged the BeQuiet cable into this thing in 2022 and it still is working daily so far. But after what I've learned, I wonder if I can trust this peace within the rack?

I'm sorry for the text wall, but you surely got a keen eye meanwhile for the important hooks to jump to on these topics, so I hope it basically made clear where I'm coming from from a tech-POV and why I some things might seem like a farther leap to me than to you guys as experts. Thank you in any case.

Anyhow. If I got that right, I now have two options; Searching Ebay for a spare cable or getting the most promising side-brand (Corsair now still an option or no?) and checking the fitting pins ...somehow with a multimeter?

 

[Eximo]

If it didn't short out immediately, it is fine. Just lucky that they were likely from the same OEM/Design.

There are fewer PSU OEMs then there are brands. Corsair uses a few, including CWT. CWT makes power supplies for lots of brands like MSI and , though I don't think they sell direct. Seasonic sells under their own name and acts as the OEM for the likes of ASUS and Phanteks. Superflower does that as well, primarily EVGA is the US.

Just to be clear, not all models from a brand, or even series, stick to the same design. Many brands have multiple suppliers, so one PSU label may have a few manufacturers and cable pin outs. Seasonic even outsources some of its low end models to outside companies. Corsair has two main pin outs called Type 3 and Type 4, but they also have a few other layouts depending on the PSU.

 

[janos]

Just to be clear, not all models from a brand, or even series, stick to the same design. Many brands have multiple suppliers, so one PSU label may have a few manufacturers and cable pin outs. Seasonic even outsources some of its low end models to outside companies. Corsair has two main pin outs called Type 3 and Type 4, but they also have a few other layouts depending on the PSU.

🤦‍♂️ I think for the most of you being very close to hardware knowledge this is pretty old, common fact, to me this is recently discovered madness. But I get it... Supply and demand ~
Guess if PCIe cables were easier to break these days we would have a much higher demand of replacements and thus not have the issue in first hand, but as it apparently still happening more rarely, it remains a niche market and being poorly priced this way.

However, back to the Enermax one, I will be forced sooner or later to get a 8 to 16 pin one, instead of the 8 to 14 pins I'm on right now, so what I read from the conclusions in herethe devil I know now is best to go for, aka the BeQuiet cable in the very end, for it did not turn the machine upside-down?