Replacing broken ribbon cable

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Nharveyasus

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Jul 19, 2017
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I'm making a little basic NAS out of a dead laptop, and one of the parts that I found broken was the ribbon cable that runs from the power switch to the main board. It's an 8-pin. I have a couple spare 12-pin ribbons, but I doubt there's any use for them here.

My question is this:
Is there a way to hack a 12-pin by removing 4 of the pins from the ribbon to then be usable in the place of the broken 8-pin. (I think I know the answer, just want to know if there's anyone who knows more about ribbon cable here)
Failing that, will any 8-pin ribbon cable that fits the connector work, or am I going to need to hunt for the specific cable?

Thanks for any input, also, no idea if this is the right board for this.
 
Solution
It's not unusual for manufacturers to use off the shelf components, so finding that a standard ribbon cable is compatible shouldn't be too surprising.

Provided the machine originally used a straight-through ribbon cable, I don't see why there should be any issues. I rather doubt the cable is carrying any significant load and needs to be of a particular wire gauge. If the laptop is otherwise dead, it hardly hurts to tinker around.
It's not unusual for manufacturers to use off the shelf components, so finding that a standard ribbon cable is compatible shouldn't be too surprising.

Provided the machine originally used a straight-through ribbon cable, I don't see why there should be any issues. I rather doubt the cable is carrying any significant load and needs to be of a particular wire gauge. If the laptop is otherwise dead, it hardly hurts to tinker around.
 
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