Hello all,

I’m having a hardware issue and I’m really hoping someone here can point me in the right direction.

First, relevant hardware:

Asus W680 IPMI ATX

Intel 13500

LSI 9208

4 SATA HDDs, 4 SAS HDDs

Thermaltake Toughpower PF3 850w PSU

I just hit 8 HDDs by adding the 4 SAS drives and the LSI HBA. Unfortunately, to make these compatible I had to use SFF-8482 cables with kapton tape to cover the power disable pin.

I have 2 SATA power cables that came with the PSU for a total of 8 connections. 1 is taken by a fan hub. So I have 7 open connections and 8 drives. No biggie, I think to myself, I can just get another 8 pin to 4x SATA cable. Oh, how wrong I was...

First I went to Amazon and got a 8 pin to 2x Sata male and then a 1x female to 4x for the drives. Plug that in and the computer refuses to boot and doesn’t even POST. The LEDs flash and that’s it.

So then I read about how every manufacturer uses a different pinout and decide I'll look for custom cables. moddiy has some nice silver ones. These are expensive and take forever to ship, but I finally install them today and have the same problem, computer refuses to boot and the LEDs flash.

At this point I don’t know what else to do. For now I have 3 of the new drives working to max out what I have available. Is there something obvious I’m overlooking? Do I just need to scrap these custom cables that I paid close to $100 for and just grab a new PSU?

I would be extremely grateful for any guidance!

5 hours ago, 1adam12 said:

8 pin to 2x Sata male

Was this a power cable that you plugged directly into a socket on the power supply?

5 hours ago, 1adam12 said:

1x female to 4x

Most of us don't like to use these SATA power expansion adapters. The SATA power plug is not really designed to handle the current draw when four drives spin up. If you must use a power expansion adapter, use a MOLEX-to-SATA one.

6 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

Was this a power cable that you plugged directly into a socket on the power supply?

Yeah, probably not smart in retrospect.

7 minutes ago, Frank1940 said:

Most of us don't like to use these SATA power expansion adapters. The SATA power plug is not really designed to handle the current draw when four drives spin up. If you must use a power expansion adapter, use a MOLEX-to-SATA one.

I’ve seen this mentioned many times but I have zero clue how I can get a molex adapter for my PSU and HDD combo. What would that look like?

If you must split a SATA power connection on a PSU cable then do not split it more than 2 way. That normally works OK.

8 hours ago, 1adam12 said:

I’ve seen this mentioned many times but I have zero clue how I can get a molex adapter for my PSU and HDD combo. What would that look like?

Like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-108794-24-Inch-15-Pin-Female/dp/B009GULFJ0/ref=sr_1_6

8 hours ago, 1adam12 said:

Yeah, probably not smart in retrospect.

I hate to say this but I seem to recall that this has resulted in hardware being destroyed by using the wrong power cable. Most times, you must obtain any additional power cords from the PS manufacturer for that exact model of PS.

7 hours ago, Frank1940 said:

Like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-108794-24-Inch-15-Pin-Female/dp/B009GULFJ0/ref=sr_1_6

I hate to say this but I seem to recall that this has resulted in hardware being destroyed by using the wrong power cable. Most times, you must obtain any additional power cords from the PS manufacturer for that exact model of PS.

Thanks for the link! I actually had that in my cart but (please forgive my ignorance here) I couldn’t figure out how to plug something like that into my PSU. Here’s my PSU for reference:

Any tips for accomplishing that?

There should have been at least one power cable included with the power supply that had one or more MOLEX connectors on it. (It might also have a mix of MOLEX and SATA power connectors on it.) If you plug the MOLEX connector on the adapter into one of MOLEX connectors on that cable you would have four SATA connectors for plugging into disk drives. (One big advantage of using the MOLEX-to-SATA adapter is that there is no 3.3V on the MOLEX plug so no taping of pin3 required!)

I went and checked the included accessories according to Thermaltake and it looks like it was supposed to include 1 molex cable. I’ll see if I can track that down. Thank you!