The motherboard takes a full-size 24-pin ATX power link from the power supply, which handles most functions on the PC. Still, there's also a dedicated central processing unit (CPU) connection, usually ...

Building a PC isn’t easy for everyone, but if you’re someone who’s planning on doing it soon or just a PC enthusiast who’s passionate about PCMR, then this is the perfect blog for you. In this column, ...

On page 4, there is an "IDE Power" connector. It looks a lot like a 4 pin CPU fan connector, but it (obviously) provides different voltages that are appropriate for 3.5" IDE drives (5V, 12V) and the ...

Parallel ATA (IDE) uses 40 pins, not 26. 26 was for floppies. But it's a standard 40-pin "header" connector. Sometimes called "IDC". CF cards have the PATA interface on a 50-pin connector. I don't ...

A few days ago we reported on a new product for owners of the Raspberry Pi Zero, a set of solderless header pins that had a novel installation method involving a hammer. We were skeptical that they ...

If you’ve ever opened a PC case and stared inside, or looked at a bare motherboard, you may be taken aback by the number and variety of connectors, pins, and slots that exist on a modern PC ...

I’m a big proponent of DIY PC building and I tend to describe it as “relatively straightforward.” For the most part, everything just plugs in where it should. But there is one aspect of putting ...

We all like to standardise. But there doesn’t appear to be any pin number system defined for one of the most popular wire-to-board connector sets. Marking the PCB pin header isn’t so important, as the ...