Newbe Dev Stack

Answer : Get whatever meets your needs for voltage, current, readouts, size, price, etc. Don't worry about whether it is a switcher or linear. In general, linears are less efficient. However, this matters little to a bench supply. The few watts or even 10s of watts it might occasionally draw more than the equivalent switcher is irrelevant. It will get hotter, but presumably since you are buying a whole box this has been designed in. Unless perhaps you have a very specific physical spot in mind for this box and there is little room for ventillation, the extra heat of a linear won't matter. Switchers will have some switching noise on their output. Again, this shouldn't matter. Check the ripple spec, but the ripple of any finished-box commercial lab supply really shouldn't be that high, a few 10s of mV at most. What exactly is the problem with ripple? Not much in a bench setting. Things like relays, motors, LEDs and even the occasional LEB (light emittin...

Answer : Information: Page 16 of the manual to the motherboard says that the 8-pin connector is for supplying power to the CPU. Method 1: If you look at the pinout of the 8-pin socket and the 4-pin cable (figures 1 and 2 below respectively), you will notice that physically, it should be compatible. I found a page (figure 3) that indicates that it can be done, but strongly advises using a proper 8-pin cable. This makes sense because the connector is generally for providing the CPU with extra power (as opposed to any power), so while it may work, the system may suddenly shut down if CPU usage goes up to 100% (eg while doing a virus-scan, watching YouTube videos, etc.) Method 2: Another option I have found is some discussions (like this one) about using an adapter (figure 4) to connect the 4-pin cable to both halves of the 8-pin connector. In fact, there are plenty such adapters on eBay for as little as $1 (and free shipping). Newegg also has a couple. Of course the probl...