Advice - power connection

Hi,

I gotta say I love this forum for all the advice I ask for and get

Anyways, was wondering something - my MB's main power connector is a 24 pin power connector, but has the last 4 pin's blocked - thus is set up as a 20-pin connector. This 4 pin block can be removed to make it a 24-pin power connector.

What i'm wondering is.. is there any advantage/disadvantage to having it as a 20-pin power connector? What about for a 24-pin power connector?

The MB can do both 20-pin & 24-pin power connector's, and the PSU i have can do both.. does it matter which is used? (currently using it as a 20-pin connector)

I'm not an expert on that. Lurid will probably be able to answer that correctly. I can say for certain that my motherboard, which has a 24-pin hookup, has been running with my Antec PSU with a 20-pin connector, for 3 months now without a single problem.

No real difference. 24 pin PSU could be used to add some stability in extreme conditions (mostly SLi setup + O/C) but in 99% cases you simply wouldn`t need it as it makes no difference.
Some Pentium D /i945 combinations can be a bit sensitive about PSU`s though, but it`s also more about type of PSU than about being ATX 2.0

Check your motherborad's manual, and see what the last 4 pins are used for, that should tell you. My 4 extra pins(GA-K8U-939) are 2 grounds, and 2 +12v power leads. AFAIK, theyre for motherboards that need the extra power(SLI Im guessing).

Using the 20 pin vs 24 pin connection on your power supply shouldn't harm anything, though that is based off of individual setups. If your having instability issues that could be a potential problem. Its there in most cases, especially on enthusiast boards like DFI's, to increase the power the motherboard has and thus allowing more power to be allocated in various ways.