Connecting the motherboard: This is how you correctly wire the motherboard
If you want to connect a new motherboard to your computer, the correct cabling is important. Wiring incorrectly may damage the motherboard or a peripheral device may not work properly. All parts of your computer come together in the mainboard, so you should be particularly careful here. We explain what you have to pay attention to when wiring.
How to wire your motherboard
Before you go into detail with this practical tip, our motherboard overview will help you identify the common slots on mainboards. A dangerous semi-truth with computers is: If a connector fits, it can also be inserted. In fact, there are few exceptions.
- Before you wire your mainboard, read the instructions for use to determine which socket is intended for what. Also look in the manual of your power supply, which cable has which function.
- Your mainboard needs at least the power cable from the power supply, usually also a data cable per drive and a connection to internal loudspeakers and audio connections, USB interfaces and partly power supply for the fan.
- The majority of the power supply comes directly from the power supply. In a separate practical tip, we will explain how you calculate the power your power supply needs.
- The power supply for mainboards comes from the power supply. Depending on the mainboard, the power connection has 24, 20, 8 or 4 poles. Use the appropriate plug from the power supply. With 24-pin plugs, 4 poles can often be disconnected to insert the remaining 20 into the 20-pin socket, or the 4-pin into a 4 or 8-pin socket.
- Do not use the 6-pin connector. Although it fits, it is designed for your graphics card. We'll show you how to connect a graphics card.
- In a practical tip on SATA and IDE, we show you what the hard drive connections look like. Here you need a power cable and a cable for data transfer.
- Attention: SATA connectors have different colors with different meanings, which we explain in detail here. Blue is more suitable for fast SSD hard drives, red or black for slower HDD hard drives or optical drives.
- As can be seen in the photo, the connection to USB ports in the housing are marked with "USB1 / 2" or "USB3".
In further practical tips, we will show you which graphics cards are compatible with which mainboards, how you can install a power supply and show you the usual video, monitor and audio connections for your peripheral devices.