Hey, let me start by saying I'm fairly new to this so please bare with me when it comes to a lack of calling things by their actual name. I'll try and be a descriptive as possible

I've been using computers for a while now, I've made some small upgrades such as more memory, DVD drives, graphics cards etc and feel fairly confident so decided to build my own from scratch. I ordered all the parts, being careful to check everything was compatible with everything else and I was happy when they arrived about an hour ago all new and shiny with "that" smell. I flicked through the manuals, pulled up a few guides online and got to putting it together... everything was going fine until it came to plugging the PSU into the motherboard.

I can see two power plugs coming from the PSU, one has 4 pins and plugged into the motherboard perfectly fine. One has slightly more pins and I found the socket for that too but upon plugging it in I noticed that the plug was shorter than the socket, leaving 4 squares of it empty. I made a crude diagram to explain...



The "plug" coming from the PSU is slightly longer than my drawing but the white area is the same, I have 4 unused ...um... squares on the Power Socket. Now the plug does fit in fine with no effort but I'm afraid to power it on incase something goes wrong - Any suggestions? Or am I worrying over nothing?

yeah!,you got me confused with "Plug/socket"

Assuming you have the standard ATX type;

first to look for is how many pins you have in your motherboard & that will tell you if you have a matched number of pinouts with your PSU molex connector.ATX power supplies have either 20 or 24 pinouts as well as with motherboards.

if you have your PSU's molex connector exactly like this then you have no problem.otherwise you need to send back the PSU to the seller & ask for the appropriate one..just to be safe

yes,it could be a good solution if you have a "fix" hardwares.

but depends on the capacity of the PSU,20 pins are specifically for P4 motherboards.

for 24 pin motherboards,meaning needs addtional power that it will draw from the PSU.

things to consider:

wattage
ampere value on the 12V rail


...if you have good ampere & wattage value then you're good to go with the pin adapter even if you have a single 12V rail.

again,mailpups option is good & a quick solution.but dont discount the hardwares you're hooking up,most especially on power hungry devices & when you upgrade to a better device/hardware.

Ahhhh thanks alot, I'll go with the adapter solution for now