Virtue wrote on 2026-05-07, 19:54:
So I was trying to repair a SATA connector, sadly the wires were literally fraying out (I could see copper at the connecting end), so I tried to remove the SATA pins to no avail, I ended up destroying the port 😒 I want to convert it to Molex anyway, the wires are correctly bunched together, but I dont want to destroy a spare molex port trying to get this to work plus I'm not sure if the way I've bunched the wires is safe due to resistance? Should I just chuck the power supply (its fairly old anyway) and not risk it? Or does anyone have a way I could turn this into a Molex connector without burning down my flat?
I've seen a lot of "mods" like this over the years - some of them looking a lot more sketchy than yours. They've never been a problem, or at least not to the extent to cause a fire or anything near that bad. Worst case, they lost one of the voltage rails or ground and whatever was attached simply did not work anymore.
That's not to say it's OK to do hack jobs and think everything will be "fine". But when done with enough care, such mods are generally safe.
You seem to have twisted the wire pretty well together, so that already puts it in the better category. The only way to further improve (and I can't see from the pictures if you have already done that or not) is to solder the wires. Ultimately, this will make sure they can't get undone and also not allow the connections to go weak over time. The biggest problem with wires being twisted together - especially copper ones - is that they can tarnish / oxidize with air moisture, and that tends to degrade the connection. (On a side tangent here, I still don't get why this crap is still allowed in US electric codes for house wiring. I opened a few twisted connection "nodes" in my former home and found out quite a few were making really poor connection after 30 years. A few even had signs of the wires overheating near the connection point. Needless to say, I cleaned/scraped all the wires and soldered them together.)
Now we are not dealing with any kinds of crazy currents or voltages here, at least in normal expected operation (i.e. 2-3 Amps max for an HDD or ODD), so even if the wires are not soldered, the resistance of the twisted wires should still be quite negligible. But even in the event of a short-circuit, the PSU should still shut down way before those wires and/or connections have a chance to melt.
Which brings us to the next point: the power supply itself.
As to what advice to give you on whether you should keep it or discard it, that depends entirely on the PSU itself and not so much its age.
Post a picture of the label so we can try to see who the manufacturer is.
As for the molex mod/addition, just make sure the wires are insulated well. Two layers of heatshrink tubing would be the proper way to do it. As for electrical tape - I find it suboptimal, mainly because some cheaper rolls of electrical tape tend to loosen or undo themselves over time, causing the wires to get exposed (also, not to mention how much I hate cleaning up sticky gunk/goo from electrical tape when I have to re-work something that was "held" together with electrical tape.) But if electrical tape is all you have, I suggest putting some masking/painting (paper) tape over it, as it tends to stick well to anything and doesn't have the tendency to undo itself over time. It will certainly make the hack job look even worse, though. 😜
MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-05-08, 01:51:
How safe it is I think depends more on the quality of the PSU in question, if it has proper overvoltage, overcurrent and short protections then I personally wouldn't mind doing this if I needed an extra MOLEX connector, but if I wouldn't trust this PSU then I wouldn't do this as if a short or overvoltage happens this hacked bunch of wires might be the first to go, and in extreme cases it might actually result in a fire hazard. (However if these feature are not present in the PSU then arguably it wouldn't be safe to use even without the MOLEX modification)
Short-circuit protection is standard even in the most gutless of PSUs. That said, I have seen a few really cheapo ones where it simply didn't work due to the molex and/or SATA wires being too thin to trigger it, resulting in the wires melting down. But like you said, if the PSU is that cheap/bad, then surely the hacked molex addition would be the last thing to worry about.
All in all, as long as the computer is housed in a proper case (that is, made of metal without over-usage of cheap flammable plastics... I'm looking at you HP and Dell), then even the wires melting together shouldn't result in anything too dangerous. Worst, you'll witness an "interesting" "smoke show" (I've had a cheapy PSU do that.)
MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-05-08, 01:51:
One thing I do have to note, is that if the unlikely event of a fire do occur, and the insurance company decides to do an investigation and they find this near the source of the fire they might decide to not pay, even if the root cause of the issue is not the MOLEX replacement, but the quality issue of the PSU itself.
True.
But then insurance companies will always try to weasel their way out of paying you, no matter what the cause was.
Not to turn the thread into a political discussion in regards to that, but house insurance really is a fucking scam in most cases (don't even get me started on renter's insurance or worse: home appliance insurance.) Then again, I don't live in a part of the world where anyone thinks it's normal to feed these scammers - at least from what I know, people rarely get house insurance in Eastern European countries like where I am. On that note, I'm surprised it's a thing in Hungary. Hate to be an ass here for saying this, but your EE friend really shouldn't be feeding those house insurance scammers.
