Mac Pro sata wiring harness help?

[GreenSpade]

Okay so I went out and bought the max-connect for the sata wiring harness....

But it only connects to the sata, there is still the mini 8pin molex required to power the drives themselves.

I *HAVE* seen mooners thread and diagrams about this, however I cannot make sense of them.

From what I can tell, this wiring harness 8pin is supposed to plug into the front panels pcb that has the sound+usb? I have this pcb but again from mooners wiring diagram it looks as if he is plugging in a custom 8pin that goes to all kinds of things.

Now I have the pcb board for the usb/firewire/sound and the power button that plugs into it and I'd like to get them setup however I don't have the proper firewire cord atm so hopefully I can still get everything setup without it till I get one.

My question is if there is a pin layout for the mini 8pin molex for the sata harness, or if I'm supposed to plug it into the pcb and then make a sata to molex cord to power the pcb. I'm just really confused as to how this works, so if someone could explain this to me that would be very helpful.

 

[Kingzone]

Okay so I went out and bought the max-connect for the sata wiring harness....

But it only connects to the sata, there is still the mini 8pin molex required to power the drives themselves.

I *HAVE* seen mooners thread and diagrams about this, however I cannot make sense of them.

From what I can tell, this wiring harness 8pin is supposed to plug into the front panels pcb that has the sound+usb? I have this pcb but again from mooners wiring diagram it looks as if he is plugging in a custom 8pin that goes to all kinds of things.

Now I have the pcb board for the usb/firewire/sound and the power button that plugs into it and I'd like to get them setup however I don't have the proper firewire cord atm so hopefully I can still get everything setup without it till I get one.

My question is if there is a pin layout for the mini 8pin molex for the sata harness, or if I'm supposed to plug it into the pcb and then make a sata to molex cord to power the pcb. I'm just really confused as to how this works, so if someone could explain this to me that would be very helpful.

The 8pin connector is the power connector that supplies all four of the drive connectors (in two pairs)

In my case I purchased the SAS to SATA converter from the US and modified the 8pin power connector myself by removing the original Apple connector (which originally connected to the Mac Pro logic board) and replaced it with two Molex type sockets which simply connect to the new ATX power supply, each one of the two new Molex connectors provide power to two hard drive bays.

To do this mod yourself will require some soldering skills and you will have to figure out (with a multimeter) which cables are which as the wiring harness is not colour coded.

This 8pin connector is solely to provide SATA power and has nothing to do with the front panel connector.

Please see my post in this section entitled 'My Mac Pro Hack'

 

[buzzworm]

MAC PRO 2006 SATA POWER PIN OUT

I made a cable from mouser. I used 2 esata extension cables (99 cents each) and cut them in half, using the male ends.

Also purchased the mouser parts.

1 8Pin plug and at least 8 Pins
NOTE: suggest buying more pins (I went through about 15 of them). I had to toss a plug when one of the wires came out and I couldn't use an extraction tool to remove the pin.

Also bought a crimper but it was too big for the molex plugs. Ended up using a pair of small needle nose pliers to crimp them instead.

Here is the Pin Out.

The esata cable is 18AWG and the mouser pins are 20 to 22. Not sure. I had to strip the insulation down with an exacto just a tiny bit.

Tested the machine with 4 7200 RPM drives and all of them spin up!

FINISHED CABLE ATTACHED TO ORIGINAL SATA SLEEVE

 

[tekkboi]

Or just ditch the mac harness entirely and get four of these,
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/carbide-air-540-hot-swap-connector
They fit the mac hot swap brackets almost exactly screw rignt in with the original screws and no messing with the expensive SAS/SATA adapter.

 

[buzzworm]

Thanks teekboi. I'd not seen these cables. I bought the SAS/SATA cable 3 years ago when I was going to make the Mac Pro hack so I'm all in with the original connector. Probably gonna buy these for my G5 hackintosh builds tho.

 

[tekkboi]

I used these in my second map pro build after I blew the 60+ bucks on the sas/sata adapter in my original one. Happy accident finding them as they seem to only be made for the 540 carbide air case but they almost exactly match the mounting tabs on the mac pro cable. Power and sata cables are a bit long but they can be cable managed and bundled for neatness.

 

[AlphaFox]

bought 4 of the cables, thanks for the link!!

 

[mALman]

Thanks for the link!!! i was looking for these.

 

[Kajhack]

Hi everyone !

GreenSpade can you link me which MaxConnect you bought ? Is it this one ?
I am also on a Mac Pro case mod and I'd like to keep it as stock as possible.

Thanks everyone else for your advises, I will use your wisdom for sure.
Someone should create a thread with tips & tricks for case modders, pretty sure it can help a lot of people here.

 

[buzzworm]

Yeah, that's the one. I switched out to these guys and they work great. http://www.corsair.com/en-us/carbide-air-540-hot-swap-connector