20pin / 24 pin- do you need an adaptor?

I ordered a system for my roomate with a DFI nforce4 ultra board.

The power supply we ordered was a ttgi420w- its cheap and has worked well in teh past.

However, I realized that the ttgi is 20 pin and the motherboard is 24 pin.
I have seen some discussion about the issue, and DFI definetly says you should have a 24 pin.

Is it possible at all, at least for a temporary solution, to use a 20 pin in a 24 pin slot without an adaptor. It does plug in with the 20 and seems keyed to a particular side. Or will it need a 24 adaptor to even boot?

I will be reccomending getting a 24 pin soon, but he would like to have something at least temporarily without waiting arouind for a new psu or adaptor

i think it is ok to plug it in and just leave the other 4 pins on the board exposed, but in my opinion and just to be on the safe side(you don't want to run a board or psu)(i doubt you would) i would use only a 24 pin psu. i didn't have that prob, i made sure that the board and psu were both 24 pin b4 i bought them. but look in the manual for the board, it should tell you about the psu connector. mine does.

i just looked at the manual again for my gigabyte ga-8ipe775-g and it says the non-24pin psu's are supported. if you wan to be sure, even just email tech support for the board manufacturer

Another thought.

Can I just use one of the old p4 adaptors (those 12v molex to 4 pin dealies) for the remaining 4 pins?

The adaptor is not recommended...they usually do more harm then good. I suggest you get a native 24-pin psu if you really want to OC. It is possible to run a 20 pin psu in the dfi but you should only keep it at stock. Any amount of oc'ing can really cause stability problems.

how does an adapter do harm? The PSU outputs the same either way doesnt it? Anyway, im getting the DFI SLi-DR or maybe Ultra - D in less than a month, and ill buy the 24pin ATX cable for my Ultra modular PSU, but basically isn't that just a nice'ed up 20-24 pin adapter? I dont want to be left unable to overclock, but i also dont wanna give up my Ultra Modular, im SOL if it is unstable, but i really dont see how this is possible. What exactly causes the instability?

firebat45 said:

how does an adapter do harm? The PSU outputs the same either way doesnt it? Anyway, im getting the DFI SLi-DR or maybe Ultra - D in less than a month, and ill buy the 24pin ATX cable for my Ultra modular PSU, but basically isn't that just a nice'ed up 20-24 pin adapter? I dont want to be left unable to overclock, but i also dont wanna give up my Ultra Modular, im SOL if it is unstable, but i really dont see how this is possible. What exactly causes the instability?

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the adapter does harm if the PSU isnt a good one, anyways u can use the 20pins cable just fine with no issues.. and no u cant use the 12v cable to fit the remaining 4 pins..

leave the 4 pins on the left side when plug hanger is facing up.. u shud be fine

Hence, I suggest you get a native 24-pin psu if you really want to OC. It is possible to run a 20 pin psu on the dfi but you should only keep it at stock. Any amount of oc'ing can really cause stability problems. For higher Vdimm, the DFI draws it power off the extra pins from the +5v rail and this can be a problem for most most native 20-pin psus. From what I've been hearing, the DFI board is particularly unforgiving to non-native 24-pin psus.