Building a PC isn’t easy for everyone, but if you’re someone who’s planning on doing it soon or just a PC enthusiast who’s passionate about PCMR, then this is the perfect blog for you. In this column, ...

The motherboard takes a full-size 24-pin ATX power link from the power supply, which handles most functions on the PC. Still, there's also a dedicated central processing unit (CPU) connection, usually ...

Parallel ATA (IDE) uses 40 pins, not 26. 26 was for floppies. But it's a standard 40-pin "header" connector. Sometimes called "IDC". CF cards have the PATA interface on a 50-pin connector. I don't ...

On page 4, there is an "IDE Power" connector. It looks a lot like a 4 pin CPU fan connector, but it (obviously) provides different voltages that are appropriate for 3.5" IDE drives (5V, 12V) and the ...

A few days ago we reported on a new product for owners of the Raspberry Pi Zero, a set of solderless header pins that had a novel installation method involving a hammer. We were skeptical that they ...

I’m a big proponent of DIY PC building and I tend to describe it as “relatively straightforward.” For the most part, everything just plugs in where it should. But there is one aspect of putting ...