Just found out Dell PSUs have a hidden pinout difference on the same model number...

I was swapping a power supply on a Precision 5820 and realized the revision A and revision C units use different sense wires on pin 5 and 7, which explained why the machine kept throwing fan errors after the swap.

2 comments

2 Comments

victor_perry9028d ago

Wait are you saying dell actually changes the sense pin mapping between revisions on the same PSU model? I mean I've heard of them doing weird stuff with proprietary connectors but that's just wild if true. On a 5820 too which is supposed to be a workstation not some cheap optiplex. Almost makes you wonder if this is intentional to force you to buy their specific replacement parts or just really sloppy engineering.

andrew_nguyen6428d ago

...yeah they just quietly swapped the pinout on a "Rev 01" vs "Rev 02" board and called it a day. Found that out the hard way when I plugged a spare PSU into a 5820 I was fixing and it just refused to power on. Checked the service manual and they literally have different pin diagrams depending on when the machine was built. Like come on Dell, it's a power supply not a DRM scheme...