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I have an old motherboard that I might use in the future but for a little diy, I was thinking about removing one of the male connectors and soldering it onto a spare sata cable to hook up old hard drives. Would the motherboard be rendered in-operable or would it be usable minus one sata port?
Ash
Posted 2016-03-22T19:20:20.500
Reputation: 11
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Depending how safe you are with the soldering will depend on if you do permanent damage to the motherboard. I'd definitely recommend against this, but I do not know of any case where the system will not boot if a plug is missing. Remember, the purpose of the cables inside is to allow you to choose what is connected and not connected at any given time; if you solder a connection directly to the board, it's staying there for much longer than a simple cable.
Canadian Luke
Posted 2016-03-22T19:20:20.500
Reputation: 22 162
I don't plan on soldering directly to the board but I was wondering if I could remove the the port from the board to use it on another cable. – Ash – 2016-03-22T19:44:00.633
Due to the numerous ways to do something this isn't something we can predict. You are not only looking at hardware problems but software problems that would prevent this. There are stores that sell this type of thing, for literally cents, far easier just to purchase it that way then remove it from a motherboard you might or might not care about. – Ramhound – 2016-03-22T19:22:52.173
Sadly I don't know of a nearby electronics store that would have this sort of stuff. If I end up ordering online I'll just buy an actual cable. – Ash – 2016-03-22T19:46:40.383
These part stores are online only due to the number of parts they carry. – Ramhound – 2016-03-22T19:56:53.523
If removed properly the motherboard would operate just as it should. – Moab – 2016-03-22T20:44:50.787
It kind of depends on how good you are. Theoretically, it can be removed without damaging the board. However, there is a good chance that you will damage the board, and maybe even damage the connector in the process, so you would be left with nothing in order to save a few cents on a new connector. Then there's the issue of how usable it would be to create your own cable, which can be purchased new for practically nothing. And your time.. – fixer1234 – 2016-03-24T03:24:48.467