Fake Akasa PCIe 6pin to ATX12V 8pin adapter (WHL #41)
Ah well, we haven’t been to adapterland for quite a while, have we? 
I do have more pressing things to do as of now, but whatever. I bought an adapter cable for my new server setup at home, as basically all SFX PSUs with moderate wattage (sub-500, 600W?) do not offer more than one 4+4-Pin or 8-pin ATX12V/EPS12V power plug. Well, why should they, that’s not what they usually need to have. But most server boards, especially dual and quad processor boards, do “require” 2×8-Pin auxiliary power. On the contrary, there is no powerful GPU in that system, so the 6/8-Pin PCIe power cable would flap around in the breeze. They both carry 12V and GND connections, but have a different receptacle key, so why not add an adapter and make use of it?
So I did. And because I did not want to wait for a few weeks, I bought from a seller on Amazon Germany. Quick shipping, moderate price (4,52€) – not too low to be suspicious, but the lowest I could find. And I chose the Akasa brand cable, model AK-CB051. What could possibly go wrong?
Description from the manufacturer’s site:
This cable adapter converts 6pin PCIe connector to 8pin ATX12V CPU connector. Provides support for dual and quad CPU motherboards from a standard ATX power supply. Compatible with AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon processors.
• 6-pin PCIe to 8-pin ATX12V adapter
• Updates PSU compatibility with dual and quad processors systems
• Quality connectors for safe connection
• 18 AWG cable for reliable power supply
Well, here’s what arrived:
And here’s what Akasa says should arrive:
I didn’t spot it until I re-read the packaging much later (which states the things above)…
…but this should have been a 6-pin PCIe to 8-pin EPS12V adapter. Not 8 to 8 pin. And it doesn’t have black plugs. But from the cable description and also a quick measurement, this is AWG18 wiring. I can live with that.
Except, I can’t. Good thing I have an old, non-fancy power supply at the moment, my two replacements will have black cables all over and I wouldn’t have noticed. But thankfully I did:
THAT looks odd, doesn’t it. And it is!
Plug it in:
Oops… 
Snippet from the excellent infographics from DualSocketTheWorld:
So when looking closely, this actually is an EPS12V extension. The male plug is completely correct:
But the female is the very same…
Why did it plug in? Because for weird reasons, be quiet decided to use a nonstandard connector on the 6+2 pin part of the plug:
The six-sided key fits the four-sided one, but obviously not the other way round. So this power supply almost allowed me to put on a wrong adapter that will fry the power supply, the board, or at least the weakest adapter cable, but it also saved me because it still has color coding. Most newer power supplies come with black wiring and/or tight mesh around them, so I wouldn’t have noticed that. I just checked my new Seasonic Focus Gold unit (with said black wiring), and it does have correct terminals on the two 6+2 pin PCIe plugs…so, wouldn’t have fit, but if it did, I absolutely would have powered on that thing until 450 watts of raw 12V power would have looked for the path of least resistance.
Conclusion: Not a Wan Hung Lo product, as it has proper wiring – but in the wrong configuration. As it was sold in an “Akasa” labelled plastic bag with some small deviations from the original packaging (caseking is the official distributor of Akasa stuff here in Germany, so I BET they sell original products), I highly doubt that was a mistake at the factory. Akasa doesn’t even sell those extension cords with white plugs, they only sell 30cm units with all-around sleeves and 40cm ones with individual cable sleeving, both with black plugs. So: That’s a plain product fake, a very dangerous one in fact. I already wrote a nice message to the seller, and depending on outcome, that’ll go to Amazon support and also Akasa for further investigation. Thing is: There’s already one product review on Amazon that says “blew up in my face, power supply dead, memory dead”. Guess what happened to that poor soul…
