The Hotblack Desiato School of Design

[Mr Evil]

I'm sure everyone here knows how to hotwire an ATX PSU. You just short one of the black wires to the

... black wire?

Of the 10 most popular PSUs on OCUK, eight are like this. Of the remaining two, one is all white instead, which doesn't help. Only one has proper colour coding. Is that really what everyone wants? Wouldn't you rather see this

so that you can immediately know what the purpose of each wire is, without having to go and find a pinout diagram?

Of course it's not just PSUs, but everything that's all black now. This has practical consequences too, like if you're fiddling around deep inside your PC's case, it's too dark to see anything because every photon is absorbed by the all-devouring blackness.

If you're lucky you can find a few things that are all white instead, but that isn't really much better. Where's the colour? The creativity? The individuality?

The walls of the swaying cabin were also black, the ceiling was black,
the seats – which were rudimentary since the only important trip this
ship was designed for was supposed to be unmanned – were black, the
control panel was black, the instruments were black, the little screws
that held them in place were black, the thin tufted nylon floor covering
was black, and when they had lifted up a corner of it they had
discovered that the foam underlay also was black.
‘Perhaps whoever designed it had eyes that responded to different
wavelengths,’ offered Trillian.
‘Or didn’t have much imagination,’ muttered Arthur.

 

[LePhuronn]

lol OK. Slow Sunday?

If you're tech savvy enough to think "I need to jump start my PSU" then you're tech savvy enough to look at the ATX layout and jump the pins. Or buy a jump starter.

Coloured cables is just a non-issue, and such a weird complaint to post about.

 

[Mr Evil]

So it looks like the answer to the question is yes, monochrome PC components are what everyone actually prefers. I would guess this is related to the trend towards black/white/grey in cars, as well as other products, though I don't know how RGB fits into that.

 

[LePhuronn]

I wouldn't say monochrome is preferred, plenty of people load up with all manner of colours in their systems.

But exposed wires conforming to ATX spec colours looks cheap. Look at every half-decent power supply now and the cables are either all black if exposed or sleeved.

 

[Mr Evil]

...But exposed wires conforming to ATX spec colours looks cheap...

If it looks cheap it's because it's associated with cheaper PSUs, but it's actually cheaper to use wires of a single colour. This doesn't explain why they have have chosen to use all black though.

 

[Hotwired]

Why are psu cables black?

Are you unaware of the endless vanity in bodging mass produced computer parts in a box.

A clown fiesta of standard wire colours is a reminder that it's nothing special. But having strong colour blocks, you can pretend it's custom.