View Full Version : MB main power connection. What's the extra 4 for?
Loose rivets
11th Feb 2010, 04:17
The top 4 are not connected. The manual says use a 24 pin supply (if possible ?) Mine is 20. It is set to leave the right hand 4 spare.
There is a clear contradiction with the pin numbers. 1-4 or 21-24. Not that it matters at this time.
However...there is a plug hanging loose from the PSU marked 4P. It has the same shaped pin surrounds as the socket 4. No, I ain't going to plug it in...unless there is something I don't know.
The manual says very little about this, except to say that it goes to the CPU. Well, there's not really much chance that the CPU is without power right now, cos I'm typing this on the machine. But is there ever a supporting power supply where the board supplies one already?
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BTW. I used the W7 Snip tool. The .pdf pic was clear. This is a bit fuzzy innit? File was nearly 200k. Is the snip program prone to this?
Just looked at the pic in Snip again, and it's clear as a bell. One is puzzled.
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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/walnaze/Capture-1.jpg
Bushfiva
11th Feb 2010, 05:53
It's an additional 12V connector for power-hungry CPUs. It's located near the CPU to keep the motherboard traces short.
The image is fuzzy because it's a jpeg and there are a lot of compression artifacts visible around the text.
On some power supplies, what appears to be a 24-pin plug is actually a 20-pin plus 4-pin that lock together. Do you think that may be true of your supply? Do you have a single spare 4-pin connector or do you have two?
Anyway, you can work out where your plug is supposed to go because pins 11,12,23,24 are keyed the opposite way to the CPU power connector.
Loose rivets
11th Feb 2010, 15:24
Anyway, it does seem that the CPU has a supply. What the stray might do is a mystery.
The numbers on the main connector have to be wrong on one of the pages.
The board has been rotated 90 left of course.
There is a similar sized 4 pin plug near the CPU, and showing 0,0,12,12v. So this will be the dedicated supply.
The stray plug is giving >3,12,5volts and ground off load. It would physically locate into the top four of the main connector. Again, I have no intention of doing so.
Just leave well alone, one thinks. But curiosity, and all that.;)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/walnaze/DSC_0001-1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/walnaze/DSC_0002.jpg
ISO 400 f14 priority - to give better depth. jpg problem? Still much better before it goes "through the Bucket".
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/walnaze/DSC_0003.jpg
mad_jock
11th Feb 2010, 15:38
power cable for a graphics card?
Loose rivets
11th Feb 2010, 17:24
Well I wondered if the on-board card needed a power boost, but it's going very well without.
It's so strange that it exactly fits the main power strip.
It can be seen in the top picture marked 4P. and an odd mixture of voltages.
BTW, does the memory come with those blue plastic encapsulations- held on with chrome clips - or are they an accessory?
G.Skill Looking again, they may be metal.
mad_jock
11th Feb 2010, 18:14
It appears from my limited surfing it can be used for a multitude of things.
Powering fans, certain types of mobo, the overclock boys use it for there cooling systems. Typically the one thing i didn't find mentioned was graphics cards!!!!!
hellsbrink
11th Feb 2010, 19:10
This is where the fun starts.
As MJ says, it can be used for a multitude of things. IIRC, it was originally for one of the Intel (Pentium iv, iirc) series of CPU's as they drew a heck of a lot of juice, it was an auxilliary power supply just for the CPU so you didn't fry the guts out of the rest of the motherboard as you drew so much power. Then that changed so it allowed the extra "power rail" to be used to power things like hard disks/DVD drives/etc. Graphics cards were powered by this too.
Of course, things have changed again. Now the power hungry gfx cards are fed by a 6 or 8 "pin" connector so I guess you are looking at an "older" PSU.
But, hey, your PC works. Obviously the extra power rail is not needed. Don't worry about it.
Loose rivets
11th Feb 2010, 19:56
No, I'm going to call it a day at that, thanks.
None of these things existed when I was running a CAD company. The Cambridge Computer Graphics cards were bolted together and used two slots. Serious money, that card.
I found in a box of stuff the lad gave me, a card with a mini aerial. It wouldn't work by itself, so got the W7 driver from the nice people at Rosewill, and away it went. It is however requiring the key to be entered every start at the moment. More head scratching going on.
FakePilot
11th Feb 2010, 20:55
power cable for a graphics card?
My graphics card has 2 power plugs and two water pipes going to it. Water is for cooling. I didn't know about water cooling until I accidently ordered a card with it.
So I figured go the whole way. Very quiet.
mad_jock
11th Feb 2010, 21:01
See that just sounds daft to me having water inside your computer.
Have you ever had one leak yet?
frostbite
11th Feb 2010, 21:33
The way things are going, how long before they need their own air-con?
tony draper
11th Feb 2010, 21:42
Some overclockers have cryogenic coolers, buggah! I remember when a good graphic card had 16k of Ram.:uhoh:
Loose rivets
11th Feb 2010, 22:07
Luxury!!! We used to dreeeeeeam of RAM.
In our day, we had to do it all with mirrors, and our da would clip'uz rount' ear if we didn't keep'm huffed clean.
One does really remember the "Ice-Cap" for the 386 chip. A Peltier effect device. 50 Mhz we could push them to.
jcjeant
11th Feb 2010, 23:44
Hi,
See that just sounds daft to me having water inside your computer.
Have you ever had one leak yet?Water cooling is a bad name for it.
In fact it's no water used but a dielectric fluid .. so no probs in case of leak.
And this one is in a big leak ROFL
YouTube - Mineral Oil Submerged Computer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtufuXLvOok)
Bushfiva
12th Feb 2010, 01:13
From the wire colors, it's the last 4 of your 24-pins. The 20 pin and 4 pin can probably lock together. They're detachable to accomodate ATX boards that have 20 pins.
Re "bad jpg", in the fuzzy picture you're using manual focus and haven't :}. Incidentally, you seem to have the camera set to restart numbering the photos when the card is removed. Many people prefer to have the camera remember numbering, so you don't end up with lots of pics having the same file name.
Loose rivets
12th Feb 2010, 04:05
That makes a lot of sense, except of course that it's going as it is. Could there be dual lines to the CPU, since it's already got a dedicated plug with +12 +12 on it? B B Y Y.
Good point on the pic files No's. One is looking at the menu: I see 'File number sequence'. I guess that must be the one. It's now ON.
Bushfiva
12th Feb 2010, 04:33
Yes that’s the CPU power.
mad_jock
12th Feb 2010, 08:31
The way things are going, how long before they need their own air-con?
And the circle will be complete back to the old Mainframes and VAX's
If the sys op guy refused to reboot due to up time statistics an old trick was to cover the aircon vent with a black bin liner so the thermal cut out would take it down.
The spare 4 pin plug from the PSU you speak of goes into the 24pin ATX connector on the motherboard.
You must take the 20pin connector out of the socket and you will find the spare 4 pin plug will mate up to the 20pin plug.
It is then a simple matter of connecting your now 24pin plug into the motherboard 24pin ATX socket.
This simply provides extra power to the motherboard via a separate circuits when required by the motherboard and it's installed components.