Don't want to blow the thing up...!

RobinH · 15 Mar 2007 at 17:07

Planning a system around the Asus P5N32-E board with an E6600 & stock cooler, MSI 8800GTX 748Mb card, 2 x 500Mb HDs and a DVD burner, with an Enermax Liberty 620W providing the power.

Built systems before but this will be the first where the graphics card has power sockets (2 x 6-pin from what I can see) and the m/board has extra power sockets (2 x 4-pin besides the standard 24-pin one). So my question is - if I'm just running the single 8800GTX card (i.e. not SLI) then do I need to connect up the two 6-pin power sockets on the GTX card to the PSU? Also, should I be connecting up the 2 x 4-pin power sockets on the m/board as well as or instead of the ones on the GTX card.

Main concern is to not blow the darned thing up! :eek:

Tetras · 15 Mar 2007 at 17:16

P5N32-E has an 8 pin EPS12v afaik (with 4 pins covered by a cap, prompting use of the traditional 4 pin +12v P4 connector instead), both of which the Enermax will have (if you don't plug at least one of those in the board will fail to boot).

If there are additional connectors (like molexes that CD/DVD and hard drives use) they tend to be optional and recommended for SLI (to provide extra power around the PCI-E slots I think) but some boards do specifically state they should be connected (with no caveat). The board will only use what power it needs so you can't overload it by connecting too many sources of power (same with the graphics card).

RobinH · 15 Mar 2007 at 17:54

Many thanks for the advice - so basically I need to connect up at least one of the additional 4-pin sockets on the m/board to the PSU.

Will need to check cable lengths as I'm planning on using an Antec P180 case which places the PSU right at the bottom, and those extra 4-pin sockets will be right on the top edge of the board, about as far away from the PSU as you can get. May have to splice in 2-3" of extra wire on the leads, unless somewhere like ******s does extension cables with those funny looking plugs on them.

Tetras · 15 Mar 2007 at 18:40

additional 4-pin sockets on the m/board to the PSU.

It is very important to make the distinction between the 4 pin molex connectors that are used for DVD/CD/HD drives (and as additional power for the motherboard, usually under SLI mode) and the 4 pin "P4" +12v or 8 pin EPS12v connectors.

As I said in the above post the 4 pin "P4" or the 8 pin EPS12v are not optional, you must connect either the 4 pin P4 or 8 pin for the board to boot and some boards specifically state that the 8 pin is required or only using a 4 pin P4 is not recommended for overclocking or extreme edition CPUs.

With the Asus your referring to it appears the 4 pin "P4" is fine but I'd suggest you check the manual to be sure (as with anything computer related

).

You can get extension cables for the 4 pin "P4" connector and for the main ATX 20/24 pin block. Prolly also for 8 pin EPS12v if you choose to use it instead of the P4 but can't recall seeing any.

RobinH · 15 Mar 2007 at 20:04

This is what the plugs look like (I have them on my current PSU) and these correspond to the two 4-pin sockets on the m/board, and as you pointed out, one of the sockets on the m/board looks like it has a plastic cap over it.

So these are what is referred to as "P4" plugs (as opposed to "molex" which are the four little pins/holes in a row?). I'll have to see if I can find an online copy of the manual to see what it says about whether one or both need to be connected. If both, it looks like the two P4 plugs from the PSU can be sat side by side to fit across all 8 pins.

Whoever said building a PC was easy...

Tetras · 16 Mar 2007 at 14:42

So these are what is referred to as "P4" plugs (as opposed to "molex" which are the four little pins/holes in a row?).

Yup, that is right.

Usually you get either a 4 pin P4 plug or an 8 pin EPS12v but it looks like your PSU has a 4 pin P4 with an additional detachable 4 pin section.

It appears (from the Enermax page linked below) if you only need the 4 pin P4 then you should use the 4 pin part of the 8 pin section labelled "12v". Whether or not they are actually identical and you could use either 4 pin section I'm not sure but best to take their advice

I expect in the motherboard manual it says you can use either just fine, if you get an option I'd pick all 8 pins and remove the cap.

http://www.enermax.co.uk/products/psu/liberty/ELT620AWT/index.asp