Associate
- Joined
- 28 Sep 2006
- Posts
- 416
Hey Guys,
If any of you remember my recent post I'm running quite an old rig, a 3800X2 powered by an old 500W enermax, I decided to upgrade my gfx now and my mobo/ram/cpu later next year.
After long deliberations of 4870 vs 280gtx i went with the gainward 280GTX from OcUK, It came and is bigger than my motherboard. I looked and saw it needed an 6 pin PCI-E and an 8 pin PCI-E , I've only got 6 pin plugs so after rummaging through the box for a long time i concluded there wasnt any adapter bundled. I couldnt find any way to get one in the UK either, at least not any time soon so i decided to hack myself a solution I'm writing this in case anyone else is ever in the same boat.
You will need:
Scissors
Tape
3 6pin PCI-E power connectors (from your mobo or adapters)
1. So the first thing i did was try to put in two 6 pin power cables, one from my 6 pin PCI-E rail, and one from a simple 6 pin molex adapter to try and give it as much juice as it needed. No luck, red light on the back of the card
2. From reading on the internets, I found afew things, most importantly a graphics card can sense whether it has 6 or 8 pins inserted, and the two extra pins are grounds. So i thought to myself, if these are just grounds, then if i stick something in them it will work. Taking a look at shape of the 2 pins that are left, you can see its the same shape as the last two pins on a 6 pin adapter. So the hacky solution? Get a hacksaw and saw those last two pins off.
3. Volia! I have now have two pins that will fit in the hole but DONT PUT THEM IN YET. As you can see from the colour of the wires, the yellow one is live, but they are both supposed to be ground. The yellow wire needs to be taken out. A fiddled with a screwdriver to try and failed.
4. So lets be even more hacky, Cut the live wire, splice it with one of the grounds from the 4 pins of your hacked plug and tape it all up for good measure
5. Put your two six pins and your hacked two pin into your plug, double check that your hacked two pins are BOTH GROUND
6. Turn on... Wahey, green light and everything is working
I've been running vantage, playing Mass Effect and Crysis without any problems, I even thought I'd be cheeky and push the core to 702 , everything is working fine.
Hope this helps someone
Pete
DISCLAIMER: IF YOUR FACE BLOWS UP IT IS NOT MY FAULT
If any of you remember my recent post I'm running quite an old rig, a 3800X2 powered by an old 500W enermax, I decided to upgrade my gfx now and my mobo/ram/cpu later next year.
After long deliberations of 4870 vs 280gtx i went with the gainward 280GTX from OcUK, It came and is bigger than my motherboard. I looked and saw it needed an 6 pin PCI-E and an 8 pin PCI-E , I've only got 6 pin plugs so after rummaging through the box for a long time i concluded there wasnt any adapter bundled. I couldnt find any way to get one in the UK either, at least not any time soon so i decided to hack myself a solution I'm writing this in case anyone else is ever in the same boat.
You will need:
Scissors
Tape
3 6pin PCI-E power connectors (from your mobo or adapters)
1. So the first thing i did was try to put in two 6 pin power cables, one from my 6 pin PCI-E rail, and one from a simple 6 pin molex adapter to try and give it as much juice as it needed. No luck, red light on the back of the card
2. From reading on the internets, I found afew things, most importantly a graphics card can sense whether it has 6 or 8 pins inserted, and the two extra pins are grounds. So i thought to myself, if these are just grounds, then if i stick something in them it will work. Taking a look at shape of the 2 pins that are left, you can see its the same shape as the last two pins on a 6 pin adapter. So the hacky solution? Get a hacksaw and saw those last two pins off.
3. Volia! I have now have two pins that will fit in the hole but DONT PUT THEM IN YET. As you can see from the colour of the wires, the yellow one is live, but they are both supposed to be ground. The yellow wire needs to be taken out. A fiddled with a screwdriver to try and failed.
4. So lets be even more hacky, Cut the live wire, splice it with one of the grounds from the 4 pins of your hacked plug and tape it all up for good measure
5. Put your two six pins and your hacked two pin into your plug, double check that your hacked two pins are BOTH GROUND
6. Turn on... Wahey, green light and everything is working
I've been running vantage, playing Mass Effect and Crysis without any problems, I even thought I'd be cheeky and push the core to 702 , everything is working fine.
Hope this helps someone
Pete
DISCLAIMER: IF YOUR FACE BLOWS UP IT IS NOT MY FAULT
)