So the parts arrived today, and I’m installing the motherboard. The problem is, in addition to the 24-pin power connector, there are slots for an 8-pin and a 4-pin, right next to each other. But the PSU has no 4-pin connector; it only has an 8-pin, and four 6+2s. What am I supposed to do? I see that on my own X570 board from MSI (similar to the new one, but a different model), I didn’t use it, and it seems to be running OK. So just ignore?
[Update a while later]
Well, it seems to be running fine without it.
The good news: It works. The bad news: The new processor isn’t compatible with Windows 8.1; it says it needs to upgrade to 10. And I can’t get good screen resolution, which will probably get fixed after an upgrade.
[Wednesday-morning update]
OK, $200 later, we upgraded to 10, but still crap resolution. Had to install Nvidia drivers to clean things up. But now all seems well. So far.
It may fire up without it, though you might get a warning in the BIOS. If it doesn’t, and if you’ve got room, you can hook the 8-pin or 6-pin up to the 4-pin socket and leave the extra pins hanging over the edge (make sure the clips are facing the same way as the big 24-pin cable); I’ve done that in a pinch, but it always felt wrong, and sometimes there’s not space. You can mangle it up and chop the extra pins off the plug as well; that’s something I’ve done before too, but again, not proud of it.
Otherwise, sticking with sensible ideas, you can pick up an 8-pin (or 6-pin) to 4-pin adapter that would do the trick. They’re pretty cheap on Amazon. I’ve probably got one in my Box of Random Power Supply Cables and Splitters and Stuff, but that’s not much help to you from here in Utah.
6+2 connctor is for video cards. Don’t plug it into the CPU! They’re keyed differently, and the voltage and gnd pins are swapped–you could destroy the motherboard. There are two different kinds of 8-pin connectors: one for GPU, the other for the motherboard. They’re also keyed differently. If it fits CORRECTLY on the motherboard (note that it’s possible to stick a GPU connector in an EPS socket due to the keying, but pins 6 and 8 will be chamfered pins going into square holes), it’s ok to use. If it won’t fit, don’t try to force it.
A 3600X should be fine without either of the extra motherboard connectors connected, but if you do need and the PSU connector you have is the wrong one, what you want is a SATA or Molex to EPS connector. Prefer the 8-pin to the 4-pin.
If your 8-pin connector is on a different cable than the 6+2, it’s probably the motherboard connector, because the typical way they do it is one cable (or maybe two) has a pair of 6+2s for a GPU and a different cable will have an 8-pin for the CPU. It’s common but not universal for the 8-pin to actually be a 4+4.
Here’s a link with a picture of the connectors: https://superuser.com/questions/1281414/ive-pluged-e-pci-power-cable62pin-to-eps-8-pin-on-motherboard
But generally for mainstream processors, the 24-pin connector can typically feed 100-150W through the +5V pin, which is usually enough for mainstream processors that aren’t heavily overclocked. The extra connectors can provide a few hundred extra watts of +12V, but like I said, you probably are OK without them.
Well, as I said, I have an eight, and four six plus twos on a separate cable. The eight doesn’t appear separable, but even if it was, I need it for the eight socket. Both machines seem to be running OK without the four-pin, so I won’t worry about getting an adapter.
With a 65W CPU, you could use either the 4-pin socket or the 8-pin one, if you had a splittable plug–either will supply more than enough power (and, as I said, in your case you could almost certainly get by without either.)
Just as a counterexample, Intel today finally officially announced the 10th generation desktop chips, and the unlocked 10-core is 125W, but can pull 225-300W in extreme scenarios. That’s a case where you’d probably *need* the supplementary power; without it I believe the motherboard won’t let the CPU boost to its full capability.
If you ever get a video card that has two plugs, it’s recommended that you use one plug from each cable, but it’s usually not strictly necessary.
The current video cards have no power sockets.
“The current video cards have no power sockets.”
Yeah. The “if” was “as opposed to getting one with only one socket”, in which case it wouldn’t matter. Admittedly, the likelihood of such an upgrade on the existing system is probably pretty low, unless she develops a taste for AAA gaming. 🙂
The 710 is a 19W power-sipper and the PCIe slot can supply 75.
The 8 pin and the 4 pin all feed to the same place on the mother board. There may be some power supplies that would use the extra connector to increase the power for really power hungry processors but mostly they’re just extra wires for legacy applications. you should be fine with the 8 pin.
Windows 10 is another thing. I hate it with an abiding passion.
Since you’ve already upgraded to Win10, this is kinda moot, but the issue is mainly that Microsoft doesn’t supply drivers for older OSes for more modern CPUs. Theoretically you can get it working anyway, but it apparently involves needing a PS/2 keyboard and mouse during setup, and I haven’t looked much beyond that.
Well, the specific issue was that it wouldn’t automatically update Windows (which to be honest seemed more like a feature than a bug). In retrospect, I probably could have solved the resolution problem by just installing the drivers, without the upgrade, but c’est la vie.
Regarding resolution: in theory, if you wait a bit, Windows 10 can notice your card can handle higher resolutions and then download the latest driver. I’ve seen it happen with a GTX 1060. Don’t know how well it would work on an older card, though. I don’t think you said which video card you got, but I am guessing it was something like a GT 710 at that price and since you mentioned PCIe 2.
Yes, it’s a GT 710. I didn’t know if Windows was going to figure it out, and I didn’t want to wait, so I just installed the drivers.
Yeah. It MIGHT have done it on its own, but it could’ve taken anywhere from “a couple of minutes” to who knows when. (I actually got a video driver update from Windows update this week. Surprised me because it was a silent one–my first warning was when the screen went blank and then redrew itself, and the youtube video I was watching reset itself.)
The GT 710 is