Power Supply Plugged Into Spare Connector!

Steve Mavronis

Steve Mavronis

New Member
Power Supply Plugged Into Motherboard Aux Connector?

I just got off a chat session with Gateway support. I have a FX530 with the following motherboard in the pictures below. I was adding a Antec Vcool slot cooler and couldn't find a connector to plug the fan into. But I noticed there was a power cable going from my Delta 700W power supply to the spare power connector on the motherboard! See the motherboard picture for item "O" and a zoomed in photo of the connector:

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"This is the Intel® (Big Arm) 975X Viiv™ motherboard."

4006151R_15.jpg

"This is the add-in card auxiliary power connector on the motherboard. Add-in cards, such as some PCI Express ×16 video cards, that require a dedicated power connection can be plugged in here."

Here is a partial chat transcript:

Steve N. Mavronis says: there is a connector on my motherboard descibed as a Add-In Card Auxilliary Power Connector. I was wondering why there is a power supply cable plugged into it?

Trent_GWAE115 says: This is for the add-in card like power supply, modem, sound card, etc. that you will connect in the future. Without this connection, these add-in PCI or AGP card will not work on your computer.

Steve N. Mavronis says: yeah i know but why is my delta 700w power supply plugging into it then and what happens if i unplug the power supply from it.

Trent_GWAE115 says: Nothing will happen Steve, you can use this power connector if ever you need it. We connected this in the motherboard just to get extra power in the power supply you know. But the system will work just fine without this extra power connection.
 
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Yeah I got a Antec Vcool slot cooler and noticed the power supply's spare cable was plugged into the motherboard. The fan is now plugged in there and working.

[EDIT] I'm second guessing myself now and wondering if the motherboard's auxilary 4 pin power connector does require power from the power supply for PCI Express video cards like my Nvidia 8800GTX card? What do you think and should I hook it back up? I can actually piggy back the Antec VCool slot VGA cooler fan power connector onto it.
 
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I was reading another forum's posts about this extra power connector on a motherboard:

"The power connector on the mainboard is only for extra power if you are using 2 PCIe graphics cards in SLI mode."

Since I am using just one Nvidia 8800GTX card in the 16x slot I should be okay not having my power supply plugged into it to supply extra power to the 2 PCIe slots, right? I mean on Intel 975x motherboards SLI mode doesn't work with 2 Nvidia cards anyway. If I had dual ATI cards it would be a different story. I do have a TV Tuner card in the other 4x PCIe slot though but that's not an SLI situation.
 
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I have used a few mobos with that 4-pin power connector and never plugged it in - it worked fine in all cases. Well usually PIC-e videocards would have their own connectors if they need more power
 
ower supply plugged

I should be okay not having my power supply plugged into it to supply extra power to the 2 PCIe slots, right? I mean on Intel 975x motherboards SLI mode doesn't work with 2 Nvidia cards anyway. If I had dual ATI cards it would be a different story.
 
Yeah, what I ended up doing is buying a 4 pin Y connector to plug both the motherboard and slot cooling fan to the power supply cable to cover all the bases just in case. Normally with the Antec VCool expansion slot vga cooler, you want it to blow the cool air ducted from outside the PC case into the top of the graphics card fan opening. But in my system the 8800gtx uses the top 16x PCIe slot position, with its fan assembly on top of the card. If I were to move the 8800gtx to the bottom PCIe slot its only a 4x connection which i don't want to do. So I had no choice but to add the slot cooler fan "under" the 8800gtx instead of over the top of it like you are supposed to. But even though the slot cooler is blowing cool air at the 8800gtx circuit board bottom, it is still cooling the card down by 5 degrees centigrade. That isn't too bad considering, and I'll take whatever I can get.

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You can see the motherboard plug behind the left corner of the blue Antec Vcool and part of the Y connector coming from it in the foreground. Outside air is blowing upward into the bottom of my 8800GTX card circuit board because there is no way to mount it over top but at least its cooling it none the less.
 
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I am not a normal user of this style motherboard, but in the pic it seems to me that the 4pin power slot is there to actually plug more power hungry cards into.

ie. the BFG Nvidia cards that have their own fan, the new dual gpu ATI cards or even some of the older vacuum cleaner style cards that actually require in the very least a fan slot open on the motherboard.

In a custom build it makes sense, considering one of the main reasons for over heating of the graphics card is all the access power wires blocking air flow. With the power running right to the board you don't need to drape or hang any extra cables about it.
 
why would you be plugging the power supply directly into that slot? Isnt that slot just a stationary extra power connector to connect things like fans and drives to? The extra power connections on the higher end video cards are stationary so to connect the video card to that extra power connector on the motherboard you need a cable to run between the two.

oh wait ya I see it says on the board "aux power for PCIE card" so I guess they intend you to run a cable between the video card and that power connector. Nothing other than an extra convenient source or power and I guess nice if you run out of connectors on the power supply cables.
 
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That is what I thought at first, that it was crazy to plug the power supply into that motherboard connector. But that's the way Gateway shipped it and I questioned them on it. Apparently what GW said and what I've also read on other computer forums it is usually done to supply extra power to the PCIe video card slots themselves, particularly for a SLI setup with dual video cards. Anyway, even though I'm only using one video card I have it plugged back into the motherboard via a Y-connector with my Antec VCool too.
 
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