4 pin MOLEX power plug on motherboards

Adamant

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Mar 22, 2006
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I have a question regarding the 4 pin power plugs that have been showing up on crossfire and sli motherboards lately. My question is if you do not plan on running crossfire or sli do you need to plug it in? I'm hopefull that you do not have to because cable management will be a big issue with me since i have a case with a window.

The pics I've seen for the new am2 asus boards with rd580 and the new nforce 5 chipset do not have the 4 pin plugs that most of the other boards have, but they may not be the final revision of the board. Any insight on this would be helpfull. Thanks.

Asus nvidia am2 motherboard

New rig so far:

Black lian li pcv1000 with window
Antec neo 550 watt power supply
2gb mushkin cas 3 xp2-5300 ddr2 memory
Dual layer burner
1 WD 250gb sata2 16mb hard drive
2 Maxtor 100gb sata 8mb hard drives for raid 0

waiting on am2 and dx10 graphics card
 

Adamant

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The 4pin power plug (ATX12V) also supplies power to the CPU's vreg as well.
You need to have it in. All modern PSUs comes with that plug.

Some mobo such as DFI uses the molex plug instead.

I know most if not all recent mobos have the one for the cpu that is four pin......I'm talking about the extra 4 pin molex plug that seems to be standard on most sli and crossfire mobos.
 
Sometimes it has to do with sli, ( needing extra power for your cards ), sometimes because of a 20 pin psu plug ( 20 pin going into 24 pin slot ). Read the book that came with the motherboard. You may or may not have to use it.
 

Adamant

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Sometimes it has to do with sli, ( needing extra power for your cards ), sometimes because of a 20 pin psu plug ( 20 pin going into 24 pin slot ). Read the book that came with the motherboard. You may or may not have to use it.

The motherboard I have now dosen't have the 4 pin molex connector. From what I've seen most new motherboards with sli or crossfire have 24 pin connectors to the motherboard, 4 pin for the cpu, and 4 pin molex. If there is anyone out there with a motherboard that has all of those connections on it can you tell me if the manual requires you to plug up to the 4 pin molex connector if you do not plan on running sli or crossfire.
 
I have an a8n32-sli deluxe. It has all three. In the book it says

"connect a 4-pin power plug from the PSU to teh EZ plug connector when"

1. using two graphics cards and a 20 pin ATX power supply.
2. The graphics cards do not have auxiliary power plugs

Thats all.......... but I would assume, if running one card, and you can plug into it, either with a 4 pin connector, a 6 pin connector, or a 4 pin molex to 6 pin pci-e adapter into it, you should be fine.
 

moparman390

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Feb 21, 2006
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I know, it says so in my motherboard manual. The 4 pin molex power connector on motherboards is found near the PCIe 16X slot is used for additional power for the video card in that slot. The manual explains it is there for modern, high power consuming cards, which do not have their own power connector on the card. Basically, if your video card(s) has the power connector, do not connect a molex connector on the board, connect the power connector on the card up. If your card does not have the power connector in it, connect up the molex connector on the motherboard.
 

Adamant

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Mar 22, 2006
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I have an a8n32-sli deluxe. It has all three. In the book it says

"connect a 4-pin power plug from the PSU to teh EZ plug connector when"

1. using two graphics cards and a 20 pin ATX power supply.
2. The graphics cards do not have auxiliary power plugs

Thats all.......... but I would assume, if running one card, and you can plug into it, either with a 4 pin connector, a 6 pin connector, or a 4 pin molex to 6 pin pci-e adapter into it, you should be fine.

Thanks for the reply. Just the information I was looking for.
 

WOWchamp

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I own a DFI Lanparty UT nF4 Ultra-D and there are 4 power connectors that MUST be plugged in no matter what. Keep in mind that the Ultra-D isnt SLI without doing the pencil mod...

24 Pin ATX
4 Pin P4
4 Pin floppy connector
4 Pin Molex

All four of those are required for the Ultra-D, even though the board can be modified to use SLI the site says to plug them ALL in (and the site doesnt condone doing the mod so rest assured you need em all with or without SLI)