My brother has just been given a HIS ATI Radeon HD 3850 card. He has a fairly old PSU without 6 pin PSU connectors on it and I though i just needed a 4-pin Molex to 6-pin PCI-E cable/adaptor to power the card.
However on the one i bought the head for the PCI-E end does not fit. There appear to be 3 'rounded' pins and 3 'square' pins on the cable/adaptor but 4 'rounded' pins and 2 'square' sockets on the cards power socket. I'm wondering if i've been sold a 6 pin PSU to 4 pin Molex adaptor instead of a 4 pin Molex to 6 pin PCI-E?
I may be being really dense here so please let me down gently if I am.
If you need more info I can provide more but not sure what else you'd need to know.
I think you bought the wrong adapter. And I was surprised to notice the HIS HD 3850 card didnt include a power adapter cable in the accessory pack. The picture below is the accessory pack for the Asus HD 3850. You can see the power cable with its black PCI-e header and two 4-pin molex connectors.
A close up of a PCI-e power adapter cable:
I could not find any 3 round / 3 square 6 pin cable in the short google search I did.
My 3850 from DIAMOND did not include the power adapter either, local computer store had it for $6. Although I did send DIAMOND a intresting e-mail for not bundling the obvious.
You want to attach both connectors using molex connectors on two separate cables from the PSU.
The accessory pack pictures of the HIS 3850s did not show a power adapter cable.
It may not be necessary to use both molex connectors for the 3850. I've seen a few 3850 accessory packs with custom power adapter cables and they are the single molex to 6-pin PCI-e connector. Acessory pack for SAPPHIRE 100226L Radeon HD 3850 512MB
The 2 molex to 6-pin PCI-e connector is probably a generic part. And it won't hurt anything to hook them both up.
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