How do I connect a 6 pin pci connector to motherboard?

[muhammad88]

Hey,
I have a regular pc with a regular psu and I have a pci express graphics card which I want to connect to the motherboard it can't be directly connected to the psu because the psu doesn't have a connector for a pci express graphics card but I have a a 6 pin connector with two molex connectors, I connected the 6 pin connector to the graphics card but there are two molex connectors do I have to connect them both or one?

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

It would be helpful if you could be more specific about the hardware you are working with. Can you list the make and model of your motherboard, power supply, and graphics card?

I can make a few general assumptions / recommendations, based on what I think you're asking.

Graphics cards for the last 10+ years have plugged into the motherboard via a PCI-e x16 slot. The graphics card will be powered by the slot it plugs into, but the slot is only able to provide a certain amount of power. For graphics cards requiring more power, there will be one or more PCI-e power connector located on the graphics card, usually toward the end furthest from the display output connectors.

If your motherboard does not provide a PCI-e x16 slot to plug a graphics card into, there is no practical way to change that, other than to upgrade the motherboard, which may be as drastic as purchasing most of the parts for a completely new computer, depending on the age of your equipment.

If your graphics card requires a PCI-e power connection, but your power supply does not provide one, it is usually a sign that your power supply is of very old design, or the manufacturer doesn't feel that power supply is suitable to power a graphics card with. You can, if you are certain the power supply should be up to the task, adapt spare Molex or other power connections from the power supply to provide you with a PCI-e power connection from which you can power your graphics card. The recommended route is to replace the power supply with a better quality unit that provides the necessary power connectors.

 

[muhammad88]

It would be helpful if you could be more specific about the hardware you are working with. Can you list the make and model of your motherboard, power supply, and graphics card?

I can make a few general assumptions / recommendations, based on what I think you're asking.

Graphics cards for the last 10+ years have plugged into the motherboard via a PCI-e x16 slot. The graphics card will be powered by the slot it plugs into, but the slot is only able to provide a certain amount of power. For graphics cards requiring more power, there will be one or more PCI-e power connector located on the graphics card, usually toward the end furthest from the display output connectors.

If your motherboard does not provide a PCI-e x16 slot to plug a graphics card into, there is no practical way to change that, other than to upgrade the motherboard, which may be as drastic as purchasing most of the parts for a completely new computer, depending on the age of your equipment.

If your graphics card requires a PCI-e power connection, but your power supply does not provide one, it is usually a sign that your power supply is of very old design, or the manufacturer doesn't feel that power supply is suitable to power a graphics card with. You can, if you are certain the power supply should be up to the task, adapt spare Molex or other power connections from the power supply to provide you with a PCI-e power connection from which you can power your graphics card. The recommended route is to replace the power supply with a better quality unit that provides the necessary power connectors.

It's just an old pc that I found and it's not for gaming and it's meant for testing. I connected my graphics card to the 6 pin connector and on the other end I connected one molex connector and there is another one that is free, I don't know if I should connect it too. Here's the connector:

 

[BurgerandChips66]

Normally both of those Molex connectors would need to be connected to the PSU. They don't connect to the motherboard directly. Only the card itself plugs into the motherboard in any way. Not the power cables - they are intended to be connected to the PSU.

The only way you can power a graphics card via the motherboard exclusively is if the card itself is designed to be supplied 'solely' via the PCIe slot. For example a GTX 750, GT 1030 (or something very old). They don't have any separate 6 pin PCIe power sockets on them.

But as mentioned above, we need all the specs - especially your PSU and graphics card. If you can take a photo of the side of the PSU showing the power characteristics, that would help.

 

[muhammad88]

Normally both of those Molex connectors would need to be connected to the PSU. They don't connect to the motherboard directly. Only the card itself plugs into the motherboard in any way. Not the power cables - they are intended to be connected to the PSU.

The only way you can power a graphics card via the motherboard exclusively is if the card itself is designed to be supplied 'solely' via the PCIe slot. For example a GTX 750, GT 1030 (or something very old). They don't have any separate 6 pin PCIe power sockets on them.

But as mentioned above, we need all the specs - especially your PSU and graphics card. If you can take a photo of the side of the PSU showing the power characteristics, that would help.

The specs are:
GTS Palit 450 Nvidia
NEOTech ATX 500W PSU

http://imageshack.com/a/img922/4084/Vb0YOm.jpg

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

You are supposed to use both Molex connectors on a PCI-e power adapter. Each wire is only rated to carry so much current, so the load is spread to two sets of wires. Being a low end graphics card, it's probably okay to use a single lead, but your power supply isn't a good match whether you use one lead from the adapter or both.

You're very close to the limits of that power supply. It has a single 12 V rail rated at 20 A, which in a great deal of cases is being generous by the manufacturer. Just off the top of my head, 18 A is actually the proposed standard (which a lot of supplies don't follow) for 12 V rails that are compliant, so it's entirely possible there could be safety cutoffs that are rated at 18 A but don't actually function until 20 A, hence the rating.

A GTS 450 graphics card can draw 10+ amps on the 12 V rail, depending on the loading, which along with your CPU (assuming a 65 W CPU [which is being generous]) and motherboard, hard drive(s), and any other peripherals drawing from the 12 V rail, may actually put you over the limit on the 12 V portion of the power supply.

If you never run the GTS 450 at full capacity, you might be okay, but it's not a high end card so it should be fairly easy to push the card toward it's maximum with any current gaming title. Only thing I can see preventing that would be an exceptionally weak CPU.

If you exceed the limits of your power supply, you can expect the system to spontaneously reboot, power off, have random BSOD errors, TDR errors with the graphics card, and the possible spontaneous self-destruction of the power supply. If the power supply fails, adding to the low cost nature of it, it likely doesn't include all manners of electrical isolation and protection, so you should anticipate it can damage other components in the process.

Being an old machine, it's probably not the biggest deal if it self-destructs. Maybe keep a fire extinguisher on hand, and be sure anybody using it has the good sense to be able to unplug it if something gets out of hand.

 

[muhammad88]

You are supposed to use both Molex connectors on a PCI-e power adapter. Each wire is only rated to carry so much current, so the load is spread to two sets of wires. Being a low end graphics card, it's probably okay to use a single lead, but your power supply isn't a good match whether you use one lead from the adapter or both.

You're very close to the limits of that power supply. It has a single 12 V rail rated at 20 A, which in a great deal of cases is being generous by the manufacturer. Just off the top of my head, 18 A is actually the proposed standard (which a lot of supplies don't follow) for 12 V rails that are compliant, so it's entirely possible there could be safety cutoffs that are rated at 18 A but don't actually function until 20 A, hence the rating.

A GTS 450 graphics card can draw 10+ amps on the 12 V rail, depending on the loading, which along with your CPU (assuming a 65 W CPU [which is being generous]) and motherboard, hard drive(s), and any other peripherals drawing from the 12 V rail, may actually put you over the limit on the 12 V portion of the power supply.

If you never run the GTS 450 at full capacity, you might be okay, but it's not a high end card so it should be fairly easy to push the card toward it's maximum with any current gaming title. Only thing I can see preventing that would be an exceptionally weak CPU.

If you exceed the limits of your power supply, you can expect the system to spontaneously reboot, power off, have random BSOD errors, TDR errors with the graphics card, and the possible spontaneous self-destruction of the power supply. If the power supply fails, adding to the low cost nature of it, it likely doesn't include all manners of electrical isolation and protection, so you should anticipate it can damage other components in the process.

Being an old machine, it's probably not the biggest deal if it self-destructs. Maybe keep a fire extinguisher on hand, and be sure anybody using it has the good sense to be able to unplug it if something gets out of hand.

It's just an old graphics card which I replaced with a newer one and I found this pc so I thought I might utilize this graphics card. I have a better pc with a decent psu that it has a pci express connector, so it's my first time running with this pci express adapter I wasn't sure how to connect it. Thank you for your help