Question MSI Motherboard help

[Nick@1701]

I am looking at someones gaming pc, it`s an MSI motherboard, sorry, not sure which one, have not dissasembled it yet, however, i know it has a 12th gen i7 in it, he said it was working for a while, but then stopped, and is now getting a red cpu debug led. one thing i noticed straight away, is that this msi board looks to have 2 x 8 pin cpu coneectors. and he only has 1 of them, (one on left), populated. Do all 8 pins need to be plugged in? His psu is a corsair rm 650x.

 

[Eximo]

Generally you can run a CPU with only a single EPS connector, but there may be a hard power limit that would prevent the CPU from boosting too much. If that is an unlocked i7, then he really should get another EPS cable. RM650x is modular, so you should be able to get one from Corsair or Cablemod (Type 4).

Clearing the CMOS, re-seating the memory (and trying different slots and one stick at a time) and CPU are reasonable steps to take. You can also take a look at the thermal paste application to see if that was any good.

After that you would be looking at needing spare CPUs and motherboards to test with.

 

[NerdyVixen]

Definitely needs the extra power for that CPU, get an 8-pin connector.