Question Ran out of power slots on motherboard. Options?

[wes_actual]

Father/son PC build where GenX father (me) wanted to buy an off the shelf gaming PC. GenZ son suggested building one for a "fun" project. We are both novices; This is our first PC build. Awesome folks at Tom's Hardware forum (you) have helped me out in the past.

Everything was going great until we ran out of power slots on the motherboard. Before we go any further, here are the components in question:

• Cooler Master MasterBox Lite 5 RGB ATX Mid Tower Case (Case fans x3)
• MSI B350M GAMING PRO Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard
• Rosewill 700 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply
• Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB Aorus Waterforce Xtreme Edition Video Card - NOTE: The waterblock has been removed and an NZXT G12 Kraken has been added with a Thermaltake Water 3.0 120 AIO Cooler. (To see why, go here)

Issues: So many dang cables and nowhere to plug them in!

• Assuming we are able to replace one of the three fans in the case with the radiator and fan from the AIO cooler on the GPU, this leaves me with 2 of 3 fans to plug into the motherboard. Oddly, the 4-pin connector from the fans are male. WTH? See picture.

Cables coming from GPU monstrosity:

• GPU- Two 8-pin PCI-E for Power Supply (No problem here)
• Two 3-pin cables (one normal and one flat) coming from the Thermaltake cooler on the Kraken. (See picture)
• One 3-pin cable coming from the Kraken fan on the GPU (See picture)
• One 4-pin cable and one SATA power cable from the Thermaltake radiator and fan (See picture)

We have yet to mount the GPU until we sort through this tomfoolery. Manuals seem to be of no help.

Any help would be HUGE! This was the original PCPartPicker list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/N6MH6s

Cheers!

 

[Eximo]

Hmm, bit of mess, but thanks for the pictures. Mixing some fancy components with a cheaper board. No wonder you ran out of fan headers.

You'll have to buy some splitters, or get a fan controller/hub for more ports there. 3-pin fans can be plugged into 4-pin headers on the motherboard. (I believe you have three fan headers, if you have more than three fans to plug in, that will be an issue)

The male 4-pin I believe is an RGB header, and/or a way to extend them. Your board does have a 4-pin RGB header, but you will want to make sure the that RGB stuff you have is voltage matching. There are 5v and 12v standards out there. (Motherboard is 12V)

Fan splitters: (two fans per header is about the limit)

https://www.amazon.com/JBtek-Black-...d_r=Y8TSS4K0V89FPX8X6Z2C&psc=1&qid=1574800339

Fan hub:
https://www.amazon.com/SilverStone-...cs&sprefix=fan+control,electronics,188&sr=1-4

You'll want to consult the manual for the location of the RGB header and various fan header locations:

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/B350M-GAMING-PRO#down-manual

 

[wes_actual]

@Eximo You are awesome. I'll start checking out these links.

 

[cin19]

Two 3-pin cables (one normal and one flat) coming from the Thermaltake cooler on the Kraken. (See picture)

The AIO has RGB, the 3-pin one (flat) is for RGB, make sure don't plug it into your MB RGB header, because the Thermaltake is the aRGB(5v) type, your MB' RGB header is regular one with +12. I don't see it clearly from the picture you posted, but from the Thermaltake site you can get the manual, it looks like will go to the RGB light controller. And the 3pin fan cable will go to the MB sys-fan header.
https://www.thermaltakeusa.com/water-3-0-120-argb-sync.html

And your CM case should come with the 1 to 3 RGB splitter, which can plug it into the MB RGB header. https://www.coolermaster.com/catalog/cases/mid-tower/masterbox-lite-5-rgb/

You have to read the manual very carefully.

 

[wes_actual]

The AIO has RGB, the 3-pin one (flat) is for RGB, make sure don't plug it into your MB RGB header, because the Thermaltake is the aRGB(5v) type, your MB' RGB header is regular one with +12. I don't see it clearly from the picture you posted, but from the Thermaltake site you can get the manual, it looks like will go to the RGB light controller. And the 3pin fan cable will go to the MB sys-fan header.
https://www.thermaltakeusa.com/water-3-0-120-argb-sync.html

And your CM case should come with the 1 to 3 RGB splitter, which can plug it into the MB RGB header. https://www.coolermaster.com/catalog/cases/mid-tower/masterbox-lite-5-rgb/

You have to read the manual very carefully.

Thanks @cin19. Reading the manual for the MB, I actually don't see any headers that are suitable for 5v. I'll dig deeper into the Thermaltake manual. But as you said, the RGB light controller on MB should be 5v.

I noticed the Fan Hub that @Eximo posted above gets power from SATA power. Is it possible to plug into the HDD SATA to receive power? Otherwise, I will have to get a SATA to 6-pin PCI-E for the power supply to power the rest of the fans using the hub.

 

[Eximo]

Thanks @cin19. Reading the manual for the MB, I actually don't see any headers that are suitable for 5v. I'll dig deeper into the Thermaltake manual. But as you said, the RGB light controller on MB should be 5v.

I noticed the Fan Hub that @Eximo posted above gets power from SATA power. Is it possible to plug into the HDD SATA to receive power? Otherwise, I will have to get a SATA to 6-pin PCI-E for the power supply to power the rest of the fans using the hub.

Just to be clear, motherboard is a 12V RGB system. The thermaltake cooler is 5V, but I believe cin19 is saying that you plug it's header into the pump/CPU cooler. Only the fans will be controlled by the motherboard.

Yes, any available SATA plug, doesn't matter what else is plugged into it. PCIe to SATA isn't really a thing. PCIe only carries 12V, SATA has 12V and 5V (not that that is important in this case, but just why you probably won't find many adapters)

 

[cin19]

The 5V rgb connector from thermaltake cooler is not compatible with your MB, because the MB does not has the aRGB header. But the cooler comes with the rgb controller. You can use it. You can use the MB rgb header for your case fans.