What's the use of dual 12v sockets in motherboards?

scappy

Honorable
Feb 2, 2017
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10,510
First of all I've Googled this to no avail. I just built a new simple rig about a month ago. The motherboard I'm using now has 2 12volts sockets (my old mobo I used for 8 years only had one).

I've used the first socket and it works fine, but when I tried to plug in my other 12v plug on the other socket, it works okay but my motherboard just went crazy hot mainly that side where the 12volts sockets are. Is this normal?

So, what's the use of a dual 12v socket anyway?

My Setup:
- AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz on MSI 970 Gaming Motherboard
- MSI R7 970 4GB 256bit Graphics Card
- 32GB of RAM
- x2 240GB SSD (Raid 0)
- x2 4TB Seagate SATA HDD
- x1 Optical Drive

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Solution
The eight pin connector you see on the motherboard in the picture you provided performs two functions when providing extra 12v power distribution to the motherboard.

The first four pins provide an extra power phase to drive the cpu in the cpu socket of the motherboard with extra power required for when a heavy work task or load is asked of the cpu of your system.

The other four pins are used to provide from the board side to the Pci-e graphics card slots of the motherboard a 12v 75w maximum power output.
Without the extra 75w of 12v power is why most graphics cards may not be detected by the bios of the motherboard it`s self if not connected particularly if the graphics card fitted requires a lot of power consumption when at or in an...
The eight pin connector you see on the motherboard in the picture you provided performs two functions when providing extra 12v power distribution to the motherboard.

The first four pins provide an extra power phase to drive the cpu in the cpu socket of the motherboard with extra power required for when a heavy work task or load is asked of the cpu of your system.

The other four pins are used to provide from the board side to the Pci-e graphics card slots of the motherboard a 12v 75w maximum power output.
Without the extra 75w of 12v power is why most graphics cards may not be detected by the bios of the motherboard it`s self if not connected particularly if the graphics card fitted requires a lot of power consumption when at or in an Idle state.

 
Solution

scappy

Honorable
Feb 2, 2017
16
0
10,510


I see. You mentioned "extra power required for when a heavy work task or load." Does this include overclocking? Thanks Shaun o...