Motherboard sockets

[Andeh13]

I have a couple of computers I am trying to hamfist into a carPC. One of the options I have, the main chunky motherboard plug (from the PSU) has 4 socket pins extra at the end, when I plug the chunky power cable in.

Why does it have these extra 4 sockets? Can I do without them, or do I need an adapter etc to convert my chunky-but-4-plug-less?

it is an Asus A8n SLI motherboard for anyone interested. Excuse the technical terms, i have come across it before but never had an issue as the PSU had the additional plugs for it.

edit: With a poxy graphics card & 1 IDE hard drive, do you think the A8N-SLI would consume less than 160w? It seemed to when I plugged it in (ie it ran) but I couldn't get anything to display on the screen, but I put this down to a dodgy graphics card? If the motherboard wasn't getting enough power doesn't it beep madly at you?

Thanks

[ehhhhhhh]

it's backwards compatible, so you can use it without the additional 4 pins..

quote from wiki:

The main ATX power connector was extended to 24 pins (it is backwards compatible). The extra four pins provide one additional 3.3 V, 5 V and 12 V circuit.

[Blaineoliver]

If the board has no space for them, they should detach, they are to give extra power for newer boards IIRC.

[mikemikemi]

Sounds like you have a psu with a 20+4 main power connector.

The extra 4 pins came in on a revision of the ATX standard to provide additional power for PCIe. The +4 allowed the psus to be backwards compatible with 20pin boards

You shouldn't need them on your board if there's no support for them.

Edit: Beaten to it, should type faster

[Blaineoliver]

Haha

[Andeh13]

I made a complete hash of describing it, my apologise. Just to confirm, the PSU plug doesn't have the last 4 pins, so when I plug it into the MOBO, the MOBO has 4 slots left over at the end. This will still work, right?

Now, the fact these last 4 pins on the MOBO aren't connected, could that be why the graphics card doesn't seem to work? Could it be the other PCI slot that is powered, and the additional (SLI) PCI port that my graphics card is plugged into is?

Thanks guys

[ehhhhhhh]

It should work, I've an older psu for testing motherboards and it has never been a problem.