Really stupid 8800gt card installation problem - help!

[pmv]

Hi

Upgrading from the noisiest graphics card in the known world (X1950XT) to an gf 8800gt (palit). Thought it would be a trivial endevour, fitted plenty of cards before.

Encountered an infuriating hitch. PSU has 6 pin molex, removing it from X1950 (fitted by PC assembler) was surprisingly tricky, really tight fit. Now I find I just cannot, for the life of me, get it to go in to the new card 6 pin connector. At best I get it 3/4 before it just jams completely (and, no, its not the little clip thingy you have to press down on to release thats the problem).

Don't know what to do from here. Worried if I use any more force I'll bust the wretched card. Already a bit nervous about the amount of force I've used.

Have the 6 pin to 2x8 pin adapter thing that came with card, and that goes in easily to the card 6 pin socket. Trouble is I don't know which two 4 pin sockets to attach it to - difficult to explain but there are so many cables, all nicely bundled up by person who built the thing, that I don't know if the only two available plugs are in fact from the same PSU line, which surely would totally defeat the purpose of having two seperate 4 pin plugs, no?

Presumably the idea with the adapter is to connect each to a separate line from the PSU, otherwise they might as well be merged into one to begin with? And presumably using the adapter is a less reliable solution than plugging the 6 pin in?

Would much rather use the 6 pin psu plug, but why won't the blasted thing go in? There is only one type of 6 pin molex connector, right?

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

Oh, and presumably there's no point just leaving the thing 3/4 plugged in and hoping for the best?

Oh well, now powered it up with the plug just over 3/4 of the way in and it appears to work. Not sure that this is a good idea though. In fact perhaps its a dreadful idea (something might spark or short out sometime down the line?). Would it be better to use the adaptor, even though that will be a complete pain trying to find enough sockets (will have to share with case fans)? Any opinions?

Googling suggests I might be confused about terminology. Corrected reference to 8 pin to 4 pin. Not sure if the 6 pin connector is called molex or PCIE, but, um, you know, its the normal 2 rows of 3 power connector you get on gfx cards these days.

Reading up on power leads gives the not very helpful advice "If the cable won't slide in easily then you're probably trying to insert the wrong kind of cable". I think it also could be that the stupid plug isn't manufactured properly.

I give up, what should have been a 10 minute job has become a day long nightmare. The stupid plug just doesn't go in, pushed it till my thumbs bleed. The plug goes into the old card, just barely with huge effort, and the adaptor plug goes into the new card, but the power plug just will not go into the new card. It seems the power plug is a tiny bit larger than it should be and the card socket is a tiny bit smaller than it should be.

And I don't have sufficient spare molex sockets to use the adaptor, unless it shares sockets with the fan and a HD, which seems a bad idea.

Going to have to put up with a plug 1-2mm short of being properly seated, which surely means a risk of heat generation and bad connections. Lord this is annoying.

 

[Munky]

You could just use the adapter. Don't worry about running the two cables off separate "rails", because most PSU only have a single rail that gets split into multiple electrical paths. And, the 8800gt uses less power than the x1950xt, so power consumption should not be a major issue with these cards.

 

[pmv]

Thanks for that info re the different rails. I still am unsure about this though.

Ignoring the PSU, don't the cables themselves have maximum power limits? So is it OK to have one of the molex for the card shared with a fan and another shared with a HD? Would that not mean too much power for the actual cable, regardless of the PSU issue? But I don't think I can rearrange things to have 2 molex completely free.

Also as the PCIE power has 3 power lines and the 2xmolex solution only has 2, would it not be less stable?

And I still wish I knew why the damn thing won't go in. Its supposed to be designed to do so. It went in the old card so it can't be faulty, and the adapter goes in the new card so the new card socket can't be faulty either. It can only be that each of them is very slightly wrongly sized, so that either will work with a correctly sized partner but they won't work with each other. Which seems unfairly unlucky!

And just how dodgy is it to run it with it not fully seated? Is it more dodgy than having 1/2 of the vid card + HD on a single cable?

 

[gamephile]

Check the pins on the connector coming from your powersupply. Make sure that they are all aligned and straight. I've been bitten by bad connectors like this more than once.

Also I would not run it with the cable not fully seated. A random bump or move of your computer could unseat it while it's on, or worse, cause rapid connections/disconnections and shorting. In a word, bad. I'm having some problems with fan cables that are doing this and it worries me. And that's a 10 dollar fan, not a $150 video card.

I wouldn't worry about sharing power with the HD. munky is right, it all flows from the same source. Even if your PS has true separately limited 12V rails, the extra amperage of a harddrive probably won't push you over that specific rails limit.

 

[THUGSROOK]

its a known issue between the vid card makers and the PSU makers, contact one of them for info on how to get 6pin-6pin converters thatll fit correctly.

using 4pin rail convertors is a bad idea as your PSU was designed to power the vid card from the pci-e rails.

 

[pmv]

Thanks for those responses. I will try emailling palit/nvidia just to see if they do have such converters as Thugsrook mentions.

I have sort of solved the problem though. Resorted to ultra-low-tech solution of scraping away at the side of the plug with a knife. Its very hard plastic so didn't feel as if it was doing anything at all (maybe removing single molecule thick layers!), but having done so it now goes in to within less than 1mm of fully seating (at least 1mm closer than previous best effort). Not sure if its worth doing it some more to get it to seat fully, because its a heck of a struggle to get the thing out again (doubt it will unseat from random bumps, its almost immovable). The question really was whether the pins would be connecting fully, and I suspect with it this close to being seated they probably are.

As far as the Molex connectors go (i.e. gamephile's comment), what I am concerned about is not the PSU rail, but rather the actual power cables themselves. I believe that as they are a certain, finite, wire gauge they have a maximum amperage they can safely carry without overheating. Like I say, my cables are all bundled up so I can't see what goes with what, and there seems to be 2 molex conectors per cable, so if I connect the GFX card those shared cables would probably be carrying quite a load.

Finally (as I said on the other forum I asked about this), its exasperating how low-tech problems like this can mess up high-tech equipment! And they require such low tech solutions ('scrape it with a knife' is surely up there with 'hit it with a hammer')

 

[THUGSROOK]

be careful not to break the vid card.

you could/should simply replace the plastic molex end. but if you dont know how to pop the pins out of the molex you aint gonna get far.

 

[pmv]

Yeah, I did think of that (swapping the non-fitting plug on the psu with the one on the adaptor that does fit). But after staring at the thing for a while I realised I had no clue how to get the leads/pins out of the plug. With a normal 4 pin molex I can do it, but the PCIE plug seems far more awkward to work with, no space to reach in and squeeze the pins.

(And are they technically 'pins' on the plug, surely the 'pins' are on the gfx card socket side, the plug has mini-sockets, if you see what I mean. Either way I think I'd find it too tricky to get the things out.)

 

[THUGSROOK]

there is a tool for it, its $9...

http://www.frozencpu.com/

or maybe just looking at the tool will help.

 

[THUGSROOK]

ok, yea, i see what ya mean. i just checked one out and its very tight in there. i dont think even a sewing needle will fit. the one i looked at was an almost clear 6p molex so i am able to verify that the locking clips are indeed on the left and right of each pin.

HTH