PCI express card + front panel ports

[RageTester]

Latest installed hardware in question: https://www.delock.com/produkt/89315/merkmale.html

User manual says I have to attach SATA  power cable, but it seems to work without it.

I don't really need more ports on back of PC, both front ports that I added a while back seem to work now.

Was running through backwards compatible 19 pin to 9 pin cable before and only 1 port worked at USB 2 speeds obviously.

PCI\VEN_1106&DEV_3483&SUBSYS_34831106&REV_01
PCI\VEN_1106&DEV_3483&SUBSYS_34831106
PCI\VEN_1106&DEV_3483&CC_0C0330
PCI\VEN_1106&DEV_3483&CC_0C03

Am I putting too much extra stress on the motherboard, because it is the only way both adapters are getting power right now?

[Kronoton]

3 hours ago, RageTester said:

Am I putting too much extra stress on the motherboard

 

That depends on what you're hooking up to those ports (and how well the cards power management works). Wired KBD and such (without RGB or other nonsense) should work.

Wireless receiver for KBD/mice, no prob.

External HD with separate PSU also no prob.

 

External HD without a PSU, charging a phone, USB-powered speakers or anything else of that sort will either result in the card shutting the devices down over not having enough power or trying to source that power through PCIe.

 

So that extra SATA cable really is more piece of mind than necessity, until you find out that it was needed after all....

[dkoudijs]

I figure the sata power is there to give extra power. Yes the motherboard can handle the power draw of the USB ports.

Under normal use USB 3 draws at max around 20 watts (Yes I know the spec is much higher, I meant most devices only pull less than 20 watts)

The PCIe slot can deliver up to 75 watts, so two ports at 20 watts = 40, which is still under the 75 watt limit.

 

Hope that helps you out.

 

Here is a rough itda showing that yes the PCIe slot is designed to deliver 75 watts of power.

https://www.gigabyte.com/Support/FAQ/2773#:~:text=The PCI Express slot of,provide up to 150 watts.

[tkitch]

2 hours ago, dkoudijs said:

I figure the sata power is there to give extra power. Yes the motherboard can handle the power draw of the USB ports.

Under normal use USB 3 draws at max around 20 watts (Yes I know the spec is much higher, I meant most devices only pull less than 20 watts)

The PCIe slot can deliver up to 75 watts, so two ports at 20 watts = 40, which is still under the 75 watt limit.

 

Hope that helps you out.

 

Here is a rough itda showing that yes the PCIe slot is designed to deliver 75 watts of power.

https://www.gigabyte.com/Support/FAQ/2773#:~:text=The PCI Express slot of,provide up to 150 watts.

No, that is inaccurate.

 

PCIE x1 slots (that looks like an x1 card interface) are capped at 6W from the slot.

 

So for anything more than minimal power draw, you'll need that SATA connector plugged in. 

 

 

 

Power[edit]

 

8-pin (left) and 6-pin (right) power connectors used on PCI Express cards

All PCI express cards may consume up to 3 A at +3.3 V (9.9 W). The amount of +12 V and total power they may consume depends on the type of card:^{[26]:35–36[27]}

• ×1 cards are limited to 0.5 A at +12 V (6 W) and 10 W combined.
• ×4 and wider cards are limited to 2.1 A at +12 V (25 W) and 25 W combined.
• A full-sized ×1 card may draw up to the 25 W limits after initialization and software configuration as a "high power device".
• A full-sized ×16 graphics card^[22] may draw up to 5.5 A at +12 V (66 W) and 75 W combined after initialization and software configuration as a "high power device".

Optional connectors add 75 W (6-pin) or 150 W (8-pin) of +12 V power for up to 300 W total (2 × 75 W + 1 × 150 W).

• Sense0 pin is connected to ground by the cable or power supply, or float on board if cable is not connected.
• Sense1 pin is connected to ground by the cable or power supply, or float on board if cable is not connected.

Some cards use two 8-pin connectors, but this has not been standardized yet as of 2018, therefore such cards must not carry the official PCI Express logo. This configuration allows 375 W total (1 × 75 W + 2 × 150 W) and will likely be standardized by PCI-SIG with the PCI Express 4.0 standard^{[needs update]}. The 8-pin PCI Express connector could be confused with the EPS12V connector, which is mainly used for powering SMP and multi-core systems. The power connectors are variants of the Molex Mini-Fit Jr. series connectors. ^[28]

 

^{taken from:}

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express}

[RageTester]

33 minutes ago, tkitch said:

 

 

 

Power connector on the card I bought doesn't look anything like that though. It's flat...

Then again this is a pretty old office computer I am slowly upgrading during off work hours.

[tkitch]

right, those boxy connectors are GPU power connectors.

 

The one on your card is SATA.  Plug it in, if you plan to use anything more demanding than a USB Thumb Drive.

[RageTester]

1 minute ago, tkitch said:

right, those boxy connectors are GPU power connectors.

 

The one on your card is SATA.  Plug it in, if you plan to use anything more demanding than a USB Thumb Drive.

All this started, because I don't have a spare cable, but bluetooth audio adapter worked great in both front panel USB ports

It looks like I might survive without buying one.

[tkitch]

1 minute ago, RageTester said:

All this started, because I don't have a spare cable, but bluetooth audio adapter worked great in both front panel USB ports

It looks like I might survive without buying one.

You don't' have any SATA power connectors in your computer?  That seems odd.

 

Anyways:  The slot will provide that card up to 6W of power.  Each USB 3 port can draw nearly 5.

20W > 6W.

 

Run that way at your own risk.

[RageTester]

11 minutes ago, tkitch said:

You don't' have any SATA power connectors in your computer?  That seems odd.

 

It's not completely true. There are modular  half cables from the power supply (molex maybe), missing part that goes into new card. But it's not like I can unplug the one going to hard drive  

Only recently removed floppy drive, that's where front USB 3.0 are now. Still got 2 heavy compact disk readers or something up top... those are not even plugged in at all.

 

When I think about it more... that floppy must have used some power too... gotta look for stash of old cables at office.

[tkitch]

2 minutes ago, RageTester said:

But it's not like I can unplug the one going to hard drive  

Sure you can!  You just need to get creative:

https://www.amazon.com/Zheino-Splitter-6-Inch-Y-Splitter-Extension/dp/B01MZBDDPM/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=sata+splitter&qid=1626120629&sr=8-3

 

[RageTester]

Oh wow, it's got an oldschool 3.5 inch hard drive if that makes any difference. But I don't really want to add cables if I don't have to. 

Will test external HDD for data backup tomorrow. If it doesn't fail then bye bye cable buy.

[dkoudijs]

17 hours ago, tkitch said:

No, that is inaccurate.

 

PCIE x1 slots (that looks like an x1 card interface) are capped at 6W from the slot.

 

So for anything more than minimal power draw, you'll need that SATA connector plugged in. 

 

 

 

Power[edit]

 

8-pin (left) and 6-pin (right) power connectors used on PCI Express cards

All PCI express cards may consume up to 3 A at +3.3 V (9.9 W). The amount of +12 V and total power they may consume depends on the type of card:^{[26]:35–36[27]}

• ×1 cards are limited to 0.5 A at +12 V (6 W) and 10 W combined.
• ×4 and wider cards are limited to 2.1 A at +12 V (25 W) and 25 W combined.
• A full-sized ×1 card may draw up to the 25 W limits after initialization and software configuration as a "high power device".
• A full-sized ×16 graphics card^[22] may draw up to 5.5 A at +12 V (66 W) and 75 W combined after initialization and software configuration as a "high power device".

Optional connectors add 75 W (6-pin) or 150 W (8-pin) of +12 V power for up to 300 W total (2 × 75 W + 1 × 150 W).

• Sense0 pin is connected to ground by the cable or power supply, or float on board if cable is not connected.
• Sense1 pin is connected to ground by the cable or power supply, or float on board if cable is not connected.

Some cards use two 8-pin connectors, but this has not been standardized yet as of 2018, therefore such cards must not carry the official PCI Express logo. This configuration allows 375 W total (1 × 75 W + 2 × 150 W) and will likely be standardized by PCI-SIG with the PCI Express 4.0 standard^{[needs update]}. The 8-pin PCI Express connector could be confused with the EPS12V connector, which is mainly used for powering SMP and multi-core systems. The power connectors are variants of the Molex Mini-Fit Jr. series connectors. ^[28]

 

^{taken from:}

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express}

Thanks for getting better info for OP. I did a quick search, and really wasn't paying attention to the pcix(insert number here) like I should have been.

[RageTester]

External drive is for sure running at USB 3.0 speeds now, so must be using less than 6 watts. Bluetooth adapter connected at the same time no problem