E760 Classified Mobo + SLI GTX 480's = Melted 24 Pin Connectors

[LionRed]

Originally Posted by SugarJ

Yes, the wire is discolored near the sparking connection. If it was overcurrented, the whole wire would look like that, or worse.

Make perfect sense.

Perhaps the gpus are drawing so much power it is even more important these pins are making a good connection.

Hard to know how good the connection is if the snapping of the connector into place is not good enough.

Now that I think about it....I did have the system out of the case for some CPU and cable management a few weeks ago.

[LionRed]

Decided to do some stress testing today. Measuring the temps of the yellow wires and area while running Alien vs Predator Benchmark.

Running 2 x GTX 480's - wires outside temp hit 65 - 70C
Running 3 x GTX 480's - wires outside temp hit 95 - 107C

I also added a fan blowing over the area.

Are these temps high? Cause these seem like high temps.

[_dangtx_]

ok so the wire itself hit 107c? what did you use to measure with?

im not sure if it says on the wire itself like on power cords, thermals wise.

they shouldnt get anywhere 50-60 i think either way

[Arinoth]

This an rather interesting read/info on the ratings of these wires

All about the various PC power supply cables and connectors

I'm trying to look up what gauge those wires are so i can look up the thermal properties (good ol schooling)

[SugarJ]

107C wire temp? Holy crap. Something is definitely wrong. I wish you could put a current shunt in there to find out what that power draw is through those lines. I'd contact EVGA. Your PSU is supplying all the current the board is asking for, but it shouldn't be asking for THAT much. The boards are designed to supply 75W of power through each PCI-E slot, and I'm damn sure they tested lots of TRI-SLI configs.

Do you have the second 8-pin ATV mobo connector hooked up?

[MAC]

Regrettably, it's a known issue on X58 Classified boards.

[chrisk]

Originally Posted by MAC

Regrettably, it's a known issue on X58 Classified boards.

Wow the designer of the classy says you should solder a 12v molex to the back of the board yourself?

An extra molex connector should be provided for boards with all these PCI-E slots IMO.

[rjbarker]

^ So is this only 760 Classy or are 759 Classy (w N200) also showing symptoms? Huh......I haven't entertained the ida of a 3rd 480 at this point as its only necessary for inflating Vantage somewhat.....even then 2 x 480's around P42 - 44K and 3 x 480's are barely cracking 50K without extremely high I7 OC's.......interesting stuff.

[SugarJ]

Read the last page of the thread on XS. Confirms that the melted PSU pins is a connection issue, which is made worse by the amount of draw through the connection. The link MAC posted was originally about Classy's burning the traces on the mobo.

But also note that the Classified 4-way SLI has a molex adapter on the mobo to supply extra power to the PCI-E slots without going through the 24-pin.

TBH, I think I'd be swapping mobo's if you are dead set on running tri-SLI 480's.

[3oh6]

This is the same thing we ran into when running 4x4890's on these motherboards. Any motherboard without an additional Molex near the PCI-E slots is prone to this issue. It is inherently a design flaw with the ATX standard and too much current is going through a single wire. There are solutions however. Just a bit of soldering and you can add additional power from a molex connector to alleviate the amount coming from the single connector in the ATX stack.

Here are a couple pics of my mod...





You basically add 12v from the molex to the backside of the 24-pin at the two 12v locations, as well as a couple grounds.

I know it isn't the best solution as it involves soldering and what not, but I am sure EVGA would be fine with it for warranty purposes if you contacted them about it. There really is no other way. That is why boards like the UD9 and R3E have additional molex connections near the PCI-E slots...to alleviate this issue.