Unusual connector on the motherboard
Unusual connector on the motherboard
I found this unusual connector on the AsRock A520ITX/ac board I got. The part near the "AsRock" logo isn’t labeled or referenced in the manual—only in the booklet and online. There are also two RGB connectors to the right, both addressable and non-addressable. It’s unclear what they’re for, but I’m not sure. Anyone familiar with this?
I've never encountered it before, and my top online search abilities over the past 20 minutes haven't yielded anything. My best assumption is it's a unique header used by Asrock for flashing BIOS or similar purposes. I couldn't locate any other Asrock boards with that same header, even among their other AMD 500 series ITX models. I'm hoping someone can help clarify this.
I understand there are unusual AsRock motherboards featuring a Molex port, designed to supply power from a PCIe slot to devices that can't be directly powered. I don’t know what they look like, but it might be one of those models.
You're right. There's a B550 version of that board and a friend on one of my discords and I noticed that the product image of this and the https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/B550M-ITXac/index.asp are practically identical. The only differences are the label and the PCIe retention mechanism. Even the BIOS battery cabling is in the same place. It's too small for that much power. Yeah, that looks about right. But what it's for stays a mystery.
Perhaps it was designed for similar troubleshooting or as a legacy component. It could boost PCI-E lane power for overclocking. Being nearer to RAM might explain its use there, though I'm not sure. Check the forum link about ASRock boards and the Molex connectors.