x16-x16 riser cable NOT to by

[MaGNeT]

Are those some old recycled IDE cables???

Not if you count the pins

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[1bitc0inplz]

what is the point of these riser cables? like why do you guys want to use them??

Not the pictured cable, but another reason for riser cables is to run a GPU off a 1x slot. Even low end motherboards have at least 1 or 2 1x PCIe slots in addition to one or two 16x slots.... using all the available slots means more bang for your $.

[Pentium100]

So I'm all set up and ready to go. I flip the PSU into on, and hit the power button. First I noticed some really thin smoke, it was barely visible. Then the smell of burning plastic and suddenly a lot more smoke. This is what I pulled out:

I would do one of two things:
1. Find out which pins are used to transfer the power to the card and solder thicker wires to them.
2. Solder in a molex power connector on the "card" end of the extender, disconnect the power wires coming from the motherboard.

The second option can also be used to connect a lot of cards to a motherboard without frying the motherboard.