Molex connector: everything you need to know

The molex connector is not used as much today. However, it still exists on numerous PCs, so we tell you all about it.

Years ago, power supply connections were far from what we have today. It is true that there are connections that continue to be maintained or that have been slightly reformed, but the molex connector is one of the "forgotten" ones. In today's post, we are going to do a little review of this magnificent connector.

Index of contents

Origin of the MOLEX connector

The Molex Connector Company was the creator of this connector. According to some experts, it is claimed that Molex developed and patented these connectors between 1950 and 1960. In principle, it would be used at home, such as in an industrial installation or for automobiles. We can find different pin sizes: 1.57mm, 2.13mm and 2.36mm, each with different amperage.

In the computing sector, we saw these connectors appear in 1976, which fed the floppy drives. However, it was not an ordinary Molex, but the AMP, a very similar four-pin model.

However, we still see them in very important connections, such as the 24-pin ATX molex connector that serves to power the motherboard. They consist of the most important equipment connections, feeding to motherboards or graphics cards.

4-pin molex connector

This connector serviced many components of the PC, especially hard drives, DVD / CD-ROMs, expansion cards, etc. We could find them everywhere, but now it has been replaced by the SATA connector , mainly.

It has 4 pins that had to be straight and firm because, sometimes, one was slightly more bent than the others and we could not connect it well to the hard drive or component. With the appearance of the SATA connection that has been in the past. In this case, we refer to the famous AMP MATE-N-LOK.

Production started in 1963 and was manufactured by AMP. It was made up of the following 4 pins:

• Yellow: 12 volts. Black: earth. Black: earth. Red: 5 volts.

We can find a female and male connection, in the female we see the 4 slots and in the male the 4 pins.

That said, we can find a smaller than normal molex connector that, years ago, was used to power 3.5-inch floppy drives or case fans, for example. Personally, I had this connection in what was my first PC case, back in 2007.

Many of us remember with nostalgia these connectors that gave life to CD-ROM drives, served as adapters for old sources when we wanted to connect the 6/8 pin connection of our graphics card or when they fed to IDE and SATA hard drives.

MOLEX at present and its uses

That has already happened and the current reality is through the SATA connection, which, in my opinion, is much cleaner and easier to connect than the molex connector.

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Currently only used for some RGB controllers or fans. But it is less and less common to find this classic connector. What do you think of the disappearance of the Molex? What experiences do you have with them? Surely some of you have broken from connecting / disconnecting so much.

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