Replaced videocard on Pavilion m9450f -- what''s the orphan?

[cluelessone]

This probably doesn't matter except that it's going to drive me insane.  I just replaced the graphics card on a m9450f.  The original was an NVidia GeForce 9800 GT with 512 MB of memory -- I don't know the manufacturer.  The new one, a PNY NVidia Geforce GTX 550Ti popped right in (yay for empty bays!) and seems to be working fine.

Here's the thing.  The old card had, in addition to the normal pin connection on the bottom and the normal power supply at the end of the card, a two-wire connection near the front of the card on the non-pinned side. A black and red twisted pair ran from that point into the edge of the motherboard.  I'm unable to find any information on what that connection did and why it doesn't need to do it on the new, more powerful card. I feel like my IKEA futon is going to collapse because of the extra allen bolts left over when I finished assembling it.

Can anyone help?

[Big_Dave · Accepted solution]

Hi,

The two wires that were coming from the card were going to the SPDIF header on edge of the motherboard.  This allows the motherboard to route digital audio for video cards with HDMI that can't accept digital audio via the PCI-E slot.

[cluelessone]

Aha.  Quite logical.  Is it reasonable for me to assume that this 550Ti can accept such audio through the slot?

[Big_Dave]

Hi,

It should work depending on the motherboard.