GPU Won't Bloody Fit!

Minimoke

Minimoke

Minimoke

Associate
Joined
27 Feb 2009
Posts
317
Hey everyone,
I just bought a Sapphire 4850 X2 2GB, and went to put it in my system, and I hit this barrier. The SATA ports are 'conveniently' behind the PCI-E slot, meaning that I can't actually get the card into the slot, because the SATA cables are in the way. I know it's a cheap motherboard, but seriously, is this a design flaw or what?! I know they wouldn't expect someone to put sugh a high-end card onto such a cheap board, but I reckon even a very modest card would hit the SATA ports. I was going to get a new board anyway, but I'm not impressed. Cheers, Chris.
 
It's actually quite common, especially with some Gigabyte boards apparently.

I had a similar problem where the HDDs in my P182 lined up perfectly with the power socket on my GTS giving about an inch gap to plug in a sata cable and a PCI-e power cable.
 
Hey guys,
There's no room at all. It just about gets into the slot with no SATA cables plugged in. And the cards heatsink is less than a cm away from my top hard drive. I need a new case as well by the looks of it! But still, why would they put a PCI-E slot if this would occur? For such a mass produced product it just seems stupid to me.
Cheers, Chris.
 
If I recall correctly, the 4850X2 is the longest commercially available graphics card on the market. I think I heard it's longer than the 4870X2.
 
I had the same problem when I upgraded to the GTX 280. The card wouldn’t fit because it covered 4/6 of my SATA ports (Asus P5K deluxe mobo).

I had a couple of right angle SATA cables so I was ok, because they fit almost flush with the board.;)
 
Id keep the card man. Right angled sata leads are very likely to solve the problem.

A lot of boards have the parallel mounting sata ports, they're far better. New case wont be needed unless you cant keep the card cool enough, which is quite possible. Good luck
 
Hey guys,
My local store has ordered 4 right-angled SATA cables for me free of charge, but I've thought of a problem. My board has 4 SATA ports, and they are in the format of
1 2
3 4

So, if I use 4 right angled SATA cables, surely they will hit each other? Can you swivel the right angled plug the other way? I'd change my motherboard before I changed my card, I need a new board soon anyway. Cheers, Chris.
 
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Mines not much better, I can install my card but it covers the Northbridge which is very loud.

I carn't get a cheap passive cooler on it or a slim one with a fan attached, I have seen one that comes off at an angle but at £14 it's more than I want to spend on this old PC.

You do wonder who comes up with these designs.
 
Minimoke said:
Hey guys,
My local store has ordered 4 right-angled SATA cables for me free of charge, but I've thought of a problem. My board has 4 SATA ports, and they are in the format of
1 2
3 4

So, if I use 4 right angled SATA cables, surely they will hit each other? Can you swivel the right angled plug the other way? I'd change my motherboard before I changed my card, I need a new board soon anyway. Cheers, Chris.
Click to expand...

No...the SATA cables are keyed :)

theoretically the two sata cables that are 'behind' the others should go over the top....but it's a matter of trying.

Do you actually have 4 hard drives then?
 
Minimoke said:
Hey guys,
My local store has ordered 4 right-angled SATA cables for me free of charge, but I've thought of a problem. My board has 4 SATA ports, and they are in the format of
1 2
3 4

So, if I use 4 right angled SATA cables, surely they will hit each other? Can you swivel the right angled plug the other way? I'd change my motherboard before I changed my card, I need a new board soon anyway. Cheers, Chris.
Click to expand...

I had the same problem on my old nf4 Ultra-D. iirc I solved it by finding a pair of low profile 90 degree cables that pointed in opposite directions, right angle and 'left angle' if you will. Again from memory, a standard cable with 90 degree connectors at both ends allows you to 'point' the connector in either direction.

Code: 
  (1)                                                (2)
 ____-----------------------------------------------____
 ||                                                   ||
 ||                                                   ||


end on the connectors look like


 (1)                                                 (2)
 __                                                   __
 |                                                    |
 |                                                    |

where __ is the keyed slot.

So, if you forgive the ascii art, connector (1) would point left and connector (2) would point right.

Worth a quick look. It's also possible I got lucky and just happened to find a cable for the job, I'll double check tonight in case my memory is playing tricks.
 
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Minimoke said:
Hey guys,
My local store has ordered 4 right-angled SATA cables for me free of charge, but I've thought of a problem. My board has 4 SATA ports, and they are in the format of
1 2
3 4

So, if I use 4 right angled SATA cables, surely they will hit each other? Can you swivel the right angled plug the other way? I'd change my motherboard before I changed my card, I need a new board soon anyway. Cheers, Chris.
Click to expand...

I have the same configuration and was having the same problem.

The 2 that came with my mobo have the ‘notch’ on the right and I was looking around the net and found some with the ‘notch’ on the left (can’t mention because competitor).

If you have ordered 4 of the same cables then most likely wont fit.
 
Hey guys,
I'm using 3 hard drives and a SATA optical drive. Two of them for One Xp install, and the other hard drive is partitioned for another XP and a Vista Ultimate. I'll see how it goes, but if this doesn't work I'll have to not use a few hard drives. I'll do a search for those 'left notch' plugs, and see where that gets me. But the bottom line is my motherboard is not good enough for my system, I've got another thread about boards with the 790FX chipset. Cheers, Chris.
 
Just checked my setup, looks like I did find a pair of cables with single 90 degree connectors pointing in opposite directions, one of them, directly under the video card, is very low profile. So they do exist, good hunting.
 
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