pci-express question

Humate · 5 Jul 2007 at 21:06

pci-express question (RAID controller)

I bought a 3ware 12 port raid controller (9650SE-12ML). The manual for the raid controller says that it fits in a pci-e x8 and x16 slots. I thought my asus a8n sli premium mobo was going to be fine coz the manual said the pci-e x4 slot supported x8 cards... however when i tried to slot it in, i found the connector on the 3ware card was too big for the x4 slot (silly me). I have a 7900gtx in my blue pci-e x16 slot. The mobo is Sli so i have a spare pci-e x16 slot (black). So my question is, is it ok to use this spare x16 slot, or is this JUST for graphics cards in Sli?

I think i have found a section in my manual which suggests that it is ok to have a graphics card in the pci-e x16 blue slot, and a raid controller in the spare pci-e x16 black slot. But i just wanted to check because the connector on the 3ware raid controller is smaller than the spare pci-e x16 slot.

Thanks

Humate · 5 Jul 2007 at 21:12

ok thanks. So basically with all pci-e x16 slots, u can plug in pci-e x1 x2 x4 x8 and x16 cards that have smaller connectors than the pci-e x16 slot itself?

Humate · 5 Jul 2007 at 21:34

ok well im gonna plug her in later.

Humate · 7 Jul 2007 at 14:50

I plugged it into the spare pci-e x16 slot. I had to enable dual video card option in the mobo bios for the card to even be recognised. However, I have a strange problem. I tried turning my pc off and on like 20 times in a row and for some reason the 3ware card is only ever initialised/recognised EXACTLY every other time i boot up my pc. By initialised/recognised I mean that after the a8n's splash screen at bootup it then displays the option to access the controllers bios by pressing alt+3. I have entered the 3ware raid controllers bios and setup a single 500GB seagate barracuda 7200.10 drive as a single device. On the times when the card initialises, windows will recognise this drive in diskmgmt.msc but i havent bothered formatting it yet.

Does anyone have any clue as to why this controller will only ever be recognised/initialised every other time i boot up? I have tried numerous things but to no avail. I have tried the following already (1) connecting the asus EZ plug (a molex power connector that u are meant to use when using sli graphics cards to even out power or sometihng), (2) disabling the silicon image RAID controller that is on the mobo, (3) disabling quick boot option in the bios (4) updating the asus mobo bios to the latest 009 version (5) updating the firmware on the raid controller.

Im just about all out of ideas. :rolleyes:

One thing i havent tried is swapping the graphics card over into the black second pci-e x16 slot and moving the raid controller over to the first x16 blue slot. But i presume the computer looks for the graphics card in the blue slot first and will have a baby if i swap the cards this way round?

Humate · 7 Jul 2007 at 18:12

ok... its all working fine now.

Just in case u have any problems Diene i got mine working by turning on dual link graphics in bios and then swapping the graphics card over into the second pci-e x16 slot (which i didnt think would work but does) and moving the RAID controller over into the first pci-e x16 slot. The card is recognised every time now. I also connected the asus EZ plug molex power connector.

Now all i gotta do is get some drives ordered, and tidy up the cables in this computer. WHAT A MESS !

Humate · 7 Jul 2007 at 20:45

im not sure... how can i check?

The manual says that in dual graphics mode each channel drops to x8. So i presume both are now x8.