SATA 6g 4-port non-RAID controller ?

[Jan Mikkelsen]

On 27/07/2011, at 8:12 PM, Jeremy Chadwick wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 10:38:36AM +0100, Tom Evans wrote:
>> On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 11:55 PM, Jeremy Chadwick
>> <freebsd at jdc.parodius.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> And before someone asks: in most cases you *cannot* use this card in a
>>> PCIe x16 connector on a motherboard. ??Most generic motherboard
>>> manufacturers at this point have special one-offs that assume their PCIe
>>> x16 slots are for video cards only. ??If you aren't sure, you'll need to
>>> ask your motherboard manufacturer/vendor if you can use a
>>> non-VGA-adapter in their PCIe x16 slot. ??Some Supermicro boards do have
>>> PCIe x16 slots that can be used by non-VGA adapters, but I haven't seen
>>> this on, say, Asus/Gigabyte/Dell/Intel motherboards.
>> 
>> Jeremy may not have seen PCI express x16 HBAs working on consumer
>> boards, but I have, plenty of times.
> 
> I'm glad -- people should probably start making a list, because the
> number of boards I've seen it not work in easily exceeds that of the
> times I HAVE seen it work.  :-)

Where did it fail?

>> I don't know why the FUD, but I have had no problems with an Intel
>> SASUC8I (LSI 1068 based) running on an Asus P5Q Pro, a simple consumer
>> P45 chipset. I'm not unique, many people have success doing this.
> 
> Once in a blue moon, an intelligent board manufacturer puts comments in
> their user manual to the effect of "the PCIe x16 slot is only to be used
> for VGA adapters and will not work with non-VGA cards", or vice-versa.
> Here's some hard evidence of my claim:
> 
> Supermicro X7SBA server-class motherboard user manual has the following
> line in it:
> 
> "Note: The Intel 3210 chipset does not support add-in graphics cards in
> the PCI-E interface provided by the Memory Controller Hub (MCH)."
> 
> So in that boards' case, the PCIe x16 slot (which only has PCIe x8 worth
> of lanes wired) will work with controller cards but not VGA adapters.
> 
> And here's another, for the X7DVL series boards:
> http://www.supermicro.com/support/faqs/faq.cfm?faq=10582
> 
> "This is a server board, and you cannot place a x8 or x16 VGA card on
> this board. Only onboard VGA is possible. If you need to place a VGA
> card please use X7DA(x) board".

Perhaps I'm being thick, but this says "a 16x slot on this board does not support a display card" not "a 16x slot on this board only supports a display card."

The examples you cite only support the "vice-versa" part of your claim, not the primary claim that 16x slots on some motherboards are only for display cards. Do you have a reference for that?

> 
> And up until last week I owned and used an Asus P5Q SE (P45-based with
> ICH10 SB) board, so I can refer you to the fact that the P5Q Pro user
> manual "hints" that the PCIe x16 slot is for graphics only but doesn't
> downright say that.

Did you try a non-graphics card in the slot to see what happened? Saying "The 16x slot is where you put the graphics card" is probably not unreasonable for 99% of the users of that board.

Regards,

Jan Mikkelsen