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PCI-e 16x card no fit in PCI-e 1x

After my experiences with this i though i would create a bit of a topic explaining the issue and how i went about it. Some people might get a laugh out of it other might find it useful.

I upgraded my system over the last few days can be seen in this thread http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/249841-28-lian-case-review-pics-included and ran into an issue i didnt really account for. I wanted 2 GPU's in my machine to run 3 monitors easily, this was to be done with my old 7900gt and my new 8800gt. Now i bought the Thermalright HR-03GT to put on the 8800gt which happily installed ok in the first blue 16x slot in my motherboard an ASUS P5B-Deluxe:


Here is where i can into the problem, the HR-03GT completely covered the 2nd black 16x slot, leaving me with a 1x and a PCI slot left (PCI was for my X-fi). No matter i thought the 7900gt will go into the 1x slot and work, just at less bandwidth (which didnt matter as it was only going to be running 2x19" LCD for desktop anyways).

Well, no im stuffed the PCI-e 1x white slot is closed (stupidest idea EVER) so the rest of the length of the connector will not be able to hang out the back of the port as it should...

Heres where i went a little crazy, "Well i recon a stanely knife will make short work of that". Well i was wrong, the plastic is extremely hard and even my best stanely wouldnt make much of a mark in it.

Now after a days thinking i had a ... well what some would call a bright idea and some would call ridiculous.

Soldering Iron, I thought this is easy ill just burn and melt the pastic away and ill end up being able to put the card in. So here are the results...






Pictures tell the story... 3 monitor goodness, with a soldering iron to the motherboard

I would just like to say, if you value your motherboard at all i wouldnt recommend it. I knew i had a spare one and knew if it didnt work at worst i had wrecked a board. But it worked and im all happy now :)
47 answers Last reply
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  1. hardcore, nicely done.
  2. rockbyter said:
    hardcore, nicely done.



    ROFL, hardcore sounds about right... :na:
  3. LMAO

    Post of the day. Good job.
  4. Good now i have a place to point people why ask about this mod....

    Good work...
  5. Good lord, obviously I wouldn't dare to try this at my lovely board ... Lolz :)

    So this actually works :) Could you share the picture where your 7900 GT fit on it? Pretty congested down there I guess, with all of those cards altogether :)
  6. Thanks guys...

    antas, ill see if i can get one, but im not pulling it apart again to get one lol
  7. :) no worries, I won't do it if I were you ... hehe. I thought that you took a picture of that one already :D

    Congrats btw, nicely done ...
  8. antas said:
    Good lord, obviously I wouldn't dare to try this at my lovely board ... Lolz :)

    So this actually works :) Could you share the picture where your 7900 GT fit on it? Pretty congested down there I guess, with all of those cards altogether :)


    OK i know this was a while ago, but i found a couple that might help first here is just the back showing ports. Second is a side view, which is a much larger photo, but you should notice the HR-03 and then fan underneath that youll see the copper HSF of the 7900GT then my X-fi crammed in.


    http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn39/chookman40/IMG_4277.jpg


    Just an update, just recently i have noticed that im getting some low level crackling over the x-fi output, im hoping this is due to driver issues and can be resolved with a format but i fear a hardware conflict or interference from either the PSU or the 7900GT being so close to it.
  9. What case is that?

    You may be able to shield the sound card. I doubt its the psu as the metal casing should shield it.
  10. nukemaster said:
    What case is that?

    You may be able to shield the sound card. I doubt its the psu as the metal casing should shield it.


    Lian-Li A70B, i did a short review here:

    http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/249841-28-lian-case-review-pics-included

    How would i go about sheilding the soundcard? I have already tested the front IO compared to the backplate and both are effected, i will try a re-install this afternoon and see how i go. I thought initially that the home rounding job i did on the cable from the card to the IO was the issue but ruled it out.
  11. Normally metal or a metal mesh is used to shield from interference. There is also some rf/emi shielding that is almost like foil on cardboard(seems a little safer to me). Thats the same reason Asus is trying to shield there cards and why tv cards have those metal boxes over the analog tuners.

    I have found lots of it in old VCR's and other electronic devices.

    I do not know of any guides. but in general it should be possible to make such a thing.

    Was the sound card always in the bottom slot?
  12. Forgive me but what exactly did you do now? I was searching around for info on PCI flexible risers (so I can have SLI and X-Fi Soundcard) and came across this thread. I see your goal and your monitors on the end result but what did you do? And what is a closed PCI-e x1?
  13. A PCI-E X1 slot is closed at the end so a larger card will not fit. He simply(well complexly) removed the end so a card can fit(in this case nothing else on the board interferes with the cards connector). It still hangs over and only gets x1 bandwidth. Many boards with x4 are open(from the factory) for just this reason



    This works well for 2 extra screens, but IS NOT gonna cut it for sli.

    This can be done because PCI-E works in lanes so even if you only have 1 lane the device will work. Each lane adds extra bandwidth(needed for high end graphics cards).

    Some kind or riser with a flexible cable to allow the sound card or other video card to be moved is the only option you have.
  14. ^In this case (ATX board with 7 PCI type expansion slots) a riser with a flexible cable wouldn't work as he would not have any place to mount the card elsewhere. A side mount for that cooler would be a simpler solution (the Zalman FB123 comes to mind). It would free up the adjacent PCI-Ex4 slot but would likely be less efficient at cooling.
  15. I was talking about cmmcnamara's post. i am not sure what kind of board, but honestly, with a little creativity one could run the card sideways next to the other cards with such a riser(and good cooling).
  16. Id have to agree with nukemaster, a flexible cable riser would be the only option as i assume the second SLI card would cover all other slots too much to fit a card in

    Nuke: Installed Vista last night and i still get the crackling (could be vista driver problem but XP was doing it too) I will look into IRQ's this arvo see if i can move some around... but my dreaded though is still interference from something so i might have to look at some kind of home job cause its **** me to tears.

    BTW, its in a different PCI slot to before so that could be an issue also i suspect, might also try removing second GPU to see if that changes anything.
  17. I would have to say moving the video card is a good idea(if it's that you may have to try to find a way to shield the back of the sound card). its close.

    I moved up my sound card to keep in away from the psu in my system(minor clicking/pop), but my psu has the fan facing up.
  18. Ill keep status posted.
  19. Nah that was the topic I had been searching for but this isn't the solution I need. I just became interested when he mentioned cutting and melting his motherboard but I couldn't see what he had done. The PCIe x1 will not harbor my X-Fi Elite, its a PCI card.
  20. So you need this ?
    http://www.ably.com.tw/pdt/viewpdt.asp?absp=5&cat=RISER_CARD

    I've seen one mounted on a MATX board in a standard size chasis when the GPU covered the PCI slots. It looks silly and X-Fi might not be the right card to mount this way as it will increase latency. But it worked great for COM/LPT port and USB 2.0 add in card.
  21. Hey guys, Just though id post an update on the X-fi issue.

    I moved the 7900GT out, still got crackling over outputs...

    This morning i have put the PSU outside the case, and so far so good. Seems the PSU was what was causing the interference. Luckly in my Lian Li A70 im able to mount the PSU at the top of the case as well, so looks like it will be getting moved.

    Seems weird that a decent PSU like a Antec Trio 650W isnt sheilded very well, although the X-fi was VERY close to the outer casing.
  22. I doubt you would find better shielding in other PSUs.
    The fan opening on most PSUs is quite large an hardly covered by (probably poorly grounded) mesh so EMI can spread around unchecked.
    The X-Fi was probably right above the intake fan so that's that.
  23. Hmmm seems my initial thoughts were incorrect. I installed the PSU in the upper position and i still have the issue. To the point now where i cant even install the drivers for the x-fi. I have tested the X-fi in another machine and it works flawlessly, im thinking it must be a PCI slot issue or hardware resource allocation issues.
  24. try to reset the bios, i have had a sound card not even detect before a bios reset.
  25. roadrunner197069 said:
    LMAO

    Post of the day. Good job.

    +1.
    [:turpit:2]
  26. Thanks Chookman, you're my hero :)

    I had two problems:

    1) wanted to hook up an extra monitor @ work but didn't like the prices of PCIe X1 or PCI graphics cards

    2) want to drop an 8400GS into my old HTPC for the h.264 acceleration but it's only got one PCIe x1 slot.

    I've now got my third monitor @ work and it's running sweetly off an ATI x300 in the hacked x1 slot, tonight i'll get to see if the x1 bandwidth limits the ability of the 8400GS to decode 1080i Freeview in h.264.

    You've saved me a lot of frustration either way! Cheers.
  27. Awesome work man... my hope was to help at least one person, and now ive done that i can rest easy lol ;)
  28. Update:

    I bought and installed an ASUS 8400GS last night (G98). It worked perfectly :)

    We get 1080i HDTV encoded in h.264 @ ~10Mbit/s in New Zealand. My main system (Pentium D 805 @ 3.6Ghz + 8800GTX) would consume ~50-60% of the CPU to decode that. The 1.6Ghz sempron + 8400GS used only 10-13%.
  29. chookman said:
    Awesome work man... my hope was to help at least one person, and now ive done that i can rest easy lol ;)

    I bet you have helped MANY people just surfing the net and finding this or links to it.

    if i ever need to run a 2nd video card can you guess what i am going to do? :p
  30. chookman said:
    Hmmm seems my initial thoughts were incorrect. I installed the PSU in the upper position and i still have the issue. To the point now where i cant even install the drivers for the x-fi. I have tested the X-fi in another machine and it works flawlessly, im thinking it must be a PCI slot issue or hardware resource allocation issues.


    Hey guys, i was looking around for reviews of the 650w TRIO from antec for someone on another thread to prove that they are good (same one i use in my rig) Still i have the crackly sound as described. After reading this review http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story3&reid=1 on jonny i found this comment to be interesting. "Apparently, this PSU gives off some sort of RF interference at higher loads. I went back and performed all of the tests a second time with a pair of Compu-Nurse thermometers."

    Is it possible i have discounted the PSU to early as the main offender? I have even gone back to the onboard sound now thinking it was the X-fi and there is crackling on it as well that i hadnt noticed before... so the question is ... is it giving off RF interference and would it be enough to cause my sound issues?
  31. Extra Nvidia card for cheap Physx, here I come.
  32. sorry to zombify this dead thread, but chookman's hacking inspired me to up the ante.

    My issue was I only had 1 pci-e x16 slot, and wanted to add a 3rd monitor (well, a HTPC projector) and the dual outputs on the radeon 3850 were already full.

    Couldn't use a PCI card, because no PCI-based Radeon had drivers recent enough to coexist with the 3850. Wouldn't use a PCI-e x1 b/c they're >$100. Could have bought a new mobo, but it was going to be a hassle to research, then sell the current one. Actually bought an old PCI NVIDIA card, but it arrived broken from ebay, and then I stumbled across this thread.

    So I bought a radeon x16 card for <$15 on ebay (2 generations newer and half the cost as the Nvidia card!).

    First problem: Didn't occur to me that the size of the card would be an issue. I found only one of the 3 PCI-e x1 slots could possibly work. One was covered by the dual slot fan, the other the memory was in the way. So I dremeled down the remaining x1 slot and tried to fit the card in.

    (sorry for the blurry-cam pics)



    Next problem: See the gold-color heat sink? It's for the Intel southbridge. It was in the way. So I bent the spines and tried again. Next problem: see the Cmos battery, just below the HSF? It was raised just slightly too high so the board wouldn't fit. So I took a huge chance: since the offending part of the board were the unused x16 pins, I brought out the dremel again. 15 minutes later:



    The offending bits:



    Made sure there were no shorts at the cut surface and put electrical tape on them:



    Fits nicely:



    Success:



    GPU-Z confirms it:



    Hey ATI/NVIDIA: if you'd make a reasonably-priced x1 board it would be a huge success. It would be useful for HTPC, useful for old cpus needing a boost, extra monitors etc. Give it a go.
  33. That is HARDCORE!!!!
  34. Nice work, but for the faint of heart there are PCIe x16 to PCIe x1 converters, about $20-25 online.
  35. Interesting. I should add to the story that (before I found this thread) I did a similar mod to my Gigabyte M57SLI-S4; I dremeled away the edge of my 1x connectors. However, when I put a 16x card into them, the card just wasn't recognized at all. It's as if it weren't there at all.

    I've noticed that this board doesn't support PCIe hotplugging either. Maybe it's buggy?
  36. does this work if i want the x16 video card to be an individual video card for my system?
  37. It sure does, but it would cut performance allot if you use it to game.
  38. Thanks, will it cause my game to slow down? Game: Sims 3 Graphics Card:Nvidia 8400gs 256mb ddr2 ram.
  39. The only thing i ever tried with was the Debris demo and it was cut massively in high action/lots of cubes parts. But i sure faster cards get hit more

    I do not know how The Sims 3 would do since i have not played it.

    For any know have not seen Debris. Coolest 177k demo EVER

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0Eg3dBnsHk
  40. nukemaster said:
    The only thing i ever tried with was the Debris demo and it was cut massively in high action/lots of cubes parts. But i sure faster cards get hit more

    I do not know how The Sims 3 would do since i have not played it.

    For any know have not seen Debris. Coolest 177k demo EVER

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0Eg3dBnsHk


    Thanks, ill try it out, hopefully it will work fine.
  41. hey, ill add another testimonial, it worked, although i accidentally burnt the slot abit with my iron, the card still fitted and im enjoying my game. Sims 3 runs smoothly but not on highest performance. L4D also rune very well. Thanks guys. Cheers god bless.
  42. Question: a customer of mine is looking to put a vid card in his micro pc. It only has a 1x slot taken up by a 56k modem. the 16x slot that was obviously included on the motherboard from the manufacturer was removed by the vendor for some asinine reason. He wants to play WoW on it. Will this "upgrade" be better than the onboard video? If so, it will solve alot of problems.
  43. This "upgrade" will depend on some things, First what card. Second, What resolution they play at.

    older or lower end cards work better as they do not need as much bandwidth.
  44. well, he went ahead and wasted the 140$ on a pci 1x card that gives him barely more playability than he had before, so the question now becomes moot. if only he had not been so impetuous, his problem would have been solved for a mere $30, but then, impatience hits us all at times
  45. Shadow703793 said:
    Nice work, but for the faint of heart there are PCIe x16 to PCIe x1 converters, about $20-25 online.


    yeah i ordered one of them x1 to x16 adapters and an x16 card. if i can find a soldering iron im going to get my 20 quid back. Im a programmer not hardware guy but after trying for 2 months to figure out why my PCI card wouldnt run on xp 64, im anxious to get my third monitor running.

    The PCI card was getting a Standard PCI-to-PCI Bridge error code 10. Could anyone confirm for me if this is because the PCI slot is 32 bit so it will not run on a 64 bit computer? If so im going to be really heated with the support of this crap in a box off the shelf unit. Not mentioning any names but I might run this mod and then send them a photo asking if this voids the warranty on my 50 day old computer :ouch: :non: , because they were adamant that I could not run triple monitors on this computer.
  46. ^
    1. Don't awaken dead threads.

    2. Make sure your card has drivers for XP x64 (has to be THE worst OS in terms of driver support, and this is coming from some one who used XP x64).
  47. This topic has been closed by Buwish
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