Odd slots on Gigabyte Server/Workstation motherboard

[Gatt]

Anyone ever come across these???

Went to fit an extra NIC into on of our servers...opened it up and looked inside..

 

2x PCI Slots

- 1 houses the graphics card,the other the SCSI card

1x AGP slot

 

now the odd bits

 

3 slots that at first glance look as big as an ISA slot - 2 are the same beige colour of a PCI slot, and the one beside the 2 PCI slots is green, and the size of an ISA slot - beside these slots on the MOBO is etched PCI 3 thru PCI 5 (PCI 1 & 2 being standard PCI slots)

 

Anyone seen this before or know what they are?

[Geoff]

Sound like PCI-X slots.

[Gatt]

PCI-X? Never heard of them

 

Take it that means I need to get new NIC cards(etc) which are no doubt a lot more expensive

[ChrisH]

Yes they are the new faster slots and cards are going to cost a little more.

[Dos_Box]

Lots of hardware for them is 64 bit. For big add on cards IIRC. I have soem PCI-X SCSI cards and NICS in my Dell servers.

[Norphy]

Yeah, sounds like PCI-X. PCI-X as already mentioned is an extenstion of the PCI bus. It is a 64bit bus which runs at up to 133MHz which allows for a lot more bandwidth than a regular PCI slot which is a 32bit bus running at 33MHz.

 

The green slot is most likely a regular PCI-X slot which can take a ZCR (Zero Channel RAID) card. The idea is that you install one of those and it turns the on-board SCSI on the motherboard into a RAID controller. We tried one, it was crap, we promptly bought an Intel PCI-X SCSI RAID controller and used the on-board SCSI for the tape drive.

 

How old is the motherboard? Do you have the model number? It is just possible that they are regular 64bit PCI slots. Similar to PCI-X except they run at half the clock speed. They also can take 32bit expansion cards so if they are regular 64bit slots you should be able to use a 32bit card.

[Ric_]

I've had a server in the past that also had a slot that looked similar to a PCI slot but was in fact for the RAID add-on card.

 

My Sun servers have PCI-X slots and they just winge at you for putting a PCI card in them but they will work (just not at the faster PCI-X speed!).

[mac_shinobi]

Best way to check would be to get the make and model of the motherboad and check on the manufacturers website, wcpuid or everest ultimate or everest home edition would be good ways to check motherboard make and model.

 

when you say PCI - X , Is that PCI Express or you mean as in 64 bit PCI slots?

 

Anyway hopefully that helps out some what.

[mac_shinobi]

nvm I just realised geoffs link to wikipedia article after I posted

[Gatt]

For those who were asking - the motherboard models are - Gigabyte Server/workstation board - GA9ITDW

 

Trying to find the actual manual - just got the box and a load bits (SATA cables, blanker plates, screws, etc)

 

When you say 64Bit - would that make the whole board 64bit??

[Ric_]

http://uk.giga-byte.com/Server/Products/Products_ServerBoard_GA-9ITDW.htm

 

Full details of your board!

[Geoff]

Expansion Slot

 

* 1 x PCI-E X16 graphic slot

* 1 x PCI-X 64bit/133MHz slot

* 2 x PCI-X 64bit/66~100MHz Slots(Green one support Adaptec ZCR)

* 2 x PCI 32bit/33MHz Slots

 

Told you so!

 

For the curious the 'Adaptec ZCR' is a technology that uses the SCSI controller on the motherboard (instead of a SCSI controller on the RAID card) to enable hardware RAID on a motherboard.

[Norphy]

The green slot is most likely a regular PCI-X slot which can take a ZCR (Zero Channel RAID) card. The idea is that you install one of those and it turns the on-board SCSI on the motherboard into a RAID controller. We tried one, it was crap, we promptly bought an Intel PCI-X SCSI RAID controller and used the on-board SCSI for the tape drive.

 

*cough*