17 replies to this topic

[friedymeister89]

I want to run 3 DVI LCD displays, and I currently have a 9600GT. I plan on replacing the 9600 GT with an ATI HD 3870 card.

My motherboard is the Gigabyte P35-DS3L, with 1 16x PCI Express slot and 3, 1x PCI Express Slots.

Will I be able to run the 9600GT in a 1x slot, or if I bought an HD2600XT, would I be able to run one of those in the 1x slot?

Thanks in advance.

[GenMatrix]

Not an expert on this, but will the 9600GT even fit in the PCIx1 slot?

[friedymeister89]

I know that the 16x slot is much longer than a 1x slot, but I also know that the Mac Pro specifications say that it has 1 16x slot, and 2 4x slots; the specs also say that you can fit 4 HD 2600XTs in the beast. So I was wondering if I could fit a 2600xt (16x) in a 1x spot.

[supermx3]

every x1 slot i have seen is way to short for a x8 or x16 card

[MacUser2525]

friedymeister89, on May 13 2008, 11:35 PM, said:

I know that the 16x slot is much longer than a 1x slot, but I also know that the Mac Pro specifications say that it has 1 16x slot, and 2 4x slots; the specs also say that you can fit 4 HD 2600XTs in the beast. So I was wondering if I could fit a 2600xt (16x) in a 1x spot.

Those slots in the MacPro are full length so you can put a video card in them when doing so the card runs at 4x speed, a 1x slot is a short little connector there is no way to put a video card in one of them. If you want another video card in the machine then you would need to see if an old PCI card will work in the machine with OSX.

[friedymeister89]

Which PCI Video cards would work?

Would this HD 2400 Pro work?
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814131082

[MacUser2525]

friedymeister89, on May 14 2008, 03:56 PM, said:

Which PCI Video cards would work?

Would this HD 2400 Pro work?
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814131082

I haven't a clue whether a PCI card will work I never tried one but it may work and that looks cheap enough to take a chance on maybe wasting the money trying. A quick search below says that the Mac has used a 2400 series card and the link below that shows someone on this forum has had the 2400 working so it looks like there is a chance you may be able to get it and the 3870 your thinking of getting working together.

http://www.google.ca...lient=firefox-a
http://forum.insanel...showtopic=95097

[friedymeister89]

I've read the the HD2400 Series works, but as far as I can see, only PCI Express cards have been tested / proven to work.  Does anyone know if the PCI version works with the same drivers?

[princeofdarkness135]

it'll work as long as its getting ample power and you cut the 1x slot end so the card will fit, i've seen this work like that before on some website

[friedymeister89]

Can you post a link?

[tmim]

After a few hours of research, I still cant find a definitive answer to whether or not it is possible to get a PCI video card functioning. Does anyone know? I'd like the option to get better performance and a PCI card is my only option (SFF case with one PCI-e slot).

We know the PCIe version of this card works.
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814103056
Perhaps a 9500GT?
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814187083

Anyone have a PCI video card working on Leopard?

[supermx3]

they also make adapters to put low profile x16 cards in a x1 slot and it be full profile size

i used a pci 6200gs in leo, but i dont know if it workes in snow

[Bob Dole]

I'm running a 9400GT in a 1x slot right now, works fine.  I had to be very careful with the dremel when removing the end of the 1x slot so I didn't damage any of the pins.

[printerati]

I had no luck getting a PCI card to work on two different Gigabyte boards (G31M-ES2L and G41M-ES2L) running Snow Leopard 10.6.4. I use a dual-DVI 9400 GT as primary video with each one, which drives two 1920x1200 monitors without a problem. I tried the following PCI cards:

- PNY FX5200 256 MB
- PNY 8400GS 512 MB
- ATi Radeon 7000 32 MB (but I did not actually expect this to work, anyway)

Using the PCI-E card as primary video, none of the PCI cards ever received a video signal, although System Profiler did report that the NVIDIA cards were installed (although it didn't display any other information like RAM, or that a monitor was attached). When I switched primary video to either of the NVIDIA PCI cards, I would get a hard crash ("gray screen of death") immediately after the wheel stopped spinning on the Apple logo screen. I never got any video signal with the ATi, period.

Gigabyte technical support told me that the PCI-E x1 slot cannot be used as primary video for the above boards, but all of the x1 video cards I have seen would extend over at least one of the RAM slots, which really isn't an option, anyway. Perhaps I should look into a PCI 6200 GS...

[rschultz101]

it works

1.   use a slim blade,  like exacto blade, to trim the end of 1x connector on mobo
    was easier, than #2....    but on my mobo, gigabyte, had to remove memory,...
2.  hacksaw  off the pins,... ok, lot's of work, instead i  just cut a slot in where the 1x connector ends.

tested card in 1x  gt240, 9500gt, 2600xt, 8400gs  PCI-Express  x16 i

did that, since I want to build a nas server, but the cheap, non-server mobo's don't have a x4 or x8 slot,
for an sata card, and the better once are raid and x4+ ,...

the power pin are in the 1x, so all cards should work

[jeopardise]

Yeah! It works.

I've tried to carefully cut my PCIe X1 slot with sharp knife to make it fit an X16 PCIe card.



Modification with my motherboard:

http://i103.photobuc...se/DSC03092.jpg

http://i103.photobuc...se/DSC03094.jpg

It works with Win7 and Snow Leopard.

To make it work side by side with other graphic card, I'll need to enable it with EFI string or DSDT in Snow Leopard. Both works flawlessly in Windows 7, however.

[Nick Savage]

A distinction needs to be pointed out here.  The Mac pro has slots of a variety of speeds but those slots all still have the 16x electrical socket.  Most motherboards have slots sized for the pcie interconnect they are capable of. 1x for 1x, 4x for 4x, 8x for 8x, 16x for 16x, etc.  When this is not the case it tends to be the 8x (signal) slots with 16x electrical sockets; a motherboard with 1x sockets will not have full 16x length plugs on them.

Socket converters exist that allow a 16x/8x/4x card to be placed in a 1x slot.  Depending on the application though the performance may be terrible and the adapter w/ a graphics card may not fit in a standard case.

http://www.startech....dapter~PEX1TO16

There are extended length wire-ribbon versions of this sort of thing as well. . .

this stuff is cheap enough that I can't imagine why someone would want to cut sockets or pins off of their graphics cards / mobos. . .doesn't take much of a miss-aligned insertion to zap for hardware.

[jeopardise]

No matter how are you going to do it, PCI Express x16 is working on X1 slot.

In my region, the ribbon or convertor is not cheap and also so rare.