[akord94]

high guys i just got my msi k7d master, unfortunatly i ran out of pci slots, sound blaster 5.1, highpoint ide raid controller, and nic card. i need a slot for my tv tuner. what cards can i change over to 64 bit and not cost me an arm and a leg.
thanks

[Maxvla]

do 32bit pci cards work in 64bit slots?

for some reason i thought they did...

[Stedeman]

Some mother boards allow this option but it knocks out the 64bit and makes all the slots 32bit check your owners manual to be sure.

[aftermath]

the k7d master does suport 32 bit cards in the slots. but the card needs to be ked to fit. the slots will auto swich to the cards frequency i run a 3ware card in the 66 mhz/64 bit slot.
it is strongly recomended that all mass storige controlers are placed in the 66/64 slots as the 33/32 slots are subject to a nasty latency isue. this kills disk through-put.
if your raid card is capable put it in the slot. the 66/64 slots operate at a different voltage. thsi is why not all cards are compatable.

[akord94]

but the card needs to be ked to fit.

what does that mean? sorry if its a stupid question.
thanks

[aftermath]

sorry sorry i ment keyed it has 2 notches out of it one near the front and one near the back.
i must remember to check what i type, im dyslexic and forget to check small words. How hard is it to spell keyed correctly??

edit: most certainly is not a stupid question and any way there are only stupid answers!

[mateo]

You can tell if its keyed if there's a slot closer to the PCI bracket side. There's a very good chance the Highpoint is slotted, Im almost sure of it (if its at least ATA100). Put it in the 64 bit slot, you'll find a big jump in performance over a 32 bit slot, like aftermath said.

[Rav]

I have a Promise controller card that is 32-bit 66Mhz and I use it in the 64/66 slot. Works great! I wish there was a way to confirm its running 66Mhz though.

-Rav

[bulk88]

I also heard somewhere, if you put in a 33mhz card that claims to be 66mhz (yeah it is, it just lowers the speed for itself and uses 3.3v) into a 66mhx slot the slot goes to 33mhz, lowest common denominator, so you killed 1/2 the bandwidth between your southbridge and northbridge.

[aftermath]

i would hope that the northbrige-southbridge interconecter would be independent of the pci frequencyes. Any way my disk through-put seams fine and i havn't got a spare pci slot.
i have modem (minimal bandwidth) sound card (minimal) 2nd graphics card (needs more than the other 2 but i dount know how much.) usb2card (never used yet) and my 3ware controler.
the 3ware and the usb card will bring the bus down to only 33mhz.
i thought that the 66/64 slots were independent of the rest, like they talk to there controler seperately.


edit: Iv looked at the 760mpx data sheet and can see why using a 33 mhz card in the 66/64 bit slot would posibly reduce the north-south bus. It runs directly off it or at least appears on the tech sheet. I think you have a point bulk88 but the 66/64 slots are still the best for mass storage controlers.

[bulk88]

Just like in the old Via chipset days, all of Via's southbridges were PCI devices, no V-link or hub architeture (intel). Same thing with the 760MPX, except the PCI bus was fattened.

[Spl Engineering]

It would be worth it to me to place any card that will work in that slot just to have the extra PCI slot availible for use.

[cmcquistion]

Originally posted by aftermath
the k7d master does suport 32 bit cards in the slots. but the card needs to be ked to fit. the slots will auto swich to the cards frequency i run a 3ware card in the 66 mhz/64 bit slot.
it is strongly recomended that all mass storige controlers are placed in the 66/64 slots as the 33/32 slots are subject to a nasty latency isue. this kills disk through-put.
if your raid card is capable put it in the slot. the 66/64 slots operate at a different voltage. thsi is why not all cards are compatable.

This is absolutely correct. If you CAN put your disk controller in one of the 66 MHz/64 bit slots, then do it. If it doesn't support 66 MHz PCI slots (the double-keyed slots), then get another disk controller. Your performance will be terrible, if you leave it on the 33 MHz PCI bus. Most other devices will be fine there, though.

Don't worry about slowing down your southbridge to 33 MHz. It is a non-issue.

[akord94]

thanks guys, i will do that once i get the board. had to rma the original one that i got.

i got a "bios checksum error" when i first turned it on. system would not read a disk so i couldn't try flahsing the bios. i called msi, they told me to reset the cmos, then i got an error "decompressing bios to ram" then i would hear memory errors.

hope to get it back by wensday or friday then week

[Albigger]

can any of you guys recommend a good controller card (or even brand) that will fit the 66mhz slots for SURE??? (i'll be getting a k7d and I will need to use the other slots as well)

[dustybyrd]

can any of you guys recommend a good controller card (or even brand) that will fit the 66mhz slots for SURE??? (i'll be getting a k7d and I will need to use the other slots as well)

i use the promise tx2000 and it has worked great for me...2 60gb maxtors in RAID-0

[aftermath]

i use a 3ware one but its only 33/32bit
they have newer cards but these also are only 33/mhz although you can get 64 bit cards.
dustybyrd is the promise 66mhz?

edit: 3 ware cards are 66/64 bit at least now.

[cmcquistion]

I have used the Highpoint RocketRAID 133 and RocketRAID404 in my K7D systems, with no problems.

*EDIT* The RocketRAID133 is a true, 66 MHz PCI card. The RocketRAID 404 is 33 MHz, but it is 100% compatible with 66 MHz PCI slots.

*EDIT 2* Corrected information above. The RocketRAID133 is 66 MHz, it is NOT 64 bit, as I accidentally posted.

[dustybyrd]

dustybyrd is the promise 66mhz? [/B]

yeah...i knew i was using it in the 66mhz slot...but i just checked to make sure it was a 66mhz card and it is:

http://www.promise.com/marketing/dat...TTX2000_v3.pdf

[aftermath]

thanks. eventuly im going to replace myn just interested in these things now.
now ill look for info on that. would like to get a proper card for those 66/64 slots. the 3ware works fine but its not taking full advantage of the slot, also its only udma 66.