Asus a8n-sli se PCIe problem

Well kind of a confusing problem (don't know if it belongs in the graphics question or here) but my 8800gt doesn't work in the first PCIe slot (no display) and just decided to stick it in the second slot. I glanced at cpuz a week or two ago and noticed the slot was only running at 8x but max supported is at 16x (checked on google and it is a PCIe 16x slot.) Is there any way to get it running at 16x (or get this card working in the first slot?).

Sorry if this belongs in the graphics section.

I'd say it belongs in the motherboard section, since it's probably a MB issue.

Do you have a 4-pin attached to the motherboard?
Have you tried inverting the SLI card on the MB (just for grins - it can't hurt)?

I have heard that some PCIe 2.0 cards have issues with PCIe 1.0 slots but I wouldn't expect that from ASUS ...

QuietIce said:

Do you have a 4-pin attached to the motherboard?
Have you tried inverting the SLI card on the MB (just for grins - it can't hurt)?

Click to expand...

Yes, the 4 pin power plug is plugged into the slot right above the PCIe slots, and you are not going to believe this, but the little SLI card that you flip to go from single card to SLI? Its not there. The card never came with the motherboard and there is no slot for it (yeah, the space between the two slots where it should be only contains a little strip that says "a8n-slie se"). I'm currently looking for the usb cable for my camera for proof. But there is an option for a 1 card/2 card setting, have it set to auto now.

Edit: curse me for relying on the first image in google when searching for a8n-sli se. Looking at all the other images NONE of them have the little SLI card.

Hmmm, I kinda' missed the "se" tacked on the end. Looks like the black slot only does 8X so it's back to making the blue slot recognize your card.

I take it you've installed the latest BIOS? (not that I would expect you to miss THAT bet!)

Man, can't think of anything else off-hand but I'll keep an eye open for a solution ...

Well the latest BIOS were installed (last ones made for this board were in June of '06) but I reflashed them anyway, and I must have changed a setting in the BIOS or they must have gotten slightly corrupted or something, cause it works in the main PCIe slot. How, I do not know, but this thread is pretty much done. Thanks.

Cool!

Temporal Solution

Hi!..

I had the same problem with a Video Card with a 8400GS Nvidia Chipset and Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe.

The Videocard inserted in the slot 1 doesn't let the computer start and got some POST beeps. I had an old 7300 GS that I had to stop using because I can't find the fan cooler that is dead. This 7400 GS card worked without any issue in the 1st slot.

Making some tests, I found out that on the 2nd PCIe x16 slot the video card worked. Everything was ok until I noticed using Nvidia Control Panel that the card was at x1. I noticed that the video performance was slower than the 7300GS (once I thought that maybe it's an illusion)

In both videocard I had "Single Video Card" in the EZ Selector also in the BIOS.

Then, I thought, what if I change the EZ Selector to Dual Card, even that I don't use it. I made the change, and Voila!... I could use the 8400GS Videocard in the First Slot, at least at x8 instead of x16, no boot problem.

It seems that 8400GS doesn't like to work at x16 in the first slot using Single Video Card EZ Setup.

I hope that this experience may help you.

Regards,

Ruben

Same problem here. I upgraded from 2x 6800GS to 1x 9800GT all eVGA. I can post in 2X8, but not 1X16. Haven't done benches to see what kind of performance I'm getting in X8, but I have to think that this card would max it out. Anybody know more about the x16 compatibility of this card with PCIe 2.0?

Thanks!

A8N - SLI Vanilla
2gb
Raid 0+1
3800 @ 2.50

I have an asus a8n32-sli motherboard. I recently bought a radeon 5850 and tried installing it in the fisrt pci express slot. The system would not post. I installed the video card in the second pci express slot, and the system booted up and I can use it. Does anyone know if I can get the card to work in the first pci-express slot and/ or why I have to use it in the 2nd slot?

Don't know specifically why it doesn't work in the first slot but the two slots are set up slightly differently with the black (lower) slot being the better of the two. It's hard to predict how advanced PCIe 2.0 hardware is going to react to PCIe 1.0 slots or vice versa ...

Curious as to why you say the bottom slot is the "Better" of the two? I didn't think there was a difference.

Just going by the manual ...

Due to NVIDIA nForce4 SLI x16 chipset limitation, if you install a
Dual-GPU graphics card on the blue x16 slot, it runs at x8 speed for
one of the two GPUs.

Click to expand...

There is no such warning for the black slot so obviously some difference exists, though the manual also clearly states you can run a single card in either slot at x16 or two cards at 2x16 in SLI. But that was written for PCIe 1.0, who knows what hoops are being jumped through when a modern 2.0 card is being used ...?