PCIe X8

I've never seen a true pcie x8 card. You can try this mod to use a x16 card.
http://www.tkdan.com/SC420/

don't know about any 8x but here are two 1x cards or you can use a pci slot. It is a server after all.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=P...

Their backwards compatible. as long as it's PCIe you're fine.

Thanks everyone!

It is a server, but I'm using it as a desktop, running corporate XP Pro.

What's better a PCIe X1 video card or a regular PCI video card?

I figured a X8 PCIe card would be better than a regular PCI video card, which is why I was trying to find one.

I was also reading that you can cut a slot in the X8 PCIe connector, to fit a X16 PCIe video card, can anyone verify this?

Thanks!

Thanks orangegator!

I just read that link, and they're even talking about my server...  

I'm going to try that mod.

My box is also a 2.8 P4, 500G HD/150G HD but 1 gig of RAM, which will go to 2, or 4Gig soon.

I found 4 Gig of DDR2 for $30 on craigslist, but it was 2 X 2Gig and my server has a 1Gig limit per slot, so I'll need 4 X 1Gig, or another 2 - 512M if I go to 2Gig. 2 X 512M is only $20 plus shipping directly from Dell...

I opened an account on Dell.com to ask a few questions, re: which PCIe video card, and about the memory.
The next day I received an email about extending my warranty for $799 for one year, or $1038 for 2 years.  

I paid $319 delivered to my house, almost 5 years ago, with 512M, and an 80G HD...  

if it's a server why wouldn't you just put a cheap card in it, or what are you using it for

As long as you have a spare PCIe x8 slot you should use it for graphics.

Just get a PCIe graphics card based on need. If you need a low-end why not get a $50 fanless one.

"

Thanks everyone!

It is a server, but I'm using it as a desktop, running corporate XP Pro.

What's better a PCIe X1 video card or a regular PCI video card?

I figured a X8 PCIe card would be better than a regular PCI video card, which is why I was trying to find one.

I was also reading that you can cut a slot in the X8 PCIe connector, to fit a X16 PCIe video card, can anyone verify this?

Thanks!"

I don't think you understand. You don't need to cut anything. A PCIe x16 will work in a PCIe x8/4/1. If it's a PCI express their all backwards compatible. However a PCIe card will not work in a PCI slot. *Which is what you must be thinking to have to cut a slot into it, and I'd have to see that to believe it*.

The SC420 has on board video, but that uses my RAM, and it won't run a lot of graphic intensive software.

I use it as a desktop for everything.

I understand perfectly!

The SC420 PCIe X8 slot has dividers, that prevent installing a X16 PCIe card into the X8 slot.
orangegator proved it with this link: http://www.tkdan.com/SC420/ thanks orangegator!

I checked http://pinouts.ru/Slots/pci_express_pinout.shtml and the X8 and X16 pin outs match up.

pciiexpress is a lot better than pci. A 1x pcie will be more than sufficient for anything short of gaming.

You're welcome. Good luck with the mod. Let us know how it turns out.

You got it! I'll do a follow up, once I get it done.

Here's the SC420 PCIe slot:

I did this modification with great success on my SC1420

Here is an explanation with pics on how to.

I did this modification with great success on my SC1420

What I did was to remove these tiny two "blockers" (red circle) with a regular dremel multi tool.
Before you start, remover all the ram, cpus, fans, and power cord.
If you dont have antistatic gear, touch the frame where there is direct connection to metal
several times, several places.
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Remember: Cut VERY carefully when you approach the actual pins.
At first there are no pins (circled in blue) but at the second "blocker" there are
working pins for the PCIe card.
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I used a very sharp scalpel the very last way to carve off the remains.
Be very careful about the two transistors that are on the side of the pcie 8x slot, and
not to cut in the pins inside the slot.

I then put my ASUS EN8600GT card in and it worked like a charm!
Now I have the ultimate working machine. 2 x 3.6Ghz XEON CPUs, 8 GB RAM and
an ok card for screen.
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I got to let you know that I have read several places that some cases with doing this
with the sc420 hasnt worked, as the pin number on them are somewhat different, but I do not
know if that is correct. You better check it yourself by counting or seeing if there are pins at the end.

I have done this mod with a ATI HD 2400 pro.
Admit I cut my slot up pretty messy. I may have bent one ping neat the first divider a little but it was not enough to damage it it seems. The plastic is very hard and i was not able to cut down deep enough to get the card seated all the way down.

i screwed the face plat down to the case thou, it fits good enough to work. Cheap creep make it not work on reboot, i need to open the case and push it down a little and then reboot.. Working win7 with airo fine now thou.

Just want to make a correction and provide some info..
The "transistors" listed above are actually capacitors and not transistors. Also it appears that one of them on the motherboard is bulging. You will see it right next to one of the modified sections on your PCI Express slot. This often happens over time and if you start experiencing problems with it just blacking out or random reboots may be the cause. (The top of it should be flat and not stick up at all)

I have successfully replaced motherboard capacitors before to repair this, it is fairly easy to do. You need to be somewhat handy with a soldering iron, though and replace them with the same voltage and size of capacitor. Watch polarity as well, most are marked with a line pointing at the negative lead.

Oh....I really didnt know that.
Well, I havent experienced any problems yet, so I hope it will last a couple of more years.
Actually I have never worked on a pc this stabile and reliable, AND fast.

Compared to one of the faster pc`s today it can actually keep up when it comes to heavy jobs,
like rendering and audio prosessing.

Just to make a test the other day I took one of the latest pc`s from work and ran the
same jobs on them both, and the sc1420 was actually done before the state-of-the art pc.

I must though say I have 12 GB og single rank ram in the sc1420 and two xeon 3,6 Ghz  

Hi All,

Just come accross this thread. Thought I'd throw my pennies worth in. I've got a Dell Poweredge SC1420 running Windows 7, 6GB RAM, 2 x 1TB Samsung F3s, 2 x 3.6 Hyperthreaded Xeons 2MB Cache and an ATI X1950 Pro with 256MB.

I've done it slightly differently to other threads, I've cut the card to fit. PCI Express generally just works with the number of data paths it's presented with and I didn't fancy taking a Dremel to my motherboard. Picked up the card for £25 from ebay, marked up the pins to be removed and chopped it to fit the PCIe x8 slot. The machine has a PCIe power cable already so no extra cables needed and the uprated heatsink/cooler on the card has been stripped down turned through 90deg to the fan on the side door does the work.

I'll post some pics if anybody's interested.

Some pics would be great. ive just bought a cheap SC1420 and want to sling in a decent graphics card. But would rather alter the card than the MOBO.

Cutting the video card worked for me too. My motherboard (Intel SE7520BD2) has two x8 PCIe version 1.0 slots. With a hacksaw, I notched the video card (EVGA GeForce 8400 GS for x18 PCIe) connector strip so that it would go into an x8 slot. I also taped the extra fingers to avoid any contact (these could be cut off, and there is no power to them anyway).

The card installed well and is way faster than the integrated ATI 8M video that was on an ordinary (33 MB/s) PCI bus

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