PCIe x16 x4 mode + GTS450

[9hnlb]

Is a GTS450 gfx card supposed to work with a Motherboard having a PCIe x16 x4 mode slot? I'm not asking for optimum performance, all i want is to work coz I know that running at x4 is presently quite of a bottleneck as regards speed.

(I'm having blue screen problems at booting so i'm eliminating problems)


You may refer to any PCIe x16 gfx card you want but i've got the GTS450 plugged in so ..


Thanks in advance

 

[Kari]

yeah it should work just fine.
Techpowerup even did some pcie bandwidht tests to see how much it effects performance on top end cards, the slow down was relatively small, less than 10% (if memory serves...)

edit linky
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GTX_480_PCI-Express_Scaling/
failure to boot @x1 though..

 

[renz496]

does that pci-e slot run at x4 speed? did you got the blue screen only with the card was plugged in? btw can you give exact model of your mobo and the rest of your pc spec?

 

[9hnlb]

First of all thanks for the immediate response! WOW!

So then, given that it's supposed to work, my specs are:

Intel Pentium 4 @ 3.15Ghz
Motherboard: ASUS P5VD1-X
1 GB DDR Ram (soon going to be upgraded to 2Gb)
Western Digital 1TB
Dell Ultrasharp U2311H
400W PSU
OS: WinXp (& Linux Ubuntu)


Yes blue screen occurs only since I plugged in this new GTS450, worked fine with my previous crappy GF6200 which used AGP 8X slot. I have to uninstall the drivers and run in default/system resolutions in order to use the PC.

As you may note it's not the ideal situation for the GTS450 as specs aren't that good. Used to watch 720p movies and run a few games with the 6200.

As regards drivers:
First I tried using those on the provided CD = blue screen
Then downloaded drivers from site, same problem.

 

[9hnlb]

On P5VD1-X it states:
1 x Universal PCI Express x16 slot (max. x4 mode)

So I know it obviuosly can't work at x16 mode, but i'm happy if i've got it working in x4 mode just the same.

 

[renz496]

yep you're right about it was not a good idea to begin with. but since you already have the card then you can at least try to make it work. if you can enter the windows try uninstall the driver then run driver sweeper program to clean all previous nvidia driver left over. other than that make sure you connect 6-pin the power connector to the card.

do you have the specifics for your PSU?

a bit of advise: if you really want to make a good use for your brand new GTS450 i advice you to build better rig.

 

[9hnlb]

my PSU is stated as 450W Max (250W Peak Power ..probably RMS).
I also tried connecting an 800W PSU but no output signal was being given by the graphics card. :S
Power cord is definitely connected and also used driver sweeper before installing new drivers.. but problem persists.

Now i'm thinking that it might not be compatible with the motherboard. Since Kari said it should work fine regards the PCIe slot I'm keen on getting it working ..

 

[renz496]

basically it should work. i think the problem might be your PCI-E slot or the card you bought is DOA. do you have any other pc to try the card? if the card works with other pc that means the problem lies on your pc

 

[nforce4max]

Scrape up $50-75 extra and buy a new board and ram if you have to and stick with the rest of what you got. The psu is questionable as well.

 

[9hnlb]

hmm .. gd idea renz496 ..i'll see what i come up with.

Presently I'm not gonna upgrade my PC, i want to buy a good gfx card that i can use when i upgrade my pc later on, thank for the thought tho

 

[9hnlb]

btw when saying PCIe x16 (max x4 mode) i mean PCIe 1.0 not PCIe 2.0 or 2.1. I'll have my system checked at my retailer in no time. I'll post any useful info

 

[nforce4max]

That board is junk even for a p4. Just replace it as an upgrade and you will notice an improvement in general performance over your current board.

 

[9hnlb]

gfx card worked on another PC .. so problem lies in my PC ..99% compatibility issue.

I know the mb should be upgraded ut upgrading a mb means buying new CPU & RAM, as buying a socket 775 motherboard doesn't make sense nowadays with DDR1 RAM and old architecture.

So, is it coz of the PCIe-16 running at x4 that's doing this? or coz of GDD5?
A GF7300GS worked fine on this MB.
I'll be returning the GTS 450. But now i need to know what's the best gfx card to buy given this MB ..an 8800 GT? ..Ultra? maybe

 

[renz496]

the type of RAM use by the VGA will not affecting what kind of VGA your mobo can use. 8800GT will definitely bottleneck by the card. i got double frame rates if not more when upgrading from P4 (3.0Ghz) to C2D E7500 (2.93Ghz). back then i'm using 9600GSO which is weaker than 8800GT so you can said i have some experience with this thing. maybe you can look something like 4670/GT240. your cpu will bottleneck those card but you still can gain performance compared to your 7300GS.

btw just don't spend much on new card. my advice is it is better for you to save some money and get new platform.

 

[nforce4max]

So a $40 board and $20-30 ram is to much to spend? My last months water bill was that much.