pci slot back to front?

[lockmac]

Hi guys. I went to put a sound card in my dads server today (its a HP and its less than a year old) and the PCI slot notches were back to front (like the small notch was closest to the back of the case. so the card wouldnt fit. The computer guy at the shop wouldnt believe me so i took it in to him (just to prove him wrong) and he said that the people who made it must have been drunk and put the PCI slot in back to front.

Is that possible or is this just a new standard on servers that im not aware of?

Thanks

 

[dawp]

Sounds like PCI-X slots to me since this a server.

what model is this anyways. like to see that board to be sure, sometimes a vendor will take a standard slot and change it for a specific purpose.


do the slots look like this board?

 

[lockmac]

they are a bit like that but they dont have the extra bit at the top, they only have two different notches.

 

[dawp]

are they as long as PCI slots or a bit shorter. could be PCI-E x8 slots

like this?

 

[Mark R]

You have a very old sound card which is 5V power only.

Old PCs used 5V power on PCI slots. However, more recently, modern PCs now have PCI slots which can use 3.3V power. In order to make sure that you can't burn the cards out by putting them in the wrong type of slots, the position of the notch was changed.

More modern cards, which can work on both voltages have 2 slots cut in them, so they can fit both types of slot.

As it's a server, I'd expect that these are actually PCI-X slots. These are longer than normal PCI slots, but will accept standard PCI cards as long as the voltages are compatible. While 3.3V is optional for normal PCI slots, it is mandatory for PCI-X. In particular, PCI-X slots do not use 5V at all.

Examples of some cards:
Pic
Obsolete PCI sound card on top. Modern 'universal PCI' sound card underneath.

 

[jaqie]

First off, there was an old now defunct standard made, that turned the PCI slot around backwards and pulled it back further from the back of the case, similar to AMR but not the same - it used an actual pci card connector. The way to tell is this one offset in position from the rest of the pci slots. Another possibility is that when a newer PCI standard was designed, PCI slots were reversed to make the key come in on the other side, but THOSE were not set back further from the back of the case - those use 3.3V signaling. There is a mish-mosh now of pci that is 3.3v, 5v, both, et al, and I have seen PCI slots with the key in the front, back, both, and neither. The slot position in these is just keying for the signaling voltage level, 3.3v or 5v. As others have said, cards themselves are also a mish-mosh of the 3.3v and 5v signaling standards, and the keying on those is now as confused as the slots. Best bet is to only buy cards with keyholes on the front AND back of the pci card, or just go PCIE as that standard is now finally being fully adopted by card makers.

 

[Peter]

jaqie has the correct answer. The tab in the PCI slot is the keying for the signalling voltage in the slot. Slots are either 5V or 3V. Cards can be either, or universal (two notches). You appear to have a 5V-only card and 3.3V slots.

3.3V-only slots are by PCI 3.0 standard, and your card obviously predates PCI 2.3 (when 3.3V support became mandatory).

 

[lockmac]

Ok thanks for that guys. Yeh the slot was exactly the same as a PCI but flipped around. Not making a generalisation, but most guys that own small computer repair businesses really dont seem to know what they are on about in my experience. He assured me it was some drunk who put it around back to front, and further went to say that it couldnt be a PCI express one as they are ONLY used for graphics cards.

The other computer shop only had sound cards that support Pre Windows XP (doesnt support XP).

Thanks guys

 

[jaqie]

Yeah, Ive seen many dolts working comp shops... I won't trust hardly any, it's why even after I stopped working at one I help anyone who asks as long as I am able.

I remember asking one person who acted as if he was a tech once - he was bragging about building his next computer - what OS he would run, I asked "You gonna run windows 98 or 2000?" His reply, and I kid not, was "Yeah, windows 64, 128, whatever fits!"
Another came in and insisted that a bunch of ISA IDE/IO cards (yes this was back in the day) all had viruses. They don't even have an EEPROM chip on them...