This is a bit nuts. The MSI card is GeForce 210-MD512H: http://www.msi.com/product/vga/N210-MD512H.html#?div=Specification ...witch is basicaly fanless budget MSI GeForce 210 with 589/1024MHz clocks and 512MB DDR2 ram. All in all a budget card to do the work required and that it is. However I wanted to use it in my Sapphire "Grouper" A9RX480 mobo (that is ATI chipset RX480-450 for SB) and it refuse to post. When I plug there my old good PNY GeForce 7800, then (even w/o the external power cable connected - DOS only, true) everything seems working out nicely! Now that is a bit insane. Any suggested bios settings to make the card work? Yes, it is claimed to be 16x PCIEx speed... shall I try 8x?
Tried 8x, no difference Some settings are really interesting - how about these? LTD Configuration - Enabled Upstream LTD Bus Width - 16bit Downstream LTD Bus Width - 16bit LTD Bus Frequency - Auto (1GHz, 800MHz, 600MHz, 400MHz, 200MHz) (I know, this have more to do with the CPU memory controler that GFX card, but who knows?) PCIE GFX Core Payload Size - 64Bytes (32Bytes, 16Bytes) PCIE GPP Core Payload Size - 64Bytes (32Bytes, 16Bytes) NB-SB Port Configuration - Default (Enhanced) PCI-E GFX Link Width - x16 (x12, x8, x4, x2, x1) Assign IRQ For VGA - Enabled (Disabled) ...any suggestions?
I realized, where the problem is. Since the mainboard Sapphire A9RX480 PCIE slots are version 1.0a, then any graphic card have to be backwards compatible with PCIE 1.0a in order to work. Since there is, in the MSI GeForce 210-MD512H, mentioned only support for PCIE v2.0, then it probably means that it will never work on PCIE v1.0a and hence I need a gfx card, that is backward compatible with PCIE v1.0a... And this card is not it. So, unless there could be done a bios tweak, that allow this backward compatibility, there is no way to make the card work in Sapphire A9RX480. Damn!
I got borrowed for test a Point of View GeForce 7300GT card and it run in Sapphire A9RX480 w/o a single glitch. So I would say that the board run pretty good, unless someone is trying to use in it the PCIE v2.0 card that is _NOT_ backwards compatible with PCIE 1.0a. Witch is the case of the MSI GeForce 210-MD512H, unfortunately for me. PS. now it looks like this: ...testing phase...
Also Point of View GeForce 8600GT is working just fine: ...so it is a rather isolated case of the MSI GeForce 210 card, seems. I do wonder, if other manufactures GeForce 210 cards will have this problem, tough.
So now I using a Point of View 8600GT card: ...it have reasonably quiet fan, but of course far too noisy for my liking. So I looked out for something that will fit well the reasonably small card, preferably overlaping ith 92mm fan over the top, so it cool a bit the NB heatsink after the card... But much to my surprise, something like Arctic Cooling Accelero S2 are too big. The heatsink is huge, a 188x140mm (or 182x137 if you take their words: Accelero S2 · Discontinued Products · Cooling · ARCTIC ) monster for a 120mm fan... That is a bit overkill for the small and reasonably not too hot (TDP 40W, or so they say NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT | techPowerUp GPU Database ) card. So, are there something like the Accelero S2, but smaller... for a like 92mm fan out there? I managed to find a Accelero L2 with reasonable 119x94 size, however the bottom does NOT look like that it can fit on my card AND there did not seems to be any suitable connections awailable, besides the GPU is at anged position on this card... Accelero L2 Pro · VGA · Discontinued Products · Cooling · ARCTIC But at least it is smaller, yet it is unclear, if there is enought space for the caps that have to fit bello the heatsink. At least 14mm there must be, preferably 15 as the Accelero L2 have... :| So I'm a bit stuck. Of course there are alternatives like Zalman VF1000, but this is again overkill AND also the heatsink did not feature big enought fan to cool the chipset too AND I want to be able to use quiet fan (preferably Noctua... or shall I get something even quietier there from the 92mm pool?) of my choice and not their fan...
All PCI Express cards are backwards compatible by design. It's part of the PCI Express specification.
Unfortunetely, not the MSI GeForce 210 - this suxxka is not backwards compatible. Maybe a flashing bios from other company GeForce 210 card could help, but that would be a pretty adventurous operation! Since moderator uddarts on PC perspective forum have the same Sapphire A9RX480 mainboard and he tried a Galaxy GTX 650 in it. This is a PCIE v3.0 (!) card from 2013. And quess what! It worked right away w/o troubles! Now that means that the mobo is NOT the problem, but MSI ficked up the backwards compatibility in the card bios and that prevent it being used at all in older mainboards. Terrible...
This is true. Not all cards are backwards compatible due to BIOS. I've ran into this issue trying to upgrade some older rigs for people who can't afford a complete new system. I ran into this with a few HD 7770's too, which was hardware related.
Well, let me put it this way - I assume that this it is. Or tell me, what else is to assume, when a PCIE v3.0 card work right away, while a PCIE v2.0 card don't work at all? PCIE cards are supposed to be backwards compatible, like sykozis mentioned earlier. The only way to prove that is THIS case the bios is up to the blame is to try flash another company bios into that card It should be mentioned, however, that the Sapphire A9RX480 mobo is working fine with these graphic cards: PNY 6800 GS Point of View GeForce 7300GT Point of View GeForce 8600GT Galaxy GTX 650 (PCIE v3.0!) ...and probably a with a lot more... it just does NOT work with the MSI GeForce 210-MD512H ... Also it obviously works with Gigabyte GTX 580: http://hwbot.org/submission/2321393_ivanov_3dmark2001_se_geforce_gtx_580_44463_marks ...so definitively, that is a MSI GF210 issue.