PCIe lanes, usb 3 controller cards, IRQ - troubleshooting
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@luxe Shows how good my memory is ..... ;-)
However according to this wikipedia article
The chipset supports 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes. I'd assumed the the PCIe 3.0 lanes could support PCIe 2.0 devices, but maybe this is an incorrect assumption?
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@haitch said in PCIe lanes, usb 3 controller cards - troubleshooting:
@luxe Shows how good my memory is ..... ;-)
However according to this wikipedia article
The chipset supports 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes. I'd assumed the the PCIe 3.0 lanes could support PCIe 2.0 devices, but maybe this is an incorrect assumption?
PCI-e specification will allow the port to work and adjust accordingly, so you can use a pci-e 3.0 card in a 2.0 slot and vice versa
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I have tried removing the CMOS battery for 10 minutes and then replacing it, but it did not help. I also tried changing bios settings for PCIe speed from 'auto' to 'Gen1' and 'Gen2', but no luck there either. I have sent a support e-mail to Sonnet to ask if this is normal behavious when using more than two of their controller cards in one system, but I can't expect an answer from them before earliest on Tuesday.
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@Propagandalf you can run 100 drives off 2 controllers, plus that motherboard has it's own, so 3 controllers
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@Focus Definitely, but if my calculations are right I should be able to reduce reads times even more by having an increased number of controllers. With two cards working it gives me 8 controllers, plus the system has 2 controllers from before. To get optimal readings I should have 2-3 HDDs connected to each controller, I believe.
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@Propagandalf negligeable I would think. I read 213TB in under a minute with one card, and I believe luxe is at 30 seconds with that card
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@Focus Sounds good, but I am trying to build a lightning fast miner =)
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@Focus I have a comparable controller-card like that sonnet one, and on every USB3 port i have a external case with 4 drives ... it also depends on drive size ... with 2TB drives it can be some more.
From my point of view @Propagandalf did everything right, to build a USB based storage solution.
But sure you are right it is quite overpowerd, maybe he has some sweet 10TB drives with 220MB/s :-)@Propagandalf you have gpu in first PCIe next to CPU right? Thats the x16 one.
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@luxe
I have a midi tower with extra fans installed,so no space in PCIe slot 1 for GPU(edit: trying to put GPU here now). So, I have it in PCIe slot 7 instead, and have tried the controller cards in PCIe slot 1-5 (6 is blocked by GPU). Each slot is x16 on this mobo, according to the manual.
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@Propagandalf
7 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (single x16 or dual x16/x16 or triple x16/x16/x16 or quad x16/x16/x16/x16 or seven x16/x8/x8/x8/x8/x8/x8)
You have to put GPU in slot 1, to get full speed! (if remaining 5 are used)

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@Propagandalf it could be you are drawing too much power from the PSU when the third card is installed. Try the 3 cards with a more powerful PSU to see if that works.
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I now have GPU in slot 1, and two controller cards in slot 6 and 7. That works, but again when I plug another controller card into slot 5, it won't boot. This might be of interest: The Dr debug error code I get is "96", which apparently means "PCI bus assign resources". The signs still point to some kind of non-optimal resource assignment for the PCIe slots. Maybe there are other ways I can tweak the settings?
My PSU is 650W, so I don't think that I'm drawing too much power with these cards, unfortunately I don't have a more powerful PSU to test it with.
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@Propagandalf if the motherboard has a on board gpu, remove the extra GPU to draw less power or else use a less power hungry GPU card if you have one available. If either works then you know for sure its a power issue.
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@iKnow0 I don't have either of those alternatives, unfortunately.
Edit: I think the rx470 uses about 130W during heavy load, which isn't all that bad.
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@Propagandalf borrow a more powerful psu or old GPU, most gamers will have both spare.
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@Propagandalf you could also work it out using math and the specifications for each device.
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@iKnow0
I could do that of course, but this system was built by professionals at a local IT shop, so I find it strange if the PSU is not powerful enough.I did a rough calculation a few weeks ago and came to the conclusion that I'm using quite a bit less than what the PSU supports.
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@Propagandalf do you have any other psu's?
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@iKnow0 Not currently, but I might be able to get hold of one in a few days.
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@iKnow0
OK, so I got hold of a 750W PSU, but when I replaced it, I can't even turn the machine on, there's no action whatsoever unlike before. The PSU worked on my friend's computer, so not sure what is going on.I re-used the cables from the old PSU on the new PSU to save time and fiddling about, was this maybe a bad idea? Are cables universal between different makes of PSUs? If this is the issue I will try again tomorrow with the "correct" cables, but I have run out of time for tonight.

