XIII Hero PCIE 16_3/SATA bandwidth sharing

[Zeroed85]

I have a Soundblaster PCIE 1x card in my PCIE 16_3 slot. The manual says:

"PCIE16_3 shares bandwidth with SATA6G_12 and SATA6G_34. When PCIE16_3 is populated SATA6G_12 and SATA6G_34 will be disabled.

I assume this means when the PCIE16 slot is using all 16 lanes because I have two SATA drives running off SATA 1/2 (with the 1x soundcard in PCIE16_3) just fine.

The manual then says:

When PCIE16_3 runs at default (x2) mode SATA6G_34 is disabled.

My question is will the SATA 3/4 ports work when the PCIE16_3 slot is operating at 1x?

[Grimpak]

Zeroed85 wrote:
I have a Soundblaster PCIE 1x card in my PCIE 16_3 slot. The manual says:

"PCIE16_3 shares bandwidth with SATA6G_12 and SATA6G_34. When PCIE16_3 is populated SATA6G_12 and SATA6G_34 will be disabled.

I assume this means when the PCIE16 slot is using all 16 lanes because I have two SATA drives running off SATA 1/2 (with the 1x soundcard in PCIE16_3) just fine.

The manual then says:

When PCIE16_3 runs at default (x2) mode SATA6G_34 is disabled.

My question is will the SATA 3/4 ports work when the PCIE16_3 slot is operating at 1x?

First of all, that slot doesn't have 16 lanes, only 4. It might be, phisically, a 16x slot, but it's only 4x electrically (check out the metal tabs inside the slot and see that they don't go all the way.

With that said, this slot uses lanes out of the chipset, which are shared with the sata ports. once you fit a card that is x1 or x2, the slot will behave like it's x2, so no, they won't work.

Why don't you use the x1 slot instead tho?

[Zeroed85]

Grimpak wrote:
First of all, that slot doesn't have 16 lanes, only 4. It might be, phisically, a 16x slot, but it's only 4x electrically (check out the metal tabs inside the slot and see that they don't go all the way.

With that said, this slot uses lanes out of the chipset, which are shared with the sata ports. once you fit a card that is x1 or x2, the slot will behave like it's x2, so no, they won't work.

Why don't you use the x1 slot instead tho?

Thanks for the reply. If the slot is fitted with 1x card why does it behave like it's 2x? Regarding the motherboard's 1x slot my GPU obstructs the slot. The only solution I see at this point is a PCIE 1x-SATA controller card which would fit in. Unless you have any other ideas?

[Grimpak]

Zeroed85 wrote:
Thanks for the reply. If the slot is fitted with 1x card why does it behave like it's 2x? Regarding the motherboard's 1x slot my GPU obstructs the slot. The only solution I see at this point is a PCIE 1x-SATA controller card which would fit in. Unless you have any other ideas?

it's probably due to the pci-e switches. can't change that.


as an alternative... maybe a pcie x1 riser cable?