ga-ma785gm-ud2h: PCIe x8 RAID card

[nicodarious]

Hello and good day.  This is my first time posting and after much research on the net and across the forums, I am still not capable of getting positive feeling about using a PCIe x8 RAID controller card on a PCIe x16 slot.  I have heard many tales, especially in IRC, that PCIe x16 is only used for graphics cards.  Since I have already ordered the RAID controller, this has me very worried.  And since it takes several weeks for my orders to reach me half way around the world, I'm about to go crazy with the stress! 

My hardware I'm trying to use for a small, low-cost NAS setup is an older Gigabyte ga-ma785gm-ud2h (Rev. 1.0) board.  I have not used this board in over a year as of now.  The card I have purchased is the Highpoint RocketRAID 3530 controller PCIe x8.

Will these technologies work together, or will the board not post because the PCIe x16 slot is being used by something other than GPU card?

In other topics I have searched (although the models are not even similar, but the wording from mods make me hope), i have found information leading me to believe that all might be fine  (  http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,2875.msg19303.html#msg19303  ), while others give me a feeling that i might have a $500 dust collector (  http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,2390.msg13913.html#msg13913  ).

If i have left any info out that is needed, please let me know.  This is my first time posting here.

Thank you for any information you might be able to offer.

--John

[absic]

Hi there,

first off let's try and clear up teh PCIe x16 question. These slots are backwards compatible and will take an X8 card. They should also take an X4 and an X1 PCIe card too.

As to the question of will your Rocket Raid card work on your motherboard well... I'm afraid I can't answer that.

In theory it should do but as you have already surmised from your research what should work and what actually works is sometimes a bit hit and miss. If, when you get the card, you find that your system won't BOOT up then don't panic, as Gigabyte are usually pretty good at creating a BIOS that will get things working. It might be a good idea to conatact Gigabyte on your side of the pond as they would be the best people to advise you of compatibilty.

[nicodarious]

Hey, thanks for the quick response!  fastest i've seen anywhere else.

What's funny is that i never realized that this was a UK forum.  It would make sense that I get shoved over here since I am stationed in Europe, though (i keep forgetting to check on the web address).

Either way, I'm checking on the USA gigabyte help site right now to see about getting more info... I just hope they don't take forever like Asus has done with me in the past.  I've never heard of a manufacturer actually creating a custom BIOS before.  Is that the norm there in the UK?  Do they really have that great of support to be able to do that for their customers?  If so, I think I know of the brand that I'll be choosing the most with future purchases!

I have done some reading of the highpoint controllers user manual, and have come to the part about the INT 13 switch. It's giving me some hope... or at least relieving some of this unnecessary stress!  I might just luck out on this one, and be able to revitalize some of this old hardware that's just sitting here in my workbench drawers!

Again, thanks for the quick response! 

[absic]

One of the main reasons I have been using Gigabyte boards for over 10 years is the level of support that they give.

OK, I'll admit it, they are not always quick and sometimes the answers are in mangled English but, with a bit of persistance things can usually be worked out and I don't think it is just in the UK where they help with bespoke BIOS versoins as I know that, in America they do this too.

Recently, I had issues with my Graphics Card and Gigabyte did a lot of testing, even shipping my card to Taiwan, in an effort to resolve the problems I was facing. Turns out that the GPU has an intermittent fault but I cannot fault the service Gigabyte provides.