Dc8200 Elite SFF GPU upgrade & PCI slot

[MrBeefstick]

Very happy thus far with this PC.  Bought a few for a project.  There are a few PCI express slots.  One 8x, and one 16x.  I cannot for the life of me get any video card to output on the x16 (black plastic) pci slot.  I can ONLY get output from the 8x slot, which reports the card working at Pci express 1.1/8x.  Card is a gt 730 1gb low profile.  

I have had NO Issues with the card rendering what it needs on the grey/white plastic slot, but I am curious if I am just confused.  

Thanks

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

The black slot is the primary slot, and you should be getting video out of it.

I have two 8200 Elite CMT's both with video cards (AMD Radeon HD 6570 and nVidia GT 730).

Both in the black PCIe x16 slot and both work just fine and did the minute I installed them and turned on the PC.

The only possible thing I can think of (other than the PCIe x16 slot is bad on the one you are working with), is to check the BIOS' security menu>device security settings and see if someone disabled the PCIe x16 slot.

According to the service manual below, chapter 2, page 11, there is a slot security setting which is described as a person being able to enable/disable any PCI or PCI express slot.

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c04224518

I just closed out of this reply, restarted my PC, went into the BIOS where indicated in the manual and sure enough, there is a slot security setting and you can selectively disable any one of the slots.

So, hopefully, that is all it is.

[MrBeefstick]

Thanks Paul

Knowing that the black slot is the primary is a great start.  I tried this on 2 machines earlier with 2 different "graphic cards".  One was just an OEM DVI out.  The computer seems to boot, but never gets to giving me video.  I will fiddle with it tonight as they are down.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

[MrBeefstick]

I Got it!  And it is odd.

There is a bios setting for integrated gpu.  This NEEDS to be on.  You need to install drivers from there.  It may have been an issue in the order of initial installation.  Once I got drivers installed, I was able to disable integrated video and continue.

It seems to make no difference, but at least it is correct.  GPU-Z is reporting pci 2.0 @ 8x under load which was expected....not 4x of a 1.1/8x lane....

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Glad you figured it out.

[MrBeefstick]

I had purchased these units used in bulk, so there was no way to recover the bios admin password.  Thankfully there is a mechanical switch on board that overrides this.  It seems nice in a consumer market, but from a security standpoint is fairly weak.  

I have a few generations of these sff business machines, and the more I use them the more I like them.  They make service a snap, and upgrades simple.  Its a shame the PSUs only come in a few small flavors.  Id love to add a 350-400w just to power a low profile gtx 1060.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Actually, starting with the dc7900, the BIOS password security is very robust.

You were extremely lucky in that whoever set BIOS passwords, did not also enable the stringent security option in the BIOS's security menu.

If stringent security is set, that prevents removing the green password jumper from clearing the password.

[MrBeefstick]

Its good to know I got a good machine without extra password locks.  

This unit is actually an upgrade to my 7900 machine, and works great with a 1gb gt 730 (pny).  Light gaming works splendid.  Terraria runs no different on that then on my 960 gtx.