Motherboard Ohmen Tampa 2 880

[Streetzzi]

Good day.

I bought a motherboard, an OMEN by HP 880-553na Desktop PC. I have following questions.

1. What can I use the 6 pin GFX power for, what is this connection useful for?

2. I have a second PCIe 3.0, but there is a sticker on it as shown in

3. Why shouldn't I use it?

4. GPU-Z shows me that my graphics card has PCIe 3.0 x16, but my motherboard only gives me x8, why is that and can I change that or is it not necessary to have x16?

Thank you for your attention, I wish you a nice day. Streetzzi.

[NonSequitur777 · Accepted solution]

@Streetzzi,

Welcome to our peer-to-peer HP Community Forum!

Q1: the 6-pin can be used to plug in a 6-pin to SATA power cable such as this one:

But since you're working with an ATX power supply, you should have plenty of SATA power connections/cables coming directly from your power supply. In other words, you can leave the 6-pin connector alone.

Q2: You should be able to use the second PCIe x16 slot, most commonly used for a PCIe to M.2 NVMe SSD adapter, such as something like this:

Q3: Of course you can use it.  As mentioned, I would use it for a secondary M.2 NVMe SSD.

Q4: First of all, x8 vs x16 shouldn't make any graphics performance difference with your graphics card because your system is running in PCIe 3.0 mode anyway, and it doesn't need the extra bandwidth.  Meaning: don't worry about it.

To cover all other reasons: there is a chance that your processor doesn't support x16 -please let me know what CPU you are using.  Also, if you got the time/patience: reseat your GPU: clean out the PCIe x16 slot with compressed ("canned") air, and if that doesn't fix it, remove your processor, carefully observe the CPU socket and your CPU to make sure there isn't any debris stuck, and gently blow it out with compressed air.

Hope this was helpful.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

@Streetzzi,

Looking once again at your GPU-Z picture, I missed that your graphics card shows "x8 1.1".

As I mentioned, the concern is not "x8", but the "1.1" is not good.  It should be 3.0 -my bad I didn't see this earlier.

Run GPU-Z again, and this time run the "Render Test" (click on the "?" -see picture below) and see if the "1.1" changes to "3.0".

Also, you want "PhysX" to be activated: go to: NVIDIA PhysX System Software, and download/run this driver.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[Streetzzi]

It's an AMD video card x580 and not Nvidia, but I have x8 3.0 now.

[Streetzzi]

As you requested, the data of my CPU

[Streetzzi]

[NonSequitur777]

@Streetzzi,

That is good news: PCIe 3.0 in x8 mode.

Your i5-8400 can run one x16, or two x8 lanes.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[Streetzzi]

While a game is running, it automatically switches to x8 3.0 and 8.0 GT/s. I think I have the maximum performance I can achieve on my system. Thank you very much for all your help.

[NonSequitur777]

@Streetzzi,

You are welcome and best wishes for the New Year!

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[Streetzzi]

As already announced in a previous message, I have now cleaned my Tampa 2 motherboard. I discovered that only half of the PCIe 3.0 x16 are equipped with contacts. The mainboard can work with x16, but if only half of the slots have contacts, this will never work. I don't understand why HP commissioned something like this. I will replace the motherboard as soon as possible because I thought I bought an x16 and now I feel deceived by HP. The warranty has already expired anyway and luckily I bought it used very cheaply.