Embarassing -- Snapped PCI-E retention clip, question

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Svengali

Limp Gawd
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Mar 13, 2006
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Hi I was installing a replace graphics card today and I never messed with PCI-E before I've only used AGP, so this was a first time. Anyways, I accidentally snapped the retention clip on the MB. So my vendor wants to send out a new MB, but im wondering is it really necessary?

With the thumbscrew on the slot and the card in it sits quite firm, I dont think that thing did much. I have two 7900GT,s the 2nd one has the clip on it and the first is broken off but trying to move the card they both sit just as tight.
 
I believe I intentionally broke it off. It's a lot easier to take off with out this one piece at the end.
 
Adionik said:
It's a lot easier to take off with out this one piece at the end.
Click to expand...

QFT.

Just keep in mind the clip is gone while moving your machine, I don't think it'll fall out while it's sitting on your desk...
 
I accidentally broke it off when I was trying to remove my video card. Now, its much easier to move the card in and out of the slot without the mechanism. Probably depends on the case but my cards fit perfectly in my case without the clip.
 
digital_exhaust said:
QFT.

Just keep in mind the clip is gone while moving your machine, I don't think it'll fall out while it's sitting on your desk...
Click to expand...
um..

do you people not screw down your cards, or what?

the clip is useless. I hate those things.
 
What if its a heavier card like an 8800GTX? Wont it need the extra support from the clip?
 
Adionik said:
I believe I intentionally broke it off. It's a lot easier to take off with out this one piece at the end.
Click to expand...

I've always left mine in just due to not taking them in and out all of the time. They always get in the way though.

If I were you, I would just make sure that they are screwed in very well and are snug in the slot. Unless you strap your computer to the hood or roof of your car.. You should be ok.
 
Well I wouldn't say the retention clip is useless. I have found that in some cheaper cases, cards don't seat quite right after the mounting screw has been installed. They have a tendancy to cause a back pressure if you will causing the rear end of the card to start to come out of the slot. I believe that is what the clip is designed to prevent.

To the OP: I agree with the rest. You should not have a problem as long as you are not preping your system for space flight. :D
 
RAutrey said:
Well I wouldn't say the retention clip is useless. I have found that in some cheaper cases, cards don't seat quite right after the mounting screw has been installed. They have a tendancy to cause a back pressure if you will causing the rear end of the card to start to come out of the slot. I believe that is what the clip is designed to prevent.

To the OP: I agree with the rest. You should not have a problem as long as you are not preping your system for space flight. :D
Click to expand...

Agreed.
 
Those clips are seriously annoying. I ripped out mine. Just screw your card down, its not going anywhere.
 
They're worthless. How do you think we survived without them all those years with AGP?
 
Eagle156 said:
They're worthless. How do you think we survived without them all those years with AGP?
Click to expand...

We never survived without them for AGP...What mobo have you seen for AGP that didnt have either a retention clip or pull pin?? They have been with us for a long long time.

The one thing that stayed the same between AGP and PCI-E IS the retention methods.
 
I do not try to be in the habit of believing that any part of my motherboard can simply be broken off and disregarded. While the AGP/PCIe retention clip is certainly not critical, I wouldn't go about getting rid of it just because "you don't need it".

I would probably RMA the motherboard, but I'm a bit...well...picky, about that kind of thing.
 
pfunkman said:
We never survived without them for AGP...What mobo have you seen for AGP that didnt have either a retention clip or pull pin?? They have been with us for a long long time.

The one thing that stayed the same between AGP and PCI-E IS the retention methods.
Click to expand...
I have had many, many boards without retention clips. In fact, they far outnumber the ones with them.

They're worthless. I whenever I get them I take them off or bend them out of the way. They are a pain in the ass when I want to take the card out, and in my experience, they dont do anything but that.

I would probably RMA the motherboard, but I'm a bit...well...picky, about that kind of thing.
Click to expand...
Erm... You would RMA a board due to a plastic part that YOU broke off?
 
pfunkman said:
We never survived without them for AGP...What mobo have you seen for AGP that didnt have either a retention clip or pull pin?? They have been with us for a long long time.

The one thing that stayed the same between AGP and PCI-E IS the retention methods.
Click to expand...
All of my AGP boards had no retenation clips.
 
Where are you guys buying MOBOs???? AGP cards since day 1 have been made to use some sort of retension be it a clip or pin.

Hell a quick search on newegg looking at socket 754 mobos with AGP i looked at 1 from each major brand and found only 1 board out of about a dozen without any clip.
 
pfunkman said:
Where are you guys buying MOBOs???? AGP cards since day 1 have been made to use some sort of retension be it a clip or pin.

Hell a quick search on newegg looking at socket 754 mobos with AGP i looked at 1 from each major brand and found only 1 board out of about a dozen without any clip.
Click to expand...
since when was a 754 board day 1?

Go find me a socket 5/7 board with a retention clip and ill mail you a cookie.

I've got a ton of mainboards. Socket 5, 7, a few 462's, slot 1, 370 (and dual 370), 478 etc... Only my IC7 has a clip.
 
Socket's 5 and 7 did not have AGP.

Super Socket 7, while mechanically identical to Socket 7, provided the first AGP interface outside of the Intel 440LX/BX
 
kent said:
Super Socket 7, while mechanically identical to Socket 7, provided the first AGP interface outside of the Intel 440LX/BX
Click to expand...
Ah, I wasnt sure. I have a super socket 7 board in my closet with AGP, and I was not sure if the regular 7 had it or not, so I just included it. Since 5 and 7 kinda co-existed for a while I left it in there too :p
 
lithium726 said:
since when was a 754 board day 1?

Go find me a socket 5/7 board with a retention clip and ill mail you a cookie.

I've got a ton of mainboards. Socket 5, 7, a few 462's, slot 1, 370 (and dual 370), 478 etc... Only my A7N8X and IC7 have a clip.
Click to expand...

To clarify i meant AGP cards where designed to use the clips and pins since day one.
 
I remember some of my AGP slots having retention clips... but I think those were some of the later ones... been so long since I've delt with older boards.
 
kent said:
Socket's 5 and 7 did not have AGP.

Super Socket 7, while mechanically identical to Socket 7, provided the first AGP interface outside of the Intel 440LX/BX
Click to expand...

Correct.
 
For bonus points I'll even name the chipsets. VIA MVP3 (owned an EPOX board based on this chipset with a RARE 2MB of L2 cache, most boards had 512K or 1MB. The advantage was I could cache up to 256MB of memory in Windows 98) and ALi Aladdin V (bought a TigerDirect machine in 1998 with this chipset, Gigabyte GA-5AX board, unstable as hell in 3D until ALi (which is now ULi) released new GART drivers about a YEAR after I owned the machine)
 
kent said:
For bonus points I'll even name the chipsets. VIA MVP3 (owned an EPOX board based on this chipset with a RARE 2MB of L2 cache, most boards had 512K or 1MB. The advantage was I could cache up to 256MB of memory in Windows 98) and ALi Aladdin V (bought a TigerDirect machine in 1998 with this chipset, Gigabyte GA-5AX board, unstable as hell in 3D until ALi (which is now ULi) released new GART drivers about a YEAR after I owned the machine)
Click to expand...

Let's not forget the worst motherboard ever made:

The FIC VA503+
va503_01.jpg


That thing was plagued with more problems than any board I can think of. Huge stability issues, poor layout, terrible manuals and the silk screening for the jumper settings on the board were all wrong, and finally the huge list of AGP video card compatibility problems.

Lets not forget the high DOA rate and horrible customer service of FIC either.
 
pfunkman said:
To clarify i meant AGP cards where designed to use the clips and pins since day one.
Click to expand...

You're generalizing too much dude.
I have a SiS 6326, first gen basic AGP card, that I knew didn't have it.
In only a few minutes I found this:

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=QCA2HC-R&cat=VCD

It would appear that the clips were standardized/added for AGP 4X / 1.5V.
The card pictured and the card I have are 3.3V AGP 2X.
 
MrMike said:
You're generalizing too much dude.
I have a SiS 6326, first gen basic AGP card, that I knew didn't have it.
In only a few minutes I found this:

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=QCA2HC-R&cat=VCD

It would appear that the clips were standardized/added for AGP 4X / 1.5V.
The card pictured and the card I have are 3.3V AGP 2X.
Click to expand...

The board pictured above doesn't have a retention mechanism. Additionally, the ASUS P4C800 Deluxe (Not the P4C800-E Deluxe) doesn't have the retention clip. It uses an AGP Pro socket, and didn't have any additional retention hardware.
 
Dan_D said:
The board pictured above doesn't have a retention mechanism. Additionally, the ASUS P4C800 Deluxe (Not the P4C800-E Deluxe) doesn't have the retention clip. It uses an AGP Pro socket, and didn't have any additional retention hardware.
Click to expand...
He was talking about cards that lack the retention clip thing, not boards.
 
lithium726 said:
He was talking about cards that lack the retention clip thing, not boards.
Click to expand...

So what? My point is you don't actually need either. Those clips on the boards don't do you a damn bit of good if you have a board that doesn't support using them. I've had plenty of boards that didn't have any extra retention hardware and even after transporting the system back and fourth to LAN parties, I've never had any problems with my video card popping out of the socket.
 
Anyways after speaking to the techs at my vendor, I decided to cancel the MB replacement. IF an issue arises resultant to the lack of clip, they can replace it when that happens. So I guess it works out.

Hopefully there wont be any issues. So far so good. Thanks for helping guys.
 
I have had video cards come unseated on AGP motherboards without retention clips and even with retention clips. The PCIe clips are much better designed, and in spite of my going to a LAN party every other weekend, i've haven't had a PCIe card come out yet.
 
I've never had a card come unseated when properly secured in the case.

Maybe if you just leave them hanging there without a screw, but i dont see how they could fall out while secured.
 
Mark_Warner said:
I have had video cards come unseated on AGP motherboards without retention clips and even with retention clips. The PCIe clips are much better designed, and in spite of my going to a LAN party every other weekend, i've haven't had a PCIe card come out yet.
Click to expand...

I've never had even heavy 6800Ultra's or 6800GT's with Silencers installed come out of any AGP slots. I think not having a cheap ass ultra flexable case, and properly building your machine using all screw holes and mounting hardware is key in making sure things stay secured.

Not saying you don't know how to build a computer, but I've never seen you are describing ever occur in machines that were built with sturdy cases, and proper assembly. I've always seen it happen in cheap aluminum, or thing steel cases and on machines that aren't put together very well. (Not very many screws used and so on.)

On PCI-Express I can see it happening with an 8800GTX due to the length and weight of the card. Not to mention the PCIe slots are extremely shallow compared to the connectors and slots on AGP/PCI motherboards.
 
I was working on my PC today that's to receive a 7950GT 512MB on X-Mas and I went ahead and broke off the PCI-E retention clip.

The one on this MSI board is poorly designed and will possibily be blocked by my Zalman cooler to-be-installed so I didn't want the hassle. I hated it.
 
kent said:
Socket's 5 and 7 did not have AGP.

Super Socket 7, while mechanically identical to Socket 7, provided the first AGP interface outside of the Intel 440LX/BX
Click to expand...

wrong... Socket 5 maybe not, but about a year ago I got rid of a Socket 7 Baby-AT board that had an AGP 1x slot. It was not Super Socket 7 either. Had a 66MHZ FSB that could be overclock with setting for 66+ (didn't understand that one), 75MHz, 83MHz, and 95MHz. But all the settings higher than 66MHz overclocked the PCI and AGP slots with it too. I can't for the life of me remember the model of it though.
 
Dan_D said:
I've never had even heavy 6800Ultra's or 6800GT's with Silencers installed come out of any AGP slots. I think not having a cheap ass ultra flexable case, and properly building your machine using all screw holes and mounting hardware is key in making sure things stay secured.

Not saying you don't know how to build a computer, but I've never seen you are describing ever occur in machines that were built with sturdy cases, and proper assembly. I've always seen it happen in cheap aluminum, or thing steel cases and on machines that aren't put together very well. (Not very many screws used and so on.)

On PCI-Express I can see it happening with an 8800GTX due to the length and weight of the card. Not to mention the PCIe slots are extremely shallow compared to the connectors and slots on AGP/PCI motherboards.
Click to expand...

The video card in question was very heavy. It had two giant heat sinks and fans. It was installed in my Antec P160, and the screws were very tightly wound. The card was just very, very heavy. It didn't ever actually come completely out. I just had to open the case and push on it a time or two to reseat it. It was maybe a millimeter out of whack. But with the AGP pins the way they are, it didn't take much.
 
ryan_975 said:
wrong... Socket 5 maybe not, but about a year ago I got rid of a Socket 7 Baby-AT board that had an AGP 1x slot. It was not Super Socket 7 either. Had a 66MHZ FSB that could be overclock with setting for 66+ (didn't understand that one), 75MHz, 83MHz, and 95MHz. But all the settings higher than 66MHz overclocked the PCI and AGP slots with it too. I can't for the life of me remember the model of it though.
Click to expand...

95MHz was an official AMD FSB speed, the K6-2/380 and 475 are examples of such.

If it had AGP, it was officially a "Super Socket 7" chipset. Perhaps they hung an AGP "slot" off the PCI bus.
 
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