error initializing pci express peg slot

[lievenv]

Hi All,

I have an old dell dimension 8400 (P4 - 3.4GHz; bios version A09) with a PCI Express ATI Radeon X800 card. The MB has 1 x1 pcie slot and 1 x16 slot.

I wanted to add an ASUS pci express x4 SATA/USB3.0 card to be able to use the machine as a home storage server (win 7 Pro installed).

So I got an older VGA PCI card, which works fine after I change the video setting in the bios from PEG to PCI.

When I plug in the sata card in the pci-e slot however, I get an "error initializing pci express peg slot" at boot.

The machine boots fine if I press F1, but the windows doesn't see the asus card at all (even without installing the sata drivers, the card shows up in win7, when I plug it in my Dimension 670).

Any thoughts?

Thanks!
Vincent

 

[E4g1e]

Here is the problem:

The primary PCI Express slot on the motherboard inside that Dimension 8400 supports only graphics cards. It does not support non-graphics devices at all. The Dimension 8400 uses the very first of the PCI-e Intel chipsets, the Intel 925X, which is compliant with only the very first version of the PCI-e standard (which as conceived its designers did not think that any non-graphics device could use more than x1 bandwidth).

 

[lievenv]

I feared as much...
Thanks for the reply!