Can I plug a PCI SATA Card into the PCI-E Graphics port

ish4d0w · 09 Jul 2015

Hi

My motherboard doesn't have any PCI slots - only a PCI-E port, the one we normally plug graphics cards into.
That slot is free now - I use the built-in graphics. As you see, there are only two SATA connectors on this board, which is painfully few. So, I thought, maybe I could put a SATA card into that PCI-E plug so I would have 4 SATA ports then? (two onboard and two on the card)
That card is old, but still working fine, Silicone SATA RAID. Would I be able to use it for booting, or for a DVD drive? :O Maybe both?

Is it like a traditional SATA Controller or are there any limitations compared to the onboard plugs? I never tried using it for either a DVD drive nor for a boot drive, only for secondary data disks. That did the job fine, though in a vanilla/standard PCI slot. Never tried putting it into a graphics card slot, but seems like that's my only option here.

Oh and the type is MSI AM1i if you want to look it up. I'll include a photo here. The PCI-e Graphicsport in question is on the bottom in the picture.

EDIT: Oh, looking at the picture.... There is a beeper on the top left, sticked to the bottom of one of the rear connector boxes. It is connected to the board, but it never sounds. I want it to make that beep on boot. (POST chime) How do I enable that? There doesn't seem to be a BIOS setting for that.

[CLICK HERE] for official specs

Can I plug a PCI SATA Card into the PCI-E Graphics port-msi_am1.jpg

Lady Fitzgerald · 09 Jul 2015

Physically, it will fit (the bottom slot is PCI-e, not PCI, btw). The problem is how many lanes will it support. I looked at the specs and they are ambiguous at best. You should be able to get a card to give you more SATA ports but you may not get full speed unless that slot has more than one lane. Also, make sure the card uses one lane per SATA port. There are a lot of cards that have two or more SATA ports but run off only one PCI-e lane (I'd like to shoot the eejits that design and sell those abominations). I doubt you will be able to boot off of a card (some cards allow it but require that the MOBO will support it, which they often do not).

Edit: I found the card on Newegg and their description is better than MSI's. The slot physically is x16 long but, electrically, it has only x4 lanes. That will support up to four more SATA ports as long as the card uses the same number of lanes.

This card may work for you. The most common negative review is on the difficulty of getting drivers to work. Read the reviews for tips on it. Also, you might get lucky and Win 7 will already have the driver you need (that was what happened when I installed my LSI 9211-8i).

ish4d0w · 11 Jul 2015

Thank you really much! Great answer.
I have one SATA card around which has 2 SATA ports. Unsure how many lanes tho. I can post a pic but we might be able to see even better pics in google, model number is Silicon 3512 SATA RAID card

I'll give it a try and report back within a week. If it doesn't work I think I'll buy the card you suggested - I like experimenting!

- thanks for the suggestion too!

Lady Fitzgerald · 11 Jul 2015

ish4d0w said:

Thank you really much! Great answer.
I have one SATA card around which has 2 SATA ports. Unsure how many lanes tho. I can post a pic but we might be able to see even better pics in google, model number is Silicon 3512 SATA RAID card

I'll give it a try and report back within a week. If it doesn't work I think I'll buy the card you suggested - I like experimenting!

- thanks for the suggestion too!

Your card is a PCI card, not a PCI-e and will not fit in the PCI-e slot on your MOBO.

FYI, PCI was the standard before PCI-e. It had only one lane whereas PCI-e has 16. They are not interchangeable.

Layback Bear · 11 Jul 2015

Very good information Lady.

ish4d0w · 15 Jul 2015

Oh I see. Thank you very much, very good post.