Sometimes you really need a 10G card but only have a x1 slot left.

[AnonymousGuy]

More of a status update than anything else but I was mildly surprised a) this worked and b) that it wasn't that difficult to do.  My server is an MATX board and all the x16 slots are occupied with raid and a gpu so...figuring that at worst I fuck a $70 x540-T2 card:

 

 

Dremel set to about 25,000 rpm, with a diamond wheel made really clean and quick work of it.  If anyone ever tries this...wear breathing protection cause glass fibers are bad.

 

It's only a PCIE2.0 x1 slot so I'm only going to get 500MB/s at most but that's plenty for my application.

 

Oh I also learned that I have some motherboards with x1 slots that have the back of the slot left open so you can install any length card in them without needing to cut anything.  Unfortunately my server motherboard put a capacitor right next to the x1 slot so that wouldn't work even if I cut the slot open.

[Haraikomono]

2 minutes ago, AnonymousGuy said:

More of a status update than anything else but I was mildly surprised a) this worked and b) that it wasn't that difficult to do.  My server is an MATX board and all the x16 slots are occupied with raid and a gpu so...figuring that at worst I fuck a $70 x540-T2 card:

 

 

Dremel set to about 25,000 rpm, with a diamond wheel made really clean and quick work of it.  If anyone ever tries this...wear breathing protection cause glass fibers are bad.

 

Oh I also learned that I have some motherboards with x1 slots that have the back of the slot left open so you can install any length card in them without needing to cut anything.  Unfortunately my server motherboard put a capacitor right next to the x1 slot so that wouldn't work even if I cut the slot open.

r/MadLad  just let me get my Dremel 

[TheSLSAMG]

I've done this with an 8400GS, didn't have a Dremel though so I hacked at the connector with a pair of side cutters and filed it the rest of the way. Works fine even though that was a dangerous way of doing it.

How much is the bandwidth gimped by doing that to it? Theoretically it shouldn't be too bad if that card is PCIe 3.0 compatible, right? Whoops saw where you said it.

[Windows7ge]

I...would have settled on using a 1x riser cable...

 

That poor 10Gig card.

[flibberdipper]

Just now, Windows7ge said:

I...would have settled on using a 1x riser cable...

 

That poor 10Gig card.

Or even just, yknow, doing it to the slot on the board as opposed to yeeting the card.

[Windows7ge]

1 minute ago, flibberdipper said:

Or even just, yknow, doing it to the slot on the board as opposed to yeeting the card.

OP mentioned there was a capacitor in the way.

 

But, you know, the cap could have been moved with a little hot air and some wire extensions.

[Kilrah]

1 minute ago, flibberdipper said:

Or even just, yknow, doing it to the slot on the board as opposed to yeeting the card.

He said there was a cap at the back of the slot...

 

But yeah, cringe

[AnonymousGuy]

13 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

I...would have settled on using a 1x riser cable...

 

That poor 10Gig card.

no where to mount a riser.  I tried using an adapter with the low profile bracket on the card but it's way too janky and I don't need one card flopping into another card right next to it and shorting out, because it's an MATX case I basically have 4 things all stacked next to each other in the expansion slots and the heatsinks leave a couple mm of clearance.

 

it'll still work at ~10G in a pcie 3 x1 slot but it's an X99 mobo so they only put pcie 2 on the x1.   Can't wait to try out sequential from the array SSD to my desktop and see what a maxed pcie lane looks like.

[AnonymousGuy]

12 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

OP mentioned there was a capacitor in the way.

 

But, you know, the cap could have been moved with a little hot air and some wire extensions.

Risk assessment.  The motherboard is 3x as expensive as the NIC is to replace if something gets broken, and I have 2 more of these cards just sitting on my parts shelf unused.  (at one point I had more servers and 10G but consolidated and went back to 1G because there's very little need for 10G at home).  Also it being a server that is both public and private, I can't have major downtime to uninstall the motherboard.  Hell I have to plan for off-hours to install the PCIe card.

[Windows7ge]

I can't get on board with it...

 

This just sounds like poor planning. If you realized you were burning though PCI_e slots you should have gone ATX.

[Kilrah]

42 minutes ago, AnonymousGuy said:

it'll still work at ~10G in a pcie 3 x1 slot but it's an X99 mobo so they only put pcie 2 on the x1.

Nah, the card itself is PCIe 2.1 it seems, so 5G minus overhead at best is all you'll ever get off of it now. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

9 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

I...would have settled on using a 1x riser cable...

 

That poor 10Gig card.

I ran one temporarily off an M.2 to PCIe adapter because the board I was using would downgrade the GPU to x8 if I used any of the empty x16 slots.

[Alex Atkin UK]

9 hours ago, AnonymousGuy said:

it'll still work at ~10G in a pcie 3 x1 slot but it's an X99 mobo so they only put pcie 2 on the x1.   Can't wait to try out sequential from the array SSD to my desktop and see what a maxed pcie lane looks like.

I'd be concerned it will cause collisions as data will come into the card quicker than it can be delivered to the rest of the system.  Had pretty poor results between mixed speed clients myself without flow control and AFAIK that wont help in this scenario.

[mariushm]

11 hours ago, AnonymousGuy said:

Risk assessment.  The motherboard is 3x as expensive as the NIC is to replace if something gets broken, and I have 2 more of these cards just sitting on my parts shelf unused.  (at one point I had more servers and 10G but consolidated and went back to 1G because there's very little need for 10G at home).  Also it being a server that is both public and private, I can't have major downtime to uninstall the motherboard.  Hell I have to plan for off-hours to install the PCIe card.

Buy replacement capacitor. 

Use pliers with sharp blades  to cut the capacitor in half so that existing leads remain soldered into the board.  Pull the bottom half off leaving you with only the leads. 

Solder the new capacitor to the leads. 

Apply some kapton tape or something under the capacitor, and another layer over the leads, so nothing gets shorted.

 

less than 5 minutes of downtime..

 

Anyway, good job... you'll get maybe 450-480 MB/s ... still better than 2.5gbps ethernet.