Expansion Slot Utility Question

[borism]

Hello
I need some help
Im installing my HD Accel PCI system on my new Mac Pro 8 core with a Magma 6 slot expansion chassi
The computer shows me at start up a menu called "Expansion Slot Utility", with different configurations of "Speed" for the PCIe cards.
It tells me that the PCIe host card is not running at maxximum speed..?? this is new for me
Can anyone tell me what is the propper selection - option of speed settings?
Thank you!!
Boris

[JC925602]

some details from Apple Support

Rather than using a bus as PCI did, PCI-E uses dedicated, unidirectional, point-to-point connections known as "lanes" to communicate with PCI-E devices.

The Mac Pro features four PCI-E 16-"lane" connectors on the main logic board. In PCI-E, these are known as "x16" slots....

PCI-E cards will work in slots that are at least as large as the card is. This means that the "x16" slots in the Mac Pro computer also supports "x1" and "x4" cards as well. However, all four slots cannot simultaneously support four cards that implement the same lane configuration. Only one slot actually has 16 lanes going to it—you can put a x16 card into a slot that is only using one lane and it will operate properly, but it will operate more slowly than the same card in a x4, x8 or x16 slot.

The Expansion Slot Utility, located in /System/Library/Core Services, allows you to configure the PCI-E expansion slots and how many lanes each slot will support...

I think there is a maximum of 26 lanes on a Mac Pro.
16 for the the video card
4 for the magma host card

You may have to change card order to match the possible configurations:
PCI-E Slot...Default....Configurable Bus Bandwidth
4.................x4............x8...x4...x8
3.................x4............x1...x4...x1
2.................x1............x8...x8...x1
1................x16...........x8...x8...x16

If you want to keep your video card at full speed, you cannot put the magma card in slot 2.
Do you have other cards in your system?

JC

p.s. The G5 quad cannot reconfigure it's PCI-e lane configuration, it's: 16-lane, 4-lane, 8-lane, and 4-lane.
Here is the theorical speed of PCI-e:
x1 = 500 MBps
x4 = 2 GBps
x8 = 4 GBps
x16 = 8 GBps

[borism]

I just wanted to share what Digi Support told me, worked like a charm..

Here what they told me to do

Hi,

The following should get you going:

If the graphics card is a 16x model, you should put the Magma host card in Slot 4 and use one of the first 2 options in the Expansion Slot Utility (the options being number from the top down, 1-4).
If the graphics card is an 8x model (unlikely, though possible), you should put the Magma host card in Slot 2 and use #3 or #4 in the Expansion Slot Utility.
The Expansion Slot Utility can be found in MacHD>System>Library>Core Services

If you have problems after making these adjustments let us know.

Best regards,
Digidesign Technical Support

Cheers
B

[bad jitter]

I have (in my Mac Pro 8-core) ATI card in slot 1 (8-speed), the nVidia card in slot 2 (8-speed), and Magma host card in slot 3 (4-speed). So I am using the third (x8-x8-x4-x4) option. But I can see, that I could get better speed (8-speed) for Magma if I would put it into PCIe slot 4 instead of 3 and switch to the second (x8-x8-x1-x8) option. Should I try this? But Digi says that put the Expansion Chassis host card next to the video card...