F5F Stay Refreshed Hardware Desktop After installing an SFP+ card on your desktop, no POST occurs.

After installing an SFP+ card on your desktop, no POST occurs.

After installing an SFP+ card on your desktop, no POST occurs.

N
NooLele
Posting Freak
Find
847
07-16-2023, 07:25 AM
#1
In recent months I've been aiming to remove all HDDs from my desktop and switch entirely to SSDs, with the upcoming upgrade being a SFFPC. My plan involves moving data to a NAS. About a month ago I set up the NAS, bought a 10Gbe switch, acquired two 57810S SFP+ NICs (dual port, 8x PCIe Gen 2.0), added 10Gbe fibre modules, and connected everything over the past week. Initially, installing the NIC on my aging server worked smoothly; I used a DAC to link it to the switch. However, when attempting the same on my desktop, problems arose.

Specs: i5-11600KF, Z590M GAMING X motherboard, 32 GB RAM at 2666 MT/s (4x 8GB sticks), NVMe 1TB drive, three SATA HDDs of various sizes, Nvidia 970 4GB, and a 650W PSU from 2015.

Progress so far:
1. Placed the NIC in the 4x PCIe slot and powered on the PC – it made normal sounds but the screen stayed black.
2. Removed the NIC, restarted the system – received a "computer failed to POST" error.
3. Tried again, suspecting a dirty contact, but found no improvement.
4. Searched online, but results were unreliable and outdated.
5. Considered a PCIe generation mismatch; set it to Gen 2.0 in BIOS (matching the NIC), which resolved the issue.
6. Noticed a warning on Gigabyte’s site about an older BIOS vulnerability for my motherboard; decided to upgrade.
7. During installation, USB ports disappeared because the dropbox screen went off; I unplugged all HDDs.
8. After updating the BIOS without HDDs, the PC booted successfully. After some testing, I reached nearly 9 Gbps with my SAS controller in the NAS and cached data flowed well.
9. Realizing I’d removed HDDs, I powered off and reconnected them. On restart, I encountered the same errors again.

Analysis:
- My PCIe slot supports up to 20 lanes; my CPU only has a few, and the GPU uses 3.0 Gen 2.
- Updating BIOS without HDDs freed up lanes, but reconnecting drives re-enabled SATA.
- The chipset appears to be consuming many lanes, possibly limiting performance.
- My GPU supports 16 lanes, but I’m unsure if it can run at full capacity with only 4 lanes left for NVMe and the onboard controller.
- Changing to 8 lanes might help, though it’s unclear if my current GPU can sustain that.

Potential solutions:
- Reduce PCIe usage by lowering lane count (e.g., 8 lanes instead of 16).
- Consider a different chipset or controller with fewer lanes.
- Bifurcation could be an option, but it doesn’t seem to fit the symptoms.
- Verify HWinfo data – it shows 21 lanes for GPU and 4 for SSDs, suggesting more than expected.

Feedback needed:
Could anyone confirm whether my lane allocation is correct or if another component is limiting performance? Adjusting lane numbers might be necessary before finalizing the upgrade.
Reply
Reply
N
NooLele
07-16-2023, 07:25 AM #1

In recent months I've been aiming to remove all HDDs from my desktop and switch entirely to SSDs, with the upcoming upgrade being a SFFPC. My plan involves moving data to a NAS. About a month ago I set up the NAS, bought a 10Gbe switch, acquired two 57810S SFP+ NICs (dual port, 8x PCIe Gen 2.0), added 10Gbe fibre modules, and connected everything over the past week. Initially, installing the NIC on my aging server worked smoothly; I used a DAC to link it to the switch. However, when attempting the same on my desktop, problems arose.

Specs: i5-11600KF, Z590M GAMING X motherboard, 32 GB RAM at 2666 MT/s (4x 8GB sticks), NVMe 1TB drive, three SATA HDDs of various sizes, Nvidia 970 4GB, and a 650W PSU from 2015.

Progress so far:
1. Placed the NIC in the 4x PCIe slot and powered on the PC – it made normal sounds but the screen stayed black.
2. Removed the NIC, restarted the system – received a "computer failed to POST" error.
3. Tried again, suspecting a dirty contact, but found no improvement.
4. Searched online, but results were unreliable and outdated.
5. Considered a PCIe generation mismatch; set it to Gen 2.0 in BIOS (matching the NIC), which resolved the issue.
6. Noticed a warning on Gigabyte’s site about an older BIOS vulnerability for my motherboard; decided to upgrade.
7. During installation, USB ports disappeared because the dropbox screen went off; I unplugged all HDDs.
8. After updating the BIOS without HDDs, the PC booted successfully. After some testing, I reached nearly 9 Gbps with my SAS controller in the NAS and cached data flowed well.
9. Realizing I’d removed HDDs, I powered off and reconnected them. On restart, I encountered the same errors again.

Analysis:
- My PCIe slot supports up to 20 lanes; my CPU only has a few, and the GPU uses 3.0 Gen 2.
- Updating BIOS without HDDs freed up lanes, but reconnecting drives re-enabled SATA.
- The chipset appears to be consuming many lanes, possibly limiting performance.
- My GPU supports 16 lanes, but I’m unsure if it can run at full capacity with only 4 lanes left for NVMe and the onboard controller.
- Changing to 8 lanes might help, though it’s unclear if my current GPU can sustain that.

Potential solutions:
- Reduce PCIe usage by lowering lane count (e.g., 8 lanes instead of 16).
- Consider a different chipset or controller with fewer lanes.
- Bifurcation could be an option, but it doesn’t seem to fit the symptoms.
- Verify HWinfo data – it shows 21 lanes for GPU and 4 for SSDs, suggesting more than expected.

Feedback needed:
Could anyone confirm whether my lane allocation is correct or if another component is limiting performance? Adjusting lane numbers might be necessary before finalizing the upgrade.

Reply
Reply