pci weakness on Asus B85plus

[roy thinnes]

I recently exchanged my Intel 1156 mobo for an Asus B85plus one (1150 socket).
I didn't reinstall Windows but used Paragon Adaptive Restore which worked out surprisingly well.
Nevertheless I didn't get any benefit regarding pci performance, au contraire - I'm getting pci overflow on projects which worked before on the old mobo.
Several things come to my mind:
-pci sharing: maybe a case of Scope cards placement?

I'm still using a 2-slot passive Agp video card. Regretfully, due of its thickness I cannot place the two Scope pci cards close to each other. the agp is in between.

maybe I should buy a pci-e graphic card, so I could place the Scope card closer together?
-AHCI: at the moment I'm running in IDE mode, because of a Win XP installation. Would it be better to switch to AHCI ?
-unknown device in device manager on Pci 10 - I cannot figure out what this should be. Calls itself USB-Controller..
-I know Hyperthreading is recommended to be turned off. but here on the Asus B85plus there isn't such a feature (despite according to manual there should be this option). you just can turn off active processor cores (All, 1, 2, 3). but that's not what would help, or?

[garyb]

AGP card? there's no slot for this! perhaps it's a PCI video card?
yes, you should have a PCIe video card.

dunno about the unknown device....

not all processors have hyperthreading or turbo. all have EIST. turn off EIST.

it's always possible that the board is defective, even if it's new. i've seen this at least 3 times in the past. the PCI controller doesn't always work correctly. how many masterverbs do you get?

[roy thinnes]

the Agp is in the middle (marked green), PulsarII is above it, Scope is underneath it.
I get 11 Masterverbs before getting the pci overflow message.
EIST is turned off.

[garyb]

11 masterverbs is pretty good.
can you do a global optimization and get it the problem projects working? if so, did you try to resave the working config?

that's not an AGP slot, btw. it's a second X16 PCIe slot running X4. the yellow one is where your video card should be. there haven't been AGP cards since Pentium4s ruled the land.

[roy thinnes]

now that you're saying it..of course: AGP was the next level after Isa. I once had a Matrox Millenium with Agp, 10 years ago or so.
Sorry Nvidia GT 520 for calling you an AGP card

I didn't even realize that the golden slot is also suitable for the grafic card.

I'll install it on the yellow slot and report back.
Btw I had 11 Masterverbs with the old 1156 mobo, I hope there is more to come with the 1150 ..

[roy thinnes]

nope.
I've relocated grafic card and Pulsar2, but still only 11 masterverbs.

maybe I should move the Scope cart so it will seat directly beside the Pulsar2?

now its
(empty PciEx1 slot)
-grafic card-
(empty PciEx1slot)
-Scope-
(empty PCIslot)
-Pulsar2-
(empty Pci slot) (new place for Scope card?)<

on the other hand it's good that there's enough air circulation around the cards.

btw after deleting masterverbs from project, a 'communiucation error with Pulsar2' message occured.
maybe a sign I should clean the card connectors?

[garyb]

yes, cleaning the connectors is a good idea.

11 masterverbs is, and always has been, quite good. without insane tweeks, there have never been motherboards that worked much better, even back in the days of PCI support on the chipset. maybe an old BX-based chipset might do a little better(not much), but you'll be back in win98.

the card with all the irq sharing may or may not work better in the extra, unused slot, you can try it. if you end up with a shared irq that involves USB, then you will need to disable the offending USB controller.

[roy thinnes]

ok, system is running fine and stable but I'm still jealous of this guy that reported having 14 masterverbs on exactly that mobo. dunno how he achieved this
but anyway thanks again Gary for your help!

[garyb]

yeah, that was amazingly good.