SA76R4 mini PCIe card slot transfer rate

[Gungel]

I want to take advantage of the mini PCIe card slot that's in the SA76R4 and install a SATA 6.0Gb/s controller card upgrade since the on-board controller is only SATA 3.0Gb/s (AMD AHCI). I know I could just install a SATA 6.0Gb/s controller in the PCIe 1x slot, but I want to use it for a Ceton InfiniTV4 card and the PCIe 16x for a Graphics Card.

When I connect a SATA 6.0Gb/s SSD to a PCIe 2.0 1x slot the transfer rate is much higher than on the on-board SATA 3.0Gb/s controller. I tested a Vertex 3 drive. With the on-board controller the SSD achieves about 295MB/s write and the same SSD on an ASMedia ASM1061 PCIe 1x controller about 420MB/s write (ATTO Benchmark). So if I can get that same performance increase with a mini PCIe card I would be more than happy.

But before spending $40 for a mini PCIe SATA 6.0Gb/s with ASMedia ASM-1061 controller I want to make sure that the mini PCIe slot in this SA76R4 is a PCI 2.0 (5.0Gbps) and not PCI 1.0 mini slot. I couldn't find any information on the Shuttle web site with detailed specifications. Does anyone know? Or is there a way to check this with software?

Picture of mini PCIe SATA 6.0Gb/s ASM-1061 controller I want to use:

[jrturbo]

Hi there

I think if you wish to install a sata 3 card you are far better off using the 2nd pci-e slot, you are likely to get better performance and less problems routing the sata cables to your drives, I dont think you would be able to plug the sata cables into the mini pcie card under the unit unless you raised the unit to gain more clearence and you would have to run the  sata cables under the unit and feed them back into to case through a hole or opening.

As for the mini pcie slot you could plug a tv tuner card, or a usb3 card and use a tv tuner plugged into a usb slot or header on the mb.

Regards

Joe Rubido

Joe Rubido

[Gungel]

Hi there

I think if you wish to install a sata 3 card you are far better off using the 2nd pci-e slot, you are likely to get better performance and less problems routing the sata cables to your drives, I dont think you would be able to plug the sata cables into the mini pcie card under the unit unless you raised the unit to gain more clearence and you would have to run the  sata cables under the unit and feed them back into to case through a hole or opening.

As for the mini pcie slot you could plug a tv tuner card, or a usb3 card and use a tv tuner plugged into a usb slot or header on the mb.

Regards

Joe Rubido

Joe Rubido

Well see, I want to turn it into a HTPC with the Ceton InfiniTV4 in the PCIe 1x slot and a Radeon 6570 single slot in the PCIe 16x slot. So the only other option to connect a SATA 6.0Gb/s SSD is through the mini PCIe slot. If this slot is 2.0 compatible I should get the same transfer rate as on the standard PCIe 1x slot.

[Gungel]

I guess the only way to find out is if I test it myself. I ordered above mini PCIe adapter. I'll post my results here once I receive and test it.

[jrturbo]

Hi there Gungel

I wish you the best of luck, since you have already ordered the card lets hope it works as you expect. I feel that shuttle has done very little themselves to promote the use of the mini pci-e Slot and part of the reason is the chosen locatation for the card under the motherboard. I feel that shuttle original idea for the slot was intel memory module. Any other type of module that requires items being plugged into them will require some head scratching and moding to make them work.

I still think that it would have been easier, to get USB version of the CETON INFINITY tv4 tuner, and use the mini pci e slot for something else, although I will assume you already own a pci version of the tv card and the radeon 6570
as your motive to give this a go.

[Gungel]

Hi there Gungel

I wish you the best of luck, since you have already ordered the card lets hope it works as you expect. I feel that shuttle has done very little themselves to promote the use of the mini pci-e Slot and part of the reason is the chosen locatation for the card under the motherboard. I feel that shuttle original idea for the slot was intel memory module. Any other type of module that requires items being plugged into them will require some head scratching and moding to make them work.

I still think that it would have been easier, to get USB version of the CETON INFINITY tv4 tuner, and use the mini pci e slot for something else, although I will assume you already own a pci version of the tv card and the radeon 6570
as your motive to give this a go.

Thank you and yes you're correct, I do have the Ceton and graphics card already. I should get the controller this week.
Regarding the miniPCIe location on the SA76R4. The slot is located on top of the motherboard on the left front corner. So it's fairly easy to plug in a card. It accepts half and full length cards. I'll add some pictures once the card is installed and hopefully running.

[jrturbo]

Hi there gungel

I wasnt aware shuttle had moved the mini pcie slot to upper side of the motherboard, in which case your idea is very sound. I hope it works

Regards

Joe Rubido

[Gungel]

Here we go, the mini PCIe SATA 6.0Gb/s controller arrived this morning.

1: Installation:
I just had to remove the 1/2" card bracket and install the full length mini PCIe adapter from eMegatech (1061ME). The SA76R4 started up and the card was recognized. The controller BIOS showed a message that there was no disk found which was correct since I first wanted to make sure the card is recognized by Windows 7/64. Once Win7 was loaded it automatically installed the standard MS SATA driver. Next it prompted me to reboot the system. After a restart I installed the ASMedia 1061 driver that came with the card. Now I turned off the system and plugged the OCZ Vertex 3 into the new controller. Started the system and Windows loaded without any problems.

2. Benchmark:
Excited that everything went well I decided to first run an ATTO Disk Benchmark. Well the first disappointment. The mini PCIe slot does not conform to PCI-SIG v2.0. The transfer rate was only 200MB/s which is about half the transfer rate that I achieved with a standard PCIe 1x SATA controller card. The theoretical transfer rate for PCIe version 1.0 is 320MB/s (2.5Gbps) and for version 2.0 its about 640MB/s (5Gbps). Therefore it must be version 1.0.
So if the card would be running in version 2.0 mode I should get at least 400MB/s. And that is exactly what I get when using a PCIe 1x SATA card that comes with the same ASMedia 1061 controller chip.

3. Issues:
During one of the benchmarks with the ASS benchmark the system did a power cycle and stopped at the system prompt with an error message: "hypertransport sync flood error has occured" press F1 to continue. I first thought it might be a problem with the CPU or memory. So I changed both the memory and CPU. But again the same error occurred with the same ASS Benchmark tool.
Checking on this error message pointed me to a voltage problem with the CPU or Hypertransport bus. To isolate the problem I removed the mini PCIe SATA controller and plugged the Vertex 3 back into the PCIe 1x controller card. But this time the ASS benchmark ran without any problems. Just to make sure it is in fact a problem with this mini PCIe controller I reinstalled everything anew and sure enough the system power cycled again with the same error message. Removing it solved this issue.
At this time I also tried a newer driver that I downloaded from station-drivers.com. The included driver was v1.2.4 and the newest one I found is v1.3.1. However, the problem did not vanish.

4. Conclusion:
Don't waste your money on a mini PCIe SATA card. First of all it is not running stable and secondly, even if it would run stable the transfer rate is the same as it is with the on-board AMD SATA 2 controller. I think it would be a different story if the mini PCIe slot conformed to PCI-SIG v2.0. I bet that above mentioned power cycles and error message comes from an incompatiblity between the 1.0 and 2.0 specs. Any thoughts are welcome...

The first picture shows the limited transfer rate for the miniPCIe controller from eMegatech (1061ME). In the second picture the benchmark is taken with a PCIe 1x ASmedia AS1061 controller card from SYBA (Part No. SY-PEX40039). The third picture shows another configuration, this time with a PCIe 1x Marvell 9125 controller from HighPoint (Rocket 620). It's interesting that the SYBA controller offers by far the highest write speeds. I'll keep the SYBA SY-PEX40039 since it offers the best performance and return the other two controllers.