Fact or Fiction: Never put a card in the slot directly below the video card.

[FreakyOCR]

It may conflict with it.... true with AGP and PCI?????

[jkrohn]

Do you mean any card?

OI know that sound cards can cause quite a few conflicts if placed there.

Jkrohn

[Scorpio69]

I don't know it for a fact, but I always avoid it.

[FreakyOCR]

I avoid putting ANYTHING there.... would it be ok to stick say a network card???

[HomeYield]

I think that its been mentioned that it might cause some problems but I don't think that it always does. If nothing else, you can always try it and if something does go wrong just move it.

[Sixpac_XP]

One thing with my systems is that I never enable "PNP OS" in the bios... seems to clear up the problems with the sharing of PCI ports between the AGP and the 1st PCI slot....


maybe I am wrong but maybe I am right. Not sure but I don't like the O/S mucking automatically with my IRQ and DMA's...

I'd rather set them manually.

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

I generally can't put anything there, it's usually a shared slot, (shares same part of rear panel)

[cadetstimp]

yup....I usually put the NIC next to the AGP. Just because it is the most flexable card when it comes to using resources. Just as SixPac mentioned ... setting PNP to NO will allow the mobo bios to assign resources and resolve conflicts (which works a lot better than Microsoft). It usually does so (IRQ wise anyways- memory addressing is hard coded by slot) by assigning built in legacy first and then PCI slot nearest edge as it works towards the AGP slot. Unless assign IRQ to AGP is selected whereas it will assign AGP IRQ before it runs the PCI slots. I've found placing cards such a SCSI controllers and sound cards to work more successfully on first attempt when kept furthest away from the AGP slot without using the shared ISA/PCI slot (if your board has an ISA slot).

[hawkeye177]

I thought that the main reason to avoid it is because of heat issues.

[EvilRick]

I don't have anything in the PCI next to AGP because of the heatsink and fan stuck on it.

[KenKun]

Me too .. i never use the first PCI slot .. because i use card fan for my OCed AGP card ...

[FreakyOCR]

I have my slot fan cooling my vid card, actually.

[DanU]

I usually try to avoid putting a card in the first PCI slot purely for heat reasons. But in some computers I've put various cards in there with no problems.

[charmler]

Don't put a card there if you have to block the airflow to the vid card. I have had some problems with glitches when the slot is filled with an AGP card and the next slot (PCI 1) has almost any other card in it because on the boards we use the AGP and PCI slot 1 share the same IRQ.

[thekingofpain]

The m/b manufacturers dont know whats up? Why would they put a slot there if its unusable? Just to trick us? add to the slot count? Cheaper for them not to have it there, but they add it?...

Just curious---whats the heat issue associated with using/not using this slot? (other then wild h/s/fan add ons that require clearance?) how can using it for a NIC (or otherwise) add heat to my AGP card???

[Sixpac_XP]

Originally posted by cadetstimp
yup....I usually put the NIC next to the AGP. Just because it is the most flexable card when it comes to using resources. Just as SixPac mentioned ... setting PNP to NO will allow the mobo bios to assign resources and resolve conflicts (which works a lot better than Microsoft). It usually does so (IRQ wise anyways- memory addressing is hard coded by slot) by assigning built in legacy first and then PCI slot nearest edge as it works towards the AGP slot. Unless assign IRQ to AGP is selected whereas it will assign AGP IRQ before it runs the PCI slots. I've found placing cards such a SCSI controllers and sound cards to work more successfully on first attempt when kept furthest away from the AGP slot without using the shared ISA/PCI slot (if your board has an ISA slot).

thanks... I thought I was correct!

[Thud]

The m/b manufacturers dont know whats up? Why would they put a slot there if its unusable? Just to trick us? add to the slot count? Cheaper for them not to have it there, but they add it?...

If my memory serves me correctly, when AGP slots were introduced, they shared resources with the PCI slot below it... they must not have had a way around it. I suppose the rationalization was that they didn't want to cut out a PCI slot, because not everyone had an AGP card to use. Does that make sense? I'm kinda tired.

Also, I know leaving the top PCI slot empty when using the AGP slot used to be the norm, but you'd think they'd have come up with a way to make them completely independent of one another by now.

[Hoods]

I always put my two video cards in the AGP and PCI 1 slot.
Can't live with out two monitors

[rlpos]

I never have had a problem as long as the two slots are not sharing an IRQ (As you see I managed to leave out the "Not" in this post)

[Fingers]

I always thought it was an IRQ sharing issue.
I had a Micron Millennia that simply would not play complex games without locking up. Micron Tech support had me tinkering with all kinds of Bios and driver settings, but I was finally able to fix the problem by moving the SB Live card out of PCI #1. (same IRQ as AGP on the Intel SE2 mobo) I now avoid using PCI #1 when possible.