A88M-G/3.1 and PCIe non-graphic cards

ddtech wrote: I am looking for an AMD motherboard which will support any Adaptec, LSI, Dell or HP SATA/SAS, PCIe 2.0, and either x4 or x8 controllers. Which models of ASRock offer this option with either A88X or A85X chipset? I am using an FM2 A10 6700T processor. The A88M-G/3.1 appears to be ok, however I have doubts whether this slot is functional.

Support any "Adaptec, LSI, Dell or HP SATA/SAS, PCIe 2.0, and either x4 or x8 controllers"?

Isn't that asking quite a bit from a sub-$100 mother board?

Does support include booting an OS from a drive connected to one of those controller cards?

I'm curious, what is it about the A88M-G/3.1 that causes it to appear to be Ok? That it simply has a PCIe 2.0 x16 slot? Your doubts about it being functional, is in regards to your requirements, correct?

Information like this can only be answered directly by ASRock. You can contact them with this question via this page:
http://event.asrock.com/tsd.asp

If a slot has the capability for other cards and functions, then this is what is desired. Who cares if it's typical consumer level or not. Some manufacturers have told me that PCIE_1 and 2 were designed to support only graphic functions. So I thought I would simply ask. My requirements are for a simple file server. So video other than VGA, 10 usb ports, sound, and overclocking options are not necessary. I mostly require storage and networking. Booting from an OS can be done with onboard SATA SSD (like M.2), data can reside elsewhere. In case you think I haven't been thorough, CS said this:

-------------------------------------

Thank you for contacting ASRock support.

A88M-G/3.1 board supports A10 Richland processor.

Board has 1 x PCIE 16x slot and 1 x PCIE 4x slot, but I am not sure that workes with the card SAS/SATA/HBA controller due to havent??tested with the board. But mostly should be worked.

-------------------------------------

So YMMV, indeed.. I have used other boards (Asus, Gigabyte) and one particular motherboard (Asus M5A99A Evo R 2.0, 32 Gb RAM, AMD Ph II, X4 925) won't POST when I have a SATA/SAS controller residing in the secondary or tertiary slot, aside from going through the SAS controller BIOS (HP SAS P410). I have seen this with other boards. Intel boards are fine however, even using the only PCIe slot on the board. I have some LSI cards that seem to work as well.

Wardog: Thanks for the info, I will take at look at FM2A88X Extreme6+ board. I have many combos to choose from, so I will see what I can put together and see what works. Server experience is plentiful, heh.... :)

While those boards at asrockrack.com are supremely ideal, the pricing for the proc (E3 or E5 Xeon, even doing SoC) and board are somewhat steep for my needs. thanks for the info.