PCIe x1 slot compatibility?

jhansman wrote: Well, by now you all know that the diagram in the manual  (p. 12) shows that both white slots , numbered 37 & 41 on the diagram, are PCI-e 2.0  x1. If the other slots will work, I'll give them a try, as now I am only using one of  x16 slots for my vidcard. As for the maker of the USB card, no idea. Got it from Deal  Xtreme (only took a month to get to me-slow boat from China); I knew it was a dice roll ordering from them, but I wasn't ready to pay $40 for the Asrock card on Newegg, for the luxury of 3.1 speeds. All this is for a USB-C cable that will connect an audio device to my PC. So, just to be clear, even though the card is the x1 size, it can still work in a larger slot? THAT would worry me about frying something, so until I hear from you all hear that this card can be used in the larger slot, out it stays. All I know now is that it is not recognized by Win 10, does not show up in Device Mgr., and the drivers will not install. I suspect the card is shoddy, and the slots are fine, but I have no other card to check this out with.

First, ONLY use PCIE slots, NOT the PCI slots. That would be slots PCIE1, PCIE2, PCIE3, PCIE4, and PCIE5.

The old PCI interface is different and not compatible with a PCIe card.

Yes, you can use a PCIe x1 card in any PCIe slot, whether x4, x8, or x16.

Looking at any overall PCIe slot, from left to right horizontally, we see a slot, then a small filled in "key" that indexes with a notch in the PCIe card, and then the second  slot on the right of the key.

The first slot on the left provides power and control connections for the card. The second slot provides the data connections and their support connections. PCIe cards of x1, x2, x4, x8, and x16 simply have that many data connections, the others go unused in longer slots used with shorter slot cards.

The PCI slots are completely different, and have power pins in different locations along the length of the entire slot.

If you put your PCIe x1 card in a PCI slot, which you said you did, with the metal mounting bracket where is should be to mount on the PC case (which would not align correctly), and turned on the PC, you may have killed the card at that point.

IF the pins in the PCI slot contacted the connections on the PCIe card, -12V was applied to a +12V contact on the card, and +5V was applied to two control clock pins on the PCIe card.  Also, +5V was applied to a signal connection contact on the card. That's only a small review of the slot pin to card contact mismatch. None of the ground connections in that general area match, but who knows what actually happened.