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PCIe riser and adapter installation rules and order (server model with four PCIe risers)

Use the information in this topic to understand installation rules and order for PCIe risers and PCIe adapters in the sever with four PCIe risers.

Note
  • PCIe Gen4 risers contain PCIe Gen4 slots only.
  • PCIe Gen5 risers contain PCIe Gen4 and Gen5 slots.
  • Performance may degrade when a x16 PCIe card is installed in a x8 lane PCIe slot.
  • Legacy option ROM boot is only supported on the PCIe adapters installed in the PCIe slot 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9 12, and 14
  • The available PCIe slots will depend on the number of processors installed:
    • With two processors installed: PCIe slot 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, and 14
    • With three processors installed: PCIe slot 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14
    • With four processors installed: PCIe slot 3 to 14
  • PCIe slot 11 is unavailable when one of the following PCIe risers is installed:
    • x16/x8/Serial PCIe G4 Riser 2/C HHHL
    • x16/x8/Serial PCIe G5 Riser 2/C HHHL
  • When a ThinkSystem 256GB TruDDR5 4800MHz (8Rx4) 3DS RDIMM v1 is installed in the system, the maximum number of the following PCIe risers is three.
    • x16/x8/x8 PCIe G4 Riser 2/A/B/C HHHL
    • x16/x8/x8 PCIe G5 Riser 2/A/B/C HHHL
  • When a ThinkSystem 256GB TruDDR5 4800MHz (8Rx4) 3DS RDIMM v1 is installed in the system, the following PCIe risers can not be installed:
    • x8/x16/x16 PCIe G4 Riser D HHHL
    • x8/x16/x16 PCIe G5 Riser D HHHL
  • When a ThinkSystem Intel E810-DA4 10/25GbE SFP28 4-Port OCP Ethernet Adapter is installed in the system, no other OCP module can be installed.

PCIe riser installation rules and order​

Installation priorityPCIe riser typeRiser location priority
1x16/x8/Serial PCIe G4 Riser 2/C HHHLRiser C
2x16/x8/Serial PCIe G5 Riser 2/C HHHLRiser C
3x16/x8/x8 PCIe G5 Riser 2/A/B/C HHHLRiser A, riser B, riser C
4x16/x8/x8 PCIe G4 Riser 2/A/B/C HHHLRiser A, riser B, riser C
5
  • x8/x16/x16 PCIe G4 Riser D HHHL
  • x8/x16/x16 PCIe G5 Riser D HHHL
Riser D

PCIe adapter installation rules and order​

Installation priorityComponentPCIe slot priority
1
  1. 16i RAID adapter
  2. 16i HBA adapter
  3. 8i RAID adapter
  4. 8i HBA adapter
5, 14, 11, 8, 6, 12, 9, 3
2
  1. ThinkSystem NVIDIA ConnectX-7 NDR400 OSFP 1-Port PCIe Gen5 Adapter
  2. ThinkSystem Mellanox ConnectX-6 HDR/200GbE QSFP56 1-port PCIe 4 VPI Adapter
  3. ThinkSystem Nvidia ConnectX-7 NDR200/HDR QSFP112 2-Port PCIe Gen5 x16 InfiniBand Adapter
  4. ThinkSystem Mellanox ConnectX-6 Dx 100GbE QSFP56 2-port PCIe Ethernet Adapter
  5. ThinkSystem Broadcom 57508 100GbE QSFP56 2-port PCIe 4 Ethernet Adapter
  6. ThinkSystem Mellanox ConnectX-6 HDR100/100GbE QSFP56 2-port PCIe VPI Adapter
  7. ThinkSystem Mellanox ConnectX-6 HDR100/100GbE QSFP56 1-port PCIe VPI Adapter
14, 6, 9, 13, 3
3
  1. 10/25GbE SFP28 2-port PCIe Ethernet Adapter
  2. 10GBase-T Ethernet Adapter
5, 14, 6, 9, 4, 12, 10, 13, 11, 7, 3, 8
Note
The following PCIe adapters are not supported in slot 9.
  • ThinkSystem Intel X710-T4L 10GBase-T 4-Port PCIe Ethernet Adapter
  • ThinkSystem Broadcom 57454 10GBASE-T 4-port PCIe Ethernet Adapter
4RJ45 Ethernet Adapter5, 14, 6, 4, 12, 10, 13, 11, 7, 3, 8
5
  1. PCIe Fibre Channel Adapter
  2. FC HBA adapter
5, 14, 6, 9, 4, 12, 10, 13, 11, 7, 3, 8
6External RAID/HBA adapter5, 14, 4, 10, 13, 11, 7, 8
7Management NIC adapter1
8OCP module1, 2