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PCIe riser and adapter installation rules and order

PCIe risers and adapters must be installed in a specific order in your server.

Note

  • PCIe Gen 4 risers contain PCIe Gen 4 slots only.

  • PCIe Gen 5 risers contain PCIe Gen 4 and PCIe Gen 5 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 PCIe adapters installed in the following PCIe slots.
    • Two slot FH risers: 7, 8, 19, 20
    • Six slot HH risers: 11, 14
    • Six slot FH riser: 3, 6, 8, 15, 18, 20
  • The available PCIe slots will depend on the risers and number of processors installed.
    • Two slot FH riser:
      • Two to four processors: 7, 8, 19, 20
    • Six slot FH riser and six slot HH riser:
      • Two processors: 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 15, 18, 20
      • Three processors: 3, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
      • Four processors: 3-20

  • PCIe slot 20 is unavailable for risers with a 7mm drive bay.

  • When a ThinkSystem Intel E810-DA2 10/25GbE SFP28 2-Port PCIe Ethernet Adapter, ThinkSystem Intel E810-DA4 10/25GbE SFP28 4-Port PCIe Ethernet Adapter, ThinkSystem Intel E810-DA2 10/25GbE SFP28 2-Port OCP Ethernet Adapter, or ThinkSystem Intel E810-DA4 10/25GbE SFP28 4-Port OCP Ethernet Adapter is installed, no other Gen 3 RAID/HBA adapters can be installed.

PCIe riser installation rules and order​

Installation priorityPCIe riser typeRiser location priorities
1

7mm/x8/x8 PCIe G4 Riser 3 FHHL

Riser 3
2

3 x16 & 1 x8 + 7mm PCIe G5 Riser 3 FHFL

Riser 3
3

2 x16 & 3 x8 + 7mm PCIe G4 Riser 3 FHFL

Riser 3
4

4 x16 & 1 x8 PCIe G5 Riser 1/3 FHFL

Riser 1, then riser 3
5

3 x16 & 3 x8 PCIe G4 Riser 1/3 FHFL

Riser 1, then riser 3
6

x8/x8 PCIe G4 Riser 1/3 FHHL

Riser 1, then riser 3
7

6 x8 PCIe G5 Riser 2 HHHL

Riser 2
8

6 x8 PCIe G4 Riser 2 HHHL

Riser 2

PCIe adapter installation rules and order​

Installation priorityComponentPCIe slot priorities

1

32i Gen 4 RAID adapter

20, 8, 18, 15, 19

2

  1. 16i RAID adapter
  2. 16i HBA adapter
  3. 8i RAID adapter
  4. 8i HBA adapter

20, 8, 14, 11, 12, 18, 6, 15, 19

3

ThinkSystem Nvidia PCIe Gen4 x16 Passive Aux Kit

6

4

ThinkSystem NVIDIA ConnectX-7 NDR400 OSFP 1-Port PCIe Gen5 Adapter

7, 19, 18, 6, 16, 4

5

Double-wide GPU

18, 6, 16, 4

6

Single-wide GPU

18, 6, 16, 4, 3, 15, 5, 17

7

  1. ThinkSystem Nvidia ConnectX-7 NDR200/HDR QSFP112 2-Port PCIe Gen5 x16 InfiniBand Adapter
  2. ThinkSystem Mellanox ConnectX-6 Dx 100GbE QSFP56 2-port PCIe Ethernet Adapter
  3. ThinkSystem Broadcom 57508 100GbE QSFP56 2-port PCIe 4 Ethernet Adapter
  4. ThinkSystem Mellanox ConnectX-6 Lx 10/25GbE SFP28 2-Port PCIe Ethernet Adapter

20, 8, 18, 6, 16, 4, 19, 7

8

10/25GbE SFP28 4-Port PCIe Ethernet Adapter

20, 8, 18, 6, 19, 7, 16, 4, 15, 3, 17, 5

9

  1. 10/25GbE SFP28 2-port PCIe Ethernet Adapter
  2. 10GBase-T Ethernet Adapter
  3. RJ45 Ethernet Adapter
  4. PCIe Fibre Channel Adapter
  5. FC HBA adapter
  6. External RAID/HBA adapter

20, 8, 14, 11, 18, 6, 19, 12, 13, 7, 9, 10, 16, 4, 15, 3, 17, 5

10

10/25GbE SFP28 4-Port OCP Ethernet Adapter

1

11

Management NIC adapter

1

12

OCP module

1,2