In my room I have a spare PC with a graphics card capable of x16 in PCI Express (ATI Radeon X1550 IceQ), so I thought I would test the speed of the video card. After some testing I noticed that it wasn't going the the speed it was supposed to be running at (transfer rate at 700MB/s), this led me to the conclusion that the motherboard is not capable of x16, even though it can take a x16 card.
I have checked the BIOS to see if their is a setting that will allow me to change the speed of PCI Express, which it didn't. I then remebered that I didn't update the BIOS for this motherboard.
So I was wondering; could updating the BIOS allow change in PCI Express speeds?
Note: I don't know much about PCI Express so be nice. :D
http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php
Download, install, save info to htm, upload
Here you go.
QuoteBus PCI-Express
Device : Radeon X1300 Series
Version : 1.0
Port : 0
Link Width : x16 (max. x16)
Link Speed : 2.5 GB/s
The X1300 isn't that powerful, it doesn't need the full 2.5GB/s and so won't use it if it doesn't need to. Basically, it's not that the card is being bottlenecked, it's that it's weak-ish ;)
Also I'd recommend an upgrade to XP on that thing =o
Hmm...it said it was an X1550 on the box, but okay.
Thanks for your help Roph and I'll see if I can find my XP disc for my spare. :D
+rep