Owners Manual

120 Installing System Components
Expansion Cards and Expansion-Card Risers
The system supports up to four PCI Express (PCIe) expansion cards on two
expansion-card risers.
• Expansion-card riser 1 provides two PCIe x4-link Gen 2 expansion slots.
• Expansion-card riser 2 is offered in two versions:
– The standard expansion-card riser 2 provides two
PCIe x8-link Gen 2
expansion slots.
– The optional expansion-card riser 2 provides one PCIe x16-link Gen 2
expansion slot.
CAUTION: Expansion cards can only be plugged into the slots on the expansion-
card risers. Do not plug any expansion cards into the riser connectors on the
system board.
To identify expansion slots, see "Expansion-Card Riser-Board Components
and PCIe Buses" on page 184.
Expansion Card Installation Guidelines
Observe the following notes and guidelines regarding the expansion-card
slots:
• PCI Express Generation 2 and Generation 1 expansion cards are supported
in all slots.
• In slots 2, 3, and 4, expansion cards can have a maximum length of
24.13
cm (9.5"). Slot 1 supports a full-length (30.99-cm [12.2"]) expansion
card.
• The system supports three full-height expansion cards and one low-profile
expansion card (slot 2).
• Although slots 1 and 2 are physically PCIe x8 connectors, they function
only as PCIe x4-link slots.
• When the optional x16-link riser is installed, slot 4 is not available.
• The expansion-card slots are not hot-swappable.
• Besides the integrated storage controller, the system supports a maximum
of two PERC controller expansion cards to manage external storage.