[NTLUG:Discuss] Discuss Digest, Vol 91, Issue 14

[Ralph Green]

Howdy John,
  I suspect it is the voltage rail, but I don't know for sure.  The two
cards are from Digium.  One is a TDM400 and one is a X100p.  I have
tried them in a in a couple of systems that I know have PCI 2.1 buses
and the cards did not work.  Digium says they need PCI 2.2 and my
testing so far agrees.  I take your point that some chipsets with only a
PCI 2.1 bus may work and that it depends on the chipset and what
characteristic is driving the requirement for the Digium cards..
 Specifically, what I am looking for are used cheap, thin client type
computers that will work with one of those Digium cards.  I am trying to
put together a simple Asterisk or Freeswitch setup that I can do a class
on.  I want it to be inexpensive, because I know a lot of people won't
participate otherwise.  I understand that, because I am pretty cheap
myself.
Good day,
Ralph

On Sat, 2010-07-24 at 12:56 -0500, John Fields wrote:
> In production the biggest difference between PCI v2.1 and v2.2 was  
> supporting 3.3 volts.
> 
> In v2.1 it was 'suggested' to add in the power supply work to supply a  
> 3.3v rail to the socket.  In v2.2 it was mandatory.
> 
> Since this 'feature' is not specific to a particular chipset, model #,  
> etc. I don't believe you can determine it from software without a  
> lookup table built from empirical testing - which to my googling eye  
> does not exist.
> 
> There may have been a software feature first seen in v2.2, or was last  
> seen on v2.1 but again detecting hardware features like that from the  
> OS is not always possible.
> 
> So you have a card which either prefers or requires 3.3v.  If the card  
> has circutry to convert 5v from that rail to 3.3v internally - you are  
> golden; it will work in a v2.1.  But since the voltages are on  
> different rails (socket pins) it shouldn't damage the card, just not  
> power up and work.
> 
> Just plug it in and see (the old fashion testing method) ;)
> JF
> 
> 
> On Jul 24, 2010, at 12:00 PM, discuss-request at ntlug.org wrote:
> >
> > Howdy,
> >  Does anyone know of a command I can run to tell me what version of  
> > the
> > PCI bus I have on a system?  I have a card that needs PCI 2.2 or newer
> >