I've NEVER been so FRUSTRATED... Hot-Swapping PCIe Cards
I've NEVER been so FRUSTRATED... Hot-Swapping PCIe Cards
2018-05-07
I remember seeing in the bio settings of
this motherboard this very expensive
motherboard an option for PCI Express
hot swap which I have never personally
tried before but what it sounds like is
just putting PCI Express cards in and
taking them off while the system is
running is that gonna work
Wow I actually super don't know
so let's find out after I tell you about
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so there's lots of things in a computer
that are hot swappable and that we
hot-swap every day so USB for example
even though you would safely remove the
device theoretically with the you know
little prompt in the bottom corner
anytime you are taking something out or
putting something in without powering
off first
it is technically hot swapping some
standards that don't support hot swap
like ps2 keyboards for example you can
still for the most part hot swap them
without any ill effects with all of that
said there are components out there that
either cannot be hot swapped or have to
be specifically designed for hot swap in
order to function with it even
components like CPUs and memory can
actually be hot swap but that's more of
a server level feature where the system
itself and usually some kind of a
daughter board that that slides in or
whatever else has to be designed for it
because you can't just you can't just
cut power to a to a computer component
and expect everything to operate
normally
now as for PCI Express I confess
I haven't done a ton of research coming
into this so it's possible that the
device itself also needs to be designed
for hot swap but then it's possible that
it doesn't I don't know we're gonna find
out today for those of you wondering the
the Titan X here I will not be hot
swapping bad that's just here so that we
have a display output I think it's time
for us to go find some victims so this
is our selection of random PCI Express
cards that are a sort of dubious value
these actually this I got for free in
scrapyard Wars you know what let's start
with these okay so oh yeah before we do
this I should probably enable hot swap
is no idea what any of these settings do
sure looks good to me
I wonder what's better black slots or
gray slots I'm gonna try a gray slot oh
this feels so wrong
okay nothing catastrophic appears to
have happened okay it's not showing up
let's try a restart stop code driver
power state failure go ahead and cut
okay so one of three things happened
here either
you have to actually power off for it to
be detected we're gonna try that first
or we killed it or it was dead already
which is quite possible this is been
sitting on a shelf for literally years
either way it can go over there now all
right now this I am at least 40 percent
sure works okay whoa whoa whoa hold on a
minute
I think that's more USB than we had
before okay don't cut this clip because
no one's gonna believe me if we cut this
clip
maybe I was wrong so I think cut so
after powering down and turning it back
on it's working
did it not show up because the system
had never seen this device before oh oh
ouch ooh
oh I'm correctable error ouch dried and
cut we're gonna disable it Ben we're
gonna pull it we hot unplugged something
am I gonna get away with a hardware
changes scan I'm starting to wonder if
these are just bugged on this computer
look still in there but I know for a
fact so I can prove that the hardware is
not in there let's just go for it oh
damn it
go ahead a different boot drive all
right let's try I'm more fresh windows
oh there it goes Gordon cut maybe the
black slots are bad luck you let me down
buddy maybe we just need to try
something that's not a storage device
how about this network card go ahead and
cut so what we think we know so far is
that we haven't actually killed any of
the hardware we've been experimenting
with I did find a couple potential
sacrificial cards here so this is like a
50 450 and then this is that Titan that
we brutally savaged
so the AMD card seems to have given zero
FS just like the network card go ahead
and cut just like an OG Titan it's not
it's not very high in anymore either
we're showing it up
let's try restart here oh my god is that
what does update go ahead and cut
okay so we're having problems bleeding
at all no
so the Ambu card is showing up now yeah
I think what we have to do is try some
more modern hardware a 750 series SSD
and let's try a more modern graphics
card a 1050 Ti well fans turned on table
ones definitely getting power
come on really has to be a try
everything but so let's see if at least
after just a soft reset they show up cuz
that will tell us if maybe Windows is
the issue wait what the graphics cards
not showing up let's pull the SSD
let's fire up Windows server go and cut
okay okay bye
so I'm an idiot you don't have to enable
this I didn't even read it this just
says you have to enable this if your OS
does not support PCI Express hot-plug
go ahead and cut so let's go straight
for gold
No here goes the USB Drive no Network
quick cut can Linux handle it better it
showed up and then it crashed while we
were trying Linux I was preparing a
server 2016 installation I'll shut up
best case scenario so we have the
presence of mind to disable it before we
pull it there's some options ok ok so
we've reached the point in this project
where it's time to talk to tech support
and I did find a really interesting
article so this is an Intel white paper
about their data center SSDs but as you
guys might have noticed when we were
booted into Ubuntu this SSD shows up as
one of their data center SSDs they're
actually based on a very very similar
platform in fact they believe they use
the same PCB even so I was really hoping
that this would behave similarly and
they do support hot-swap PCIe including
surprise hot ad or hot remove but native
OS hot plug no so we need to have that
off ok bios hot plug support is only for
if it doesn't support it natively which
this says Windows does and we have to
ensure that surprise hot plug registers
are set correctly so I'm gonna try this
while I wait for a soos to get back to
me go ahead
Oh Cole oh hey all right well I guess if
it never detects it it can never crash I
think I've been going about this all
wrong I saw PCI Express hot plug in the
BIOS and I went yeah yeah these slots
but what if what if they actually mean
PCI Express storage over you dot two so
this board is actually really unique
come have a look at this in that it has
four this is part of what it's using all
those PCIe lanes on the CPU for it has
four u dot two connectors so these are
technically four X PCIe slots
effectively you can actually just run a
cable off of them and plug them into a
16 X slot what they're intended for
though are nvme drives like this one
this is the same drive as this it's just
that instead of this it's got this so
the board might only be set up for that
on these lanes
I mean it's less dramatic looking but
this is still potentially really cool
which means
come on cut so I am NOT defeated our a
wonderful contact of a soos gary has
actually worked over the weekend it
turns out the features there on the
board and it's exposed in the vials it's
not enabled so they have provided me
with a beta bios that should enable it I
actually wasn't that far off the board
is only specifically designed to support
this hot-plug functionality on the U dot
two ports so theoretically when I flash
this BIOS it will enable or unlock that
functionality close update I'm this is
weird it dropped me right into the BIOS
which means I don't know what's going on
even a SATA Drive isn't showing up as
bootable in here so like there it is
can't boot to it
it's not even beta BIOS is like alpha
BIOS okay you got
I sent a suits a complaining thing about
not being able to boot and I got back
did you RTFM they sent me instructions
for a bunch of bio stuff to reconfigure
in order to enable it so I thought it
was just a BIOS update okay so there is
some crazy stuff in here I'm supposed to
go to socket one ports one a to 1 D and
here is where I am enabling hot plug and
surprise hot plug for my u dot two ports
okay this is great news reading the
manual
I want to see this work that's
interesting
cuttin cuttin okay this is the Ray
driver we need there it is okay where's
my Drive there it is okay here it is
there it is but off camera I had another
idea
so there's hot plug options in the BIOS
for other PCI Express slots on this
board but Asus has specifically told me
that there's like a finished system that
uses this board as a base that has a
special backplane that enables the PCI
Express slots themselves to be hot
pluggable but that the standalone board
doesn't do it so given that following
their instructions so far has been my
best bet I'm gonna take the word for it
but I have something special this is a u
dot two two PCI Express adapter so what
I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take what is
effectively again a PCI Express slot and
I want to hot plug it I don't know if
this is going to work the
oh well we try this one oh you know what
no how far has listening to manufacturer
instructions ever gotten anyone so we're
gonna change not just ports 1 a 2 1 D
we're gonna change all of the ports to
surprise hot plug and hot plug and we
are just going to follow it and see what
happens
one last hurrah so something I don't
know is if turning on hot plug on the
slots could have some kind of adverse
effect on some other functionality so
first things first this is my best bet
for hot pluggable just a sanity check I
want to try off the UDOT to again see
it's powered though see this is what
this is what whoa whoa whoa whoa it's
it's on it works
whoa it really works check it out check
it out activity LED it's fast even
writing crazy now I want to push my luck
oh it handled it gracefully
the craziest thing is I didn't even have
to like refresh device manager it was
just like it was like plugging in a USB
device so now we're gonna try the
network card you recipe card maybe do
you see that right there
No
okay hold hold on hold on USB stick
check this out no it's working
that's that USB driver now what we need
to see is no blue screen
it's gone no blue-screen hot-plug pcie
okay show me that drive activity
here it is again oh that is crazy
now maybe it's slot specific I want to
see this server network card work like
shaking which is not good I mean that's
the most dangerous part of this
apparently it's like screwing up and
like touching metal on some contacts
here or something
total madness there it is there it is I
want to see it work though we are on the
internet on a hot plug okay do we keep
pushing the boundaries Brandon do you
want to see a video card who do we
punish Nvidia or AMD Nvidia what they
ever do to you alright here we go
hey hands are on I can't even believe
this way
holy Shh do you think it's gonna let me
just like install a game or install the
driver and like run a game like is this
as crazy as I think it is we're just
plugging and unplugging cards from a
motherboard willy-nilly it's on we got
to show that there's no there's no
tricks here like look this bitch not
plugged in this is nothing nothing
nothing here this nothing nothing
unbelievable this device is working
properly
I mean is basically everything gonna
work here
the avermedia TV tuner card let's go
back to the very first thing we tried I
want to see this system compatibility
check me can you imagine that just pop a
graphics card in your system and install
the driver and go holy crap it worked
you saw it here first my friend's hot
swapping PCI Express cards in a powered
system because you're just a mega baller
like that and you don't play by the
rules
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