PCIe bandwith and power limitations on new Windows 11 Tower desktop computer

Cards, Drive Accessories, Tools
1

recently new Windows 11 Dell 7020 Tower, and purchased new OEM PEXUSB3S42 (3 port external, 1 port internal, and using internal SATA power cable).
There are 3 PCIe slots in the target motherboard, 2 ea. x1, 1 ea. x16.
I tried using this x1 card on the Slot 1 x1 near the hot CPU and had stability issues. This USB 3.0 card with 5gbps rate was unstable. Unstable even when only using mouse and keyboard. In Slot 1 x1 the USB card would not be recognized at power up. Even later when I moved the keyboard and mouse to the new USB card neither would be detected or recognized. If I fiddled with it in the x1 slot 1 configuration I could get it to work, but was unstable and again at power-up would not auto recognized.

I then moved the card at x1 Slot 1, over to the x16 Slot 3 position on the motherboard, again insuring the SATA power cable remained attached.

The performance at the PCIe x16 slot is very good for this “x1” card.
I will keep it now in this PCIe x16 slot position.

Two reasons why this may be issue:

  1. the x1 slot 1 is physically right next to the CPU fan and so may overheat in that position, while in PCIe x16 slot 3 is far away from CPU fan and heat.
  2. the Dell motherboard bandwidth (by design) may be greater at PCIe x16 slot 3, and the added PCIe bandwidth may be necessary for stable USB card operation.

Everything works very well now at power-up and during operation for keyboard, mouse, and a Logi LED light for computer camera use (all 3 plugged into the external 3 USBs provided by PEXUSB3S42).

PEXUSB3S42 x1 card works great now in PCIe x16 slot 3 position.

Thank you.

2

Hello @charles,

Thank you for posting on the Startech.com Community!

I am sorry to hear you experienced some issues with PEXUSB3S42 in your PCIe x1 slot, though I am happy to hear that it is working consistently in the x16 slot. If the card is functioning properly in one slot but not another, then it sounds like the issue could be something with the slot itself.

The main suggestion I could recommend is checking in your computer’s BIOS/UEFI settings to see if there is an option to set the x1 slot to a specific PCIe version rather than letting it be set to autodetect. This setting is not available on all systems and unfortunately there is not a consistent name for the setting I could suggest to look for, but we have seen this setting help in some situations where PCIe cards are having detection issues so it may be of some help if it is available.

If this setting does not help or is not available, it may be best to continue using PEXUSB3S42 in the PCIe x16 slot.

If you experience any further difficulties with PEXUSB3S42, I would recommend reaching out to our technical support by phone or live chat here: StarTech.com Support

Lukas T