Install high end graphics card on 2950?

Very doubtful as there is no PCIe 16x slot. There are some 'risers' that can turn an 8x slot into a 16x slot, but it would at best force you to use half height videocards, which limits your choices to low end cards again).

I'd recommend buying a Precision Workstation T7400 or so (same chipset and processor offerings) and put in a PCIe 16x card of your choice.

Thanks for the quick response and that's what we though the answer will be.....

 

According to the 2950 documentation....

NOTE: Although the PCIe x4-lane expansion slot on the PCIe left riser option is physically a PCIe x8 connector, it functions only as a PCIe x4-lane slot.

 

So, the 3 PCIe Riser that came with the server only supports PCIe x4. We end up purchasing PCIex1 graphics card and stucked it into the PCIe x4 riser to give us a higher graphics capabilities than the onboard ATI ES1000.

 

Another strange thing is that we removed the center riser and the 2950 refused to start up throwing out an "E1A12 PCI Rsr Missing" message. We replaced the center riser with another x8 to x16 riser so we can try installing x16 graphics card and the 2950 refused to start again and giving a "E1A11 PCI Rsr Config" error message.

 

Is there any place where we can remove or change the configuration of the riser card? There is no such setting in the BIOS. We are using 2950 III.

 

Thanks!

As Dell doesn't offer such a riser, I doubt you can get any non-Dell riser to work properly.

Desktops are standardized usually, but servers are far from standardized (hardware wise).

After many arduous hours of searching forums and trying every trick or combination of things, this is what did not work for me.

* Nvidia NVS 290, PCIe-x1, boots perfect, Windows 7 sees it, but no video using the NVS 290.

* Removed the DRAC card as suggested, and restarted the server. I had a 6 minute boot time, got the extended monitor to work once, then epic fail on each restart. I concluded the NVS 290 definitely does not work.

* Tried an Nvidia NVS 280, PCIe-x16 as suggested in another post I read. I nodded the cars by removing pins 50-52. Installed the cars in PCIe-1. Started the computer, Windows loaded fine, but again no video on the NVS 280. I again removed the DRAC, but this time long boot hang with no video ever. Conclusion, the NVS 280 does not work.

What finally did work for me!

* I accidentally stumbled across an Nvidia NVS 285, PCIe-x16, HP model P283. Instead of modifying this card, I used a x8 to x16 ribbon cable, and installed the card in the PCIe-1 slot after removing the DRAC card.

* I booted the computer perfect. No hangs, no bangs, even scanning the raid drives and everything, I had a total boot time of under two minutes.

I don't know of this will work on any other system, model, or configuration, but this exact card, a P283 using a ribbon cable in slot 1 worked for me. I now have dual screens, an extended desktop, and a very happy client.

This was my server I had used:

Dell Poweredge 2950 III

CPU: Dual Intel Xeon Quad Core 2.5GHz

RAM: 16GB

Bios: Newest version as of 10/23/2014

HDD: 4x500GB in RAID 10, 2x2TB in RAID 0

PCIe-Slot-1: Nvidia NVS 285, 128MB, P283, PCIe-x16 mounted upside down using a x8 to x16 adapter.

PCIe-Slot-2: Sound Blaster Audigy FX 5.1. PCIe-x1

PCIe-Slot-3: Cmedia 5.1 Digital Sound Card PCIe-x1

RAID: PERC6i

Removed DRAC card completely. No other changes or mods to the system.

I hope this helps someone. I built this for a client I had that needed a new radio station server and it ended up turning out awesome, once I found the right card to use.