Dell Mini Tower System manual Expansion Cards, Expansion Slots, Installing an Expansion Card

Expansion Cards

Expansion cards are installed on the computer’s riser board (see Figure 6-3). The riser board plugs into the RISER connector on the system board (see Figure 6-1) and is considered an extension of the system board.

The system accommodates up to seven expansion cards, which can be a mix of 32-bit PCI expansion cards and

8- and 16-bit ISA expansion cards. (See Figure 6-2 for examples of ISA and PCI expansion cards.)

8-bit ISA expansion card

16-bit ISA expansion card

32-bit PCI expansion card

Figure 6-2. Expansion Cards

Expansion Slots

Nine expansion-card connectors reside on the riser board (see Figure 6-3). Because two expansion slots are shared, a maximum of seven expansion cards can be installed on the riser board.

•Expansion-card connectors ISA1–ISA4 support 8- or 16-bit ISA expansion cards.

•Expansion-card connectors PCI1–PCI5 support 32-bit PCI expansion cards.

NOTE: Because connector PCI4 shares expansion- slot space with connector ISA1, and PCI5 shares with ISA2, only one card of either type can be installed in each of the two shared slots.

LED ISA4

	ISA3
PCI5	ISA2

PCI4
PCI3	ISA1

P1

PCI2	HDLED
	connector
PCI1

Figure 6-3. Riser-Board Expansion-Card Connectors

Installing an Expansion Card

Follow this general procedure to install an expansion card:

1.If you are installing a non-Plug and Play ISA expansion card, enter the ISA Configuration Util- ity (ICU) and add the new expansion card to your configuration.

See Chapter 3, “Using the ISA Configuration Util- ity,” for instructions.

NOTE: If you install a PCI or Plug and Play expan- sion card, your system automatically performs any required configuration tasks during the boot routine.

2.Prepare the expansion card for installation, and remove the computer cover according to the instructions in “Removing the Computer Cover” in Chapter 5.

CAUTION: See “Protecting Against Electro- static Discharge” in the safety instructions at the front of this guide.

See the documentation that came with the expansion card for information on configuring the card, making

6-2 Dell OptiPlex GXa Mini Tower Systems Reference and Installation Guide