Windows 10: Can I swap 2 PCI-E cards without there being any driver issues ?

So I have 2 PCI-E slots, I was thinking of moving my USB 3 card to where my SATA card is, swap them about in the case. The reason being I am purely guessing that the priority of "option ROM" in bios is due to PCI slot number. I have a budget motherboard and I can't disable or enable Option ROMs per PCI slot, only blanket the entire lot. So I am thinking if I put my SATA card on the lowest PCI-E slot my RAID card (which is above it) will load first on boot up, giving me the configuration screen back (which has been taken away by the SATA card, which just shows info and doesn't even give me a config like the RAID card does). At the moment a USB 3 card is in the only available lower PCI-E slot, so I would need to swap that. Can I do that without worrying about drivers being re-loaded or added and other issues ? The less mess the better. Thanks !

Windows 10 Ver 19.09

:)

 

PCI-E x8 in x16 Slot

From what I have read, it seems that one can use a PCI-E x8 card in a x16 slot. Im looking to install a PCI-E SAS card in my desktop. Nearly all of the ones Ive seen so far seem to use a x8 interface but my desktop has only 2 x16 slots, 1 x4 slot and 2 x1 slots. Before I pull the trigger and get this card, I want to be sure that you can use the smaller card in the larger slot. Everything Ive seen so far seems to suggest it will work without an issue.

 

Asus AC68 PCI-E Wireless adapter not working after Windows update (Code 38)

As the title suggests, after the most recent Windows update (brought my version of Windows to 1803), my Asus AC68 PCI-E Wireless adapter ceased to function. According to Device Manager, it was a "code 38" error (Windows cannot load the device driver
for this hardware because a previous instance of the device driver is still in memory.)

Multiple searches have suggested that this is because of an issue with AMD processors, but this is not my situation as I have a Intel based processor.

I have attempted the following troubleshooting steps (without success)

• Uninstall and reinstall the driver
• Use to "PCI lock" function in msconfig
• Restore my computer to a previous state
• Delete the Asus software
• Change PCI port of my card

The only step I could take that did work was to restore a previous version of Windows (it brought me back to version 1709). So, for the moment my card works again, but my PC wants to update again, and I feel like this whole process will begin again if I
do so. For the record, I have already been in touch with Asus support, and they have been less than helpful (some of the steps taken above were at their suggestion). Thank you in advance for any advice.

 

PCI Slot/GPU driver issues?

Hi Eric,

Thank you for being a part of Windows 10 family.

This might have caused due to driver related issues. I suggest you to try installing the PCI and Graphics card drivers in compatibility mode and check if the issue persists.

Refer to the following Windows 8.1 article to install the drivers compatibility mode. The steps for Windows 8/8.1 applies to Windows 10 as well.

Make older apps or programs compatible with Windows 10

Please feel free to visit our website for any help with Windows Operating System.