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I got my hands on some 1x -> 16x PCI-E ribbon cables as well as 16x -> 16x PCI-E ribbon cables from 9mart. Figured before I do any major disassembling, I wanted to see if I could give my main PC some better airflow by moving my hardware RAID controller to a floating position somewhere around the area od the CPU + RAM. My board is an EVGA 790i SLU Ultra. It has 1x, 16x, (blocked), 16x, PCI, 16x, (blocked). Right now I have a 2 slot sapphire 5830 in the top 16x and a 3 slot ASUS 5870 in the bottom 16x (has a zalman VF3000A heatsink on it now) leaving my RAID controller, which has a 4x connector and is currently in the middle 16x slot and blocking airflow to my 5830.

I'd like to put my hardware RAID controller in the top 1x slot. What would be option likely most successful without bricking something? I don't have a dremel, just a drill with various drill bit sizes, some very small.

Try to drill the edge off the 1x slot and mount the RAID controller there securely.

or

*use the ribbon cable and have it float or ghetto-mounted somewhere.

If I decide to use ribbon cables, what pins do I short so my RAID card shows up? I tried a 1x -> 16x and put my RAID controller there and it didn't show up after the bios screen like it usually does. Also tried 1x -> 16x and daisychained 16x -> 16x on top of that to get the card in a better spot and still didn't show. I thought I read a thread somewhere where you have to short some pins in the PCI-E slot but I can't find it.

* This option will have the bounty. If you can get my raid card working on a 1x slot -> ribbon cable without destroying anything, i'll thank you in this thread and send you 1 BTC to the address you provide, but only for the first successful solution.

Your miner cards aren't going to mind being in x1 slots as they don't need high data rates anyway. Your hash rate will be just as fast in an x1 slot as an x16 slot.

So you are better off putting the RAID card on an x16 extender in an x16 slot, and putting the miners on x1 extenders in x1 or x16 slots. Usually presence pin wires are needed when you want to put an x1 extender in an x16 slot since not all the x16 pins are being used - and this is only the case on some boards.

On my Gigabyte board I can use x1 in x16 without any pins shorted.

Thing is, this is my main PC that I game on. It uses a case 'n everything. I barely have enough room for 1 set of extenders for 1 floater, let alone 2.

Case is a Thermaltake Mozart TX. Here is a bad picture of part of the area of interest with a fan slapped on the side.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9768004/IM000468.JPG

I can try to put in a better picture later if I can find camera. Raid cables as well as water cooling tubes are a nuisance and in the way of putting a graphics card anywhere else, so thats why I wanted to move the RAID card.

There are pins you have to short, they are listed in this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=36061.0

Give that a try and see if it works for you to get it working on an extender! If so, it should be reasonably easy to mount somewhere, I mean, most of my mining cards are held up with zipties.

What can I short it with? So far I tried a garbage bag tie (flexible metal string with some paper wrapped around it) and it's either not thick enough, or I bent the pins in the PCI-E slot. <.<

The mainboard you are using is properly a "eVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI". This is how it would look with two video cards where you indicate:

http://www.hothardware.com/articleimages/Item1120/790i_SLI_9800_GX2.jpg

It seems you don't want to use the middle PCIe slot directly, as a card there would reduce airflow potential through the video card fan. I would propose using the 16x->16x extension cable you already have, to use the middle 16x slot, but simply offset the RAID card down one slot (and mount it 1" above the board due to the extender depth). This would give you the airflow clearance you desire:

http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff99/qubez1/790extender.jpg

The RAID card requires a PCI-E. The slot you propose me to move it to is an old-school PCI slot. Won't work.

Er, never mind. I see what you're trying to say. Unfortunately, the SATA cables that connect to the RAID card isn't long enough for the very top card (6 drive RAID 10).

It's a 3ware, 9650 SE, 8 ports (2x ports actually, but they split into 4 each, special connector)

No, read. You will be installing it above the PCI slot location using the extender.

Yeah, sorry. I re-read it after I typed my reply and re-looked at the picture, and understood what you meant. I edited my post above your post why that's not viable either :(

I can certainly try, regardless, but I'm scared to anger the RAID gods, Drives like to drop out for apparently no reason several times a day, then stop having problems altogether for months on end.

BTW, to raise a card up, you can screw a stack of these motherboard stand-off screws into the the case card slot, and then screw down the card:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y87/markn26/squidoo/stand-off-screw.jpg

Looks like it comes with custom SATA snakes, clearly not long enough if you can't put the card in a normal card location:
http://www.scsi4me.com/images/3Ware-9650SE-8LPML-Kit.jpg

12" SATA extension cables: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812123382

Well back on after fooling around with a ribbon cable and a card that didn't like to stay put. Hard "hard" can you bend the cable back on itself? Had problems with it bending into the 5830's fan and didn't want to break it.

At one point couple days ago, I tried 1x > [RAID] > 1x > [58xx] > PCI > [580xx] > PCI, and even though the screen came up, my bios moaned that the primary display adapter needed to be on the top PCI-E slot. ...... The hell? Does my board have a favorite color too? Hobbies? Favorite sport? I don't see why any ol PCI-E slot shouldn't work for primary display adapter..

I appreciate all this work you're going through these idea, celeron, and I hate shutting you down every time because of some nuiance. My excuse on the SATA extension cables is I've exhausted my budget for "fixing" stuff this month (5870 fan went bad, bought a VF1000 from someone on BTC forums only to find it's not powerful enough, had to buy a VF3000A from newegg. Also bought a cpu + board + ram for $50 only to lose the gamble and find the board doesn't work and buying a new board from newegg, wireleass keyboard/mouse, etc) and can't afford anymore new parts at the moment. D: