Gigabyte Z97 G1 Sniper.. Endless BOOT LOOP... help plz

So I just purchased this computer.. I have had it for like 4 days, but 2 days i spent trying to figure out how to boot the system on my old HDD so i could install windows but i dont have a CD for windows i purchased it as a downloadable copy and i never burned it to a disk. So i had to buy a new DVD rom since i guess IDE is totally gone now lol.. And yada yada..

So i finally got it all installed and running, windows loaded on my SSD i was doing windows updates and installing drivers and so forth... I reboot the computer and boom endless BOOTLOOPS.. It doesnt even get the windows screen.. The screen stays black and reboots every 2 seconds and beeps.. I could however press DEL and get into the bios.. I tried switching to the backup bios.. no go.. reset the cmos, unplugged the power and removed the battery for a few hours.. no go.. Unplugged all my peripherals no go, removed a stick of ram tried diff ram slots.. Still nothing..

Spent like 10 hours trying to fix this.. I did google searches and found nothing... except a million other people between different genetations of the X intel chipsets with the same issue.. I finally started changing settings in the bios and when i changed the PCI-E from GEN 3 to GEN 2 now it works fine.. Boots up and im typing this out as we speak..

What the HECK ? I did a google search on this and others found the same fix as well on the x97 and x99 chipsets.. Changing the speed of the PCI-E one notch down fixes the bootloops.. What is the speed difference FPS wise in games between having my system on GEN2 vs GEN3 ?? And considering i am finding this issue to be widespread on all kinds of manufacterers with the x97 and x99 its almost leading me to believe this is an INTEL problem.. and if thats the case ill jump ship to AMD get myself a 9950FX and a new motherboard and never go back to intel... I know that sounds drastic but this is BS..


Im sure you guys have heared of the bootloop issues but have you ever seen my fix for it before and if so does anyone know of a way to get this system to be stable again on GEN3 so i dont have a performance loss in games...

My system is

4790k Devils canyon
16gb g.SKILL Ripjaws x CAS 9
Gigabyte z97 g1 sniper
Sapphire r9 290 tri x O/C
EVGA 750W G2 PSU
Silicon power SSD 240GB, WD Black 1TB, WD Blue 640gb

Jesus, put the pitchforks down... you could go to amd which doesn't have pci3???

I didnt have this issue on ANY z97 or x99 board I have reviewed/owned. Sometimes the problem is in the cards bios/ a particular card/brand. f you have a dual bios, see if there is an updated one for it at the mfg website and flash to it. Check the mobo mfg site for an update to the motherboard bios as well.

As far as performance losses, it really is negligible. 1-2% at most. Google "pcie scaling techpowerup" and check out that article for details (I'm mobile right now amd answering all 4 of your thteads.....).

LOL sorry my pitchfork is down but you just don't understand the issues I have been having 24/7 with my new system.. I don't have a copy of windows 7 on a disk I never got around to burning it to my disk and so I couldn't install windows.. Obviously it wouldn't load windows on my old HDD as the hardware changed... and I didn't realize SATA went to DVD drives as well so my DVD drive wouldn't plug in so I had to get one, then I had to download some program and burn it to a disk and it allowed me to boot to the disk and change windows drivers to allow my new hardware to boot into my old OS and then w7 WOULDNT see my SSD so I spent hours fixing that..

Then after I got that fixed and installed windows my PC started reboot cycling and going to gen 2 was the only thing that fixed it and I spent $1200 on this PC so you can imagine downgrading PCI-E lanes kinda pisses me off 1-2% is good but its the point of me having to do that that made me mad..


Anyway I downloaded a new BIOS for my board that supports the Devils canyon CPU and now the PC cycle boots even with gen 1 or 2 or 3.. So I finally gave up last night went to bed.. Its 3pm now I woke up.. (you can see how many hours I was working on this for me to be so tired to wake up at 3pm lol) And within 5 minutes I fixed the issue.. Was randomly turning off and on settings in the bios.. and turning off the Intel gpu in the CPU off allowed my PC to stop cycle booting... I went back in the bios changed the GEN 1 to 2 and still booted up fine, and then I changed it from GEN 2 to GEN 3 and it boots up fine now..

So their must be some kind of conflict between the Intel graphics on the CPU and the R9 290 dedicated card. Finally that **** is done.. And I just played a video game to test out the system.. World of tanks, AHH feels so good to max out all the details.. and wow.. the sound quality on this CORE3D creative thing blows my Audigy 2 away.. I cant believe this game sounded like this and I was missing out..

Sorry for having my pitch fork out as you said but I was just literally working on this for 10+ hours and I was about to blow up

Next time you can use the iGPU for troubleshooting.
Glad it's working now.

Personally speaking, over the years I have found Gigabyte to have more bios issues than the other motherboard brands. Their hardware is outstanding, generally speaking, but their bioses often seem to be buggy.