PCIEx pins are missing on PCIEx slots!!!

[LegolasElf]

Hello guys,

After 24 hours of banging my head against the wall because of crossfire instability, I think I have found the root of my problems. I need you guys to give me a sanity check. As soon as I plug a second 7970 GPU in the second PCIe slot, I cannot game for more than 10 minutes without a complete lockup with crazy white noise coming out of the speakers. I went GPU by GPU one at a time in the first slow and it worked like a charm every time. Then I decided to go GPU by GPU on at a time in the second slot and could not game for more than 10 min without a complete lockup/freeze. Upon inspection of my PCIe bus slots here is what I found:

PCIEX16_1:
This is my very fist PCIe 16x slot that I have used for a single GPU before I started using crossfire. No issues with this slot




PCIEX16_2:
Second slot where I plugged in my second 7970 for CF. Pins are missing on the right half of the bus!



PCIEX16_3:
I don't use this slot but I noticed the same thing as on slot PCIEX16_2



Guys, am I out of my mind, If I am, please tell me now.

My specs are in my sig.

 

[Ajay57]

Looks to me a RMA Job before the Warranty runs out if that's the case with the missing Pins? AJ.

 

[LegolasElf]

I know the second slot is an x8 slot but should it be missing pins like this? Can anyone confirm this? What is a good way to verify the integrity of a PCIE slot?

BTW when I first built my rig last November, when I first fired it up to install windows, I had crash/BSOD issues during installation and it was due to the fact that I had my (at the time) MSI Lightning 6970 plugged into this second gray slot. As soon as I moved it to the first blue slot, the PC ran like a charm.

EDIT: Cards do not exceed 72C on load when in crossfire. A single card in the second slot will run a little hotter, maybe about 67C as oppose to it running in the first slot around 62C. I never crash when I am using a single card in the first slot. As soon as I plug a single card in the second slot, or plug 2 cards in crossfire, instability ensues.

 

[EarthDog]

Looks to me a RMA Job before the Warranty runs out if that's the case with the missing Pins? AJ.

No.



This is normal... its a 16x physical slot with 8x electrical. Flip the motherboard over and look to see the solder points below it.

Normal, NO NEED FOR AN RMA.

 

[Aynjell]

How many sticks of RAM are you running? If it's 4, try switching to 2. I found on socket 1155, you can't run dual GPU and 4 sticks of RAM without the exact issue you're experiencing.

 

[LegolasElf]

No.



This is normal... its a 16x physical slot with 8x electrical. Flip the motherboard over and look to see the solder points below it.

Normal, NO NEED FOR AN RMA.

View attachment 120876

ED, can I assume a bad PCIe slot given my experience with it when I first built the PC?

I am using 2 sticks of RAM.

 

[EarthDog]

Dont assume anything...

How did you install the drivers for the cards upon installation?

 

[LegolasElf]

Dont assume anything...

How did you install the drivers for the cards upon installation?

I did not re-install drivers upon enabling crossfire-X. I was using 12.10. I popped in the second card and enabled crossfire and started gaming. Then with both cards installed, I wiped 12.10 drivers and ran driver sweeper in safe mode, then I installed 12.11 beta with both cards installed and crossfire disabled. Then when drivers were installed and after i rebooted, I enabled crossfire.

 

[EarthDog]

Here is how I do it.. install one card, install drivers. Reboot, then power down. Install 2nd card, install drivers, reboot. Enable CrossfireX. ou have to install drivers for each card or it wont work properly.

 

[LegolasElf]

Here is how I do it.. install one card, install drivers. Reboot, then power down. Install 2nd card, install drivers, reboot. Enable CrossfireX. ou have to install drivers for each card or it wont work properly.

Wow I had no idea. Im going to do it right now. Ill be right back with results.

 

[Ajay57]

Sorry for the error ED but i thought it was 2 x 16 PCI-E now checking the Asus web site for Elf's Mobo. Its 16X and 8X and when you fit 2 cards in Xfire in drops to 8x plus 8x instead! AJ.

 

[LegolasElf]

Ed, at which point do i install the crossfire bridge cable?

 

[EarthDog]

When you physically put the 2nd card in.

Sorry for the error ED but i thought it was 2 x 16 PCI-E now checking the Asus web site for Elf's Mobo. Its 16X and 8X and when you fit 2 cards in Xfire in drops to 8x plus 8x instead! AJ.

What matters is what is physically attached to the slot, not what it breaks down to upon installation.

 

[LegolasElf]

Ok, testing now

 

[Ajay57]

Well next time i will double check the Mobo on the web site as to how many pins per PCI-E Slots. lol.

 

[EarthDog]

Or just dont post if you dont know... simple.

 

[LegolasElf]

ED, no luck

I followed your instructions on installing the drivers. One thing that happened is after I installed the second card and CF bridge and 2nd drivers, when I got the the Windows login screen, I was greeted with a black screen. But I could still type in my password and hit enter to login and hear the windows sounds. Basically everything was working but my monitor wasn't displaying anything. So i hard rebooted and I was greeted with a low res login screen and when I logged in it was behaving as if video drivers were not installed. I thought this was ok since this is when I install the drivers for the second card. Once I did this i rebooted and everything was ok. But I am still locking up 5-10 min in games

I am out of ideas. I have troubleshooted this on every level and it still points to the second slot. There is no reason a single card should not be able to run from the second slot. Any ideas are welcome. I am desperate to get this to be stable.

 

[LegolasElf]

In BIOS I have graphics set to PCIe, PCI is also one of the options. Render Standby is also enabled by default. I'm not sure what that does.

 

[EarthDog]

Have you tried different drivers? What are temps of the cards before this happens?

 

[LegolasElf]

I rolled back to 12.10. Issue still occuring. Card temps max out at 72-74C