GPU powers in PCI-e 4X slot, not in 16X...help!

[perryra1968]

Good day to all. I had purchased an Asus 570 DCUII several months ago and it's been fine up until I arrived here in Germany(Military move). I unpacked it, started the PC and my GPU never displayed anything. It has been RMA'd a few weeks ago and returned recently to me. I immediately plugged it back in, booted machine, got a picture during bootup for about 20 secs and she went blank again. I thought it was simply a bad card. I then purchased an AMD 5770 from the local PX here(that's all they had), plugged it in and she is working perfect so far for about 3 weeks. In the meantime, I came across the AMD 5970 on sale at Newegg, it arrived last week. I plugged it in, booted machine and again, no pictue. Now that means I spent almost $800.00 on 3 video cards within 8 months and only 1 works. Now comes the good stuff.
I decided to do some testing by trail and error, process of elimination. What I noticed is that I can plug in the AMD 5970 and the Asus 570 in the PCI-e 4x slot and they work with no issue!! Desktop comes up and everything looks fine(other than they both are looking for drivers) Plug them in the 16X slot and no display, nothing. Back to the 4X slot, and all is well. Also take notice that the 5770 does not require an 8 plug pcie adapter, just the 6. Were as the other 2 require and 8 and a 6 plug pcie adapter. But both work in the 4X slot, not the 16X.
Am I looking at another MB due to the 16X express lane not working for the other cards? It works for the 5770? Both video cards show led and fans running, just no display. Put them in 4X and led, fans and display all work. Also take notice that the Asus 570 DCUII card(a very heavy, big 3 slot card) was shipped overseas to my new home still inside my Antec 902 case. Is there a possibility that the 16X slot gave in and is possibly damaged due to all that weight? I know this is alot to read but any advice would be helpful and thank you. Specs are as follows:

Intel 15-760 CPU
ANTEC 902 case
ASROCK P55 PRO 1156 ATX MB
CORSAIR Vengance 4GB DDR3 1600
ASUS VW266H 25.5" monitor
AMD Diamond 5770 (2 other GPU's standing by)
WIN 7 32bit
WD 1 TB HDD

For the love of God, please advise and thank you.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

youve forgotten to list what Power supply you are a running - It could be that the powersupply isnt sufficient to run the cards you are trying to run


:edit:


aaaaaaaaaaand welcome to the forums!

 

[Mussels]

the slot on the motherboard is just damaged. if you replace the motherboard, it should be fine.

 

[perryra1968]

Opps! Forgot PSU

Yes, sorry about that. PSU:

KingWin Mach 1 ABT-1000 ATX/BTX SLI certified/Crossfire ready 80 plus Bronze certified modular. Should be enough for 1 video card...even AMD 5970. It ran the 570 with no issue before I unpacked it here in Germany. It's been on a boat since July and I unpacked October. My only guess.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

how long have you had that powersupply? - JohnnyGuru gave that PSU an 'OK' but it wasnt great by any means. - there are better performing PSUs out there.

I recently had a friends PSU go bad on him and he had the same symptoms as your having now and it all went away when he replaced the PSU

 

[perryra1968]

I bought that PSU AUG 16 2010. A little over a year. I just recently purchased a new MB(Foxconn) from the egg yesterday to give that a shot. But if it is the PSU, what do you recommend? And thanks again.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

whats your budget man? If you want something future proof with enough power that you can keep plugging stuff in for a few years. go for a Corsair 1000w+ unit if money is not an option.

you could probably get away with a lower wattage unit like a 750 or 850w unit. those tend to be a fair bit cheaper.

the OCZ ZX & ZT range are great at the moment. but Corsair has a 7year warranty on its units. I think OCZ's is 3-5years.

Corsair makes some of the best PSUs ever.


::EDIT::

Oh and before you go off and buy a new PSU - Have you tried re-installing the chipset & graphics properly?

 

[perryra1968]

I think I'll attempt the new MB when it comes in a few weeks from now. If it's the same issue, I'll look at the PSU. I'll definetly take up your suggestion on Corsair PSU's. I hear good things about them also.

Re-install chipset? Do you mean the drivers?

 

[FreedomEclipse]

yeah my bad, Was rushing then i typed that.

the correct way to do a clean driver install is to use a program called 'Driver sweeper'

Uninstall the old drivers - use driversweeper to clean out all the crap the drivers leave behind. - restart the PC and then re-install the new drivers,

It probably wont fix the problem as i am 100% positive its a hardware issue either down to a bad PSU or possible mobo. but its something to rule out just incase its IRQ conflicts that are causing the issue.

you can download the latest chipset drivers for your board from here

IMO - its upto you if you wish to keep that 5970, but your cpu might bottleneck it a little unless its overclocked.

the GTX570 should be pretty sufficient for most games out there on a 22-24" monitor.

 

[jagjitnatt]

Its the motherboard. The slot is damaged. Its a common problem. RMA the motherboard or run it at x4. No way to fix it.

 

[Laurijan]

yeah my bad, Was rushing then i typed that.

the correct way to do a clean driver install is to use a program called 'Driver sweeper'

Uninstall the old drivers - use driversweeper to clean out all the crap the drivers leave behind. - restart the PC and then re-install the new drivers,

It probably wont fix the problem as i am 100% positive its a hardware issue either down to a bad PSU or possible mobo. but its something to rule out just incase its IRQ conflicts that are causing the issue.

you can download the latest chipset drivers for your board from here

IMO - its upto you if you wish to keep that 5970, but your cpu might bottleneck it a little unless its overclocked.

the GTX570 should be pretty sufficient for most games out there on a 22-24" monitor.

Does Driver Sweeper also enable you to not need to install Windows again when changing mobo with different chipset?

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Does Driver Sweeper also enable you to not need to install Windows again when changing mobo with different chipset?

youre thinking back to windows 95/98 when it was possible to take a hard drive out, plug it into any old pc and have it detect everything.

Unfortunately things havent worked like that since Win98 so the answer is no, there are too many things that are installed when you install your copy of windows which prevent it being swapped over.

even if it DID work. windows might to need to reactivate your copy of windows again so youre still back where you started

 

[Sinzia]

I'm betting the slot was physically damaged during the move.
That 570 is one of the triple slot designs, yes?

 

[perryra1968]

Yes, it was the triple slot 570. The thing is, that slot works with a Diamond 5770 with no issue. Though it is only plugged in with a 4 pin PCI-e adapter. The other 2 cards need a 6/8 pin adapters. I did order another MB and PSU. They should arrive soon. My plan of attack is to swap out the PSU first, see if the cards run on it. If they do, then I'll know it was PSU issue. If not, then I will also swap the MB and one of those issues should be solved. I forked over a little over $350.00 for both, so it better work. I can't imagine both video cards are bad considering they both operated under the 4X slot. I'll keep you all posted by the end of the week.