PCI-E slot faulty?

[Laurijan]

Hi!

I got issues with my ASRock Z77 Extreme4 and a ASUS GTX560Ti TOP.

When trying to start Windows Experience Index calculation it says:
"The Windows Experience Index for your system could not be computed. Could not meassure video playback performance"

When tring to run 3DMark 11 and Vantage I get an error message after I try to start the benchmarks.

I tried the other x8 PCI-E slot and had no problems.

Any idea how else I could test the PCI-E slot before I RMA?

Lauri

[itsakjt]

Try updating to the latest drivers. Remove any unwanted software and check the system. It is very unlikely that the PCIE slot is faulty. But it may happen. Also check the BIOS and disable any overclocking. Run everything at factory settings and check results.

[Sasqui]

Originally Posted by itsakjt

Try updating to the latest drivers. Remove any unwanted software and check the system. It is very unlikely that the PCIE slot is faulty. But it may happen. Also check the BIOS and disable any overclocking. Run everything at factory settings and check results.

Yes, and latest BIOS? Perhaps something to do with the PCIe GEN3 being dependant on the "i" series CPU?

[de.das.dude]

have you tried games? do they crash?

a quick google search shows Asrock seems to have trouble with PCIe Gen3 and GTS 560Tis.
https://www.google.co.in/search?clie...w=1280&bih=901

Or maybe it is the problem of the 560's compatibility with the PCIe3

i suggest you check that you have the lates BIOS for both the GPU and the motherboard. dont forget latest drivers as well.
just for the sake of it, take a fine brush and clean the slot.

[Laurijan]

Originally Posted by de.das.dude

have you tried games? do they crash?

a quick google search shows Asrock seems to have trouble with PCIe Gen3 and GTS 560Tis.
https://www.google.co.in/search?clie...w=1280&bih=901

Or maybe it is the problem of the 560's compatibility with the PCIe3

i suggest you check that you have the lates BIOS for both the GPU and the motherboard. dont forget latest drivers as well.
just for the sake of it, take a fine brush and clean the slot.

Its PCI-E 3.0! I set the speed to PCI-E 1.1 and it works - there is no PCI-E 2 in the bios for some reason.

This is why I love this forum! I would have payed 20€ + shipping for an RMA of a functioning mobo.

Edit:
Is the GPU speed very bottlenecked if i run PCI-E 1.1?

[Sasqui]

Originally Posted by Laurijan

Edit:
Is the GPU speed very bottlenecked if i run PCI-E 1.1?

I will likely make a difference. The board should have PCIe 2 available.

This is from Wiki:

AMD latest flagship graphic card, the Radeon 7970, launched on January 9, 2012, is the world's first PCIe 3.0 graphic card.[27] Initial reviews suggest that the new interface would not improve graphic performance compared to earlier PCIe 2.0, which, at the time of writing, is still under-utilized. However, the new interface would prove advantageous when used for general purpose computing with technologies like OpenCL, CUDA and C++ AMP.[28]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express

Edit: BTW, your card is PCIe 2.0. The PCIe 3.0 specification has backward compatibility to 2.0 in it (though who knows if/how they implemented that in the ASRock)

[de.das.dude]

if you ask me i think AsRock botched up something somewhere. after all their boards are very cheap compared to other comepetitors!

[Laurijan]

Originally Posted by Sasqui

Yes, and latest BIOS? Perhaps something to do with the PCIe GEN3 being dependant on the "i" series CPU?

The latest Bios has PCI-E 2.0 setting available! I updated it. And 3DMark 11 works!

Thanks for the help now I am happy

[Laurijan]

Originally Posted by de.das.dude

if you ask me i think AsRock botched up something somewhere. after all their boards are very cheap compared to other comepetitors!

After seeing that they have a bios update solving this problem my trust in ASRock returned 100%.

[Sasqui]

Originally Posted by Laurijan

The latest Bios has PCI-E 2.0 setting available! I updated it. And 3DMark 11 works!

Thanks for the help now I am happy

Sweet! It really is helpful to reach out here sometimes. Maybe it's because your so pissed off that you can't focus, or you don't have time to research from a smart phone while your PC is broken.

[de.das.dude]

Originally Posted by Laurijan

After seeing that they have a bios update solving this problem my trust in ASRock returned 100%.

see, i knew a BIOS update would fix it anyhoo glad it all worked out.

[redeye]

Originally Posted by itsakjt

Try updating to the latest drivers. Remove any unwanted software and check the system. It is very unlikely that the PCIE slot is faulty. But it may happen. Also check the BIOS and disable any overclocking. Run everything at factory settings and check results.

i have actually had a fault pcie slot, and it would only run at 8x... and ultimately it did not allow any cards to work it i it... (sabertooth 990fx) i RMA'd and all is well.

nothing much you can do to diagnose it except to compare performance across same pcie slots.
and try different graphics cards and look in gpu-z to see the width of the pcie slot that is defective and what it should be.
Btw supposedly a pcie3 8x slot is the same as a pcie2 16x slot.

[Laurijan]

Bad news the bios update did not fix the problem
First it seemed so but no matter which version 1,2 or 3 i set the pci-e slot to be i get error in 3dmark 11 and windows experience index.
I will borrow a friends GPU to test with it.

[Laurijan]

Ok i tested with another GPU a XFX 6950 and i have the same problem - now i am sure its the mobo.

[Aquinus]

Originally Posted by Laurijan

Ok i tested with another GPU a XFX 6950 and i have the same problem - now i am sure its the mobo.

What makes you sure that it is the motherboard? The motherboard doesn't do much to the PCI-E. I would reseat your processor because that is where the PCI-E lanes go. It's also where DMI goes. It's also where DRAM goes. Did you fully uninstall your drivers after swapping the cards or did you let CCC figure it out on its own? If PCI-E was at fault, I don't think your video card would work at all.

[Aquinus]

Originally Posted by jimmyhelu

While troubleshooting I cleared the cmos to make sure that wasn't the problem. I've been trying not to reinstall windows quite yet so that I could get some other opinions first since I really hate reinstalling all of my programs.

My drivers are up to date. The only other thing I could think of is updating my bios since I have the very first version of it at the moment. I'm somewhat afraid of doing that since I've never done so before.

You have nothing to worry about if your power is stable and you have the BIOS for the right board. It's pretty easy and straight forward.

Originally Posted by Laurijan

Ok i tested with another GPU a XFX 6950 and i have the same problem - now i am sure its the mobo.

Edit: Also, what CCC driver are you using and are your chipset drivers up to date?

[Laurijan]

Originally Posted by Aquinus

Edit: Also, what CCC driver are you using and are your chipset drivers up to date?

12-8_vista_win7_win8_64_dd_ccc is the name of the AMD driver and i used the latest Intel chipset install program

[Aquinus]

Originally Posted by Laurijan

12-8_vista_win7_win8_64_dd_ccc is the name of the AMD driver and i used the latest Intel chipset install program

Maybe it's that version of CCC, maybe try 12.6?

[Laurijan]

Originally Posted by Aquinus

Maybe it's that version of CCC, maybe try 12.6?

I am sure its not the drivers - with the nvidia and ati card i got exactly the same error messages

[Aquinus]

Originally Posted by Laurijan

I am sure its not the drivers - with the nvidia and ati card i got exactly the same error messages

What exactly do the error messages say, can you provide a screenshot? Does it only happen in 3D mode or when you fully stress the card? PCI-E is one of those things where it's very unlikely that it is only going to kind of work.

How about voltages? How stable is the rest of your rig? Are you overclocking the CPU at all? Also what are your CPU voltages, VTT, VCSSA, and +12v is mainly what I'm looking for. Keep in mind that the PCI-E controller in on the processor. Your board doesn't actually use the 4 lanes off the PCH.

If the second PCI-E slot works but the first doesn't, there could be a problem with one of the first 8 lanes off the CPU so I would recommend taping off all but 1 lane and work your way out in powers of two (except 2!) until you get the problem again (1x/4x/8x) but I'm not convinced that it's motherboard. Unless it's a bad contact, it would be the CPU. If there was a break in the line it wouldn't be working at all.

[Laurijan]

I reseated the CPU and now it works! Thanks for the tip.

[Sasqui]

Originally Posted by Laurijan

I reseated the CPU and now it works! Thanks for the tip.

No shit! I had that thought and dismissed it.

[Laurijan]

Some problems reappeared soon after i reseated the CPU. Now 3DMark works but windows experience index dont. I dont think i will RMA now. But will see after i test some games and see if the driver crashes like it did before reseating.

[Laurijan]

Here a pic of the error with Windows Experience Index

[Aquinus]

Originally Posted by Laurijan

Some problems reappeared soon after i reseated the CPU. Now 3DMark works but windows experience index dont. I dont think i will RMA now. But will see after i test some games and see if the driver crashes like it did before reseating.

Examine the socket, look for any bent pins. It sounds like some pins might not be making full contact. How tight are you tightening the cooler to the processor. I've heard that in some cases that tightening the cooler too tight has caused issues.