Jumping back into gaming.....confused

[ntdouglas]

Hi guys,

Check out my gpuz screenshot. Bus speed is x2@1.1. Shouldnt it be running higher. Board is Gigabyte z97mx gaming 5. Gpu is Gigabyte GTX 970 Windforce in pcie slot closest to cpu. I have an Asus wifi card in the 3rd slot. Thats it. Everything in bios for pcie speed is on auto. Tried all other configurations with no success. Any advice from you pros woud be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[INSTG8R]

“Normal” click the question mark and use the tool to put load on the card if it’s still the same you actually have an issue.

 

[ntdouglas]

Thanks INSTG8R for the quick reply. I had no idea about that test or power saving mode. Check out the new screenshot running the render. Still seems slow.

 

[Caring1]

Shouldn't it be running @x8 3.0 ?

 

[phill]

Thanks INSTG8R for the quick reply. I had no idea about that test or power saving mode. Check out the new screenshot running the render. Still seems slow.
View attachment 118865

When you hoover over the bus interface section, does it show any more detail? It should be running PCIe x 16 3.0....

Have you tried putting the card in another full sized slot? Are you using any PCIe risers at all?

 

[Caring1]

When you hoover over the bus interface section, does it show any more detail? It should be running PCIe x 16 3.0....

Not if he has another card in a PCI-e slot which he does.
As I said, the speed will be @x8 3.0

 

[phill]

Surely that would only be the case if it was a 16x card? Wi-Fi cards are only 1x???..... (I'm guessing here, I wouldn't have thought they'd be a 4x card??

Maybe take out the Wi-Fi card and see if the GPU reports back being a 16x card.. If it does then it's definitely taking away the lanes but I'm not sure why it would/should do that...

 

[Athlonite]

1. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16)
   * For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16 slot.
2. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8)
   (The PCIEX16 and PCIEX8 slots conform to PCI Express 3.0 standard.)
   * The PCIEX8 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX16 slot. When the PCIEX8 slot is populated, the PCIEX16 slot will operate at up to x8 mode.
3. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4 (PCIEX4)
4. 1 x PCI Express x1 slot
   (The PCIEX4 and PCIEX1 slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)

if your PCIe wifi card is any of the 3.0 PCIe slots move it to one of the PCIe 2.0 slots instead and see if that makes a difference as the x1 and x4 slots are south bridge controlled they shouldn't interfere with the x16/x8 slots which directly connected to the CPU bus

 

[ntdouglas]

Like I said gpu is in the slot closest to cpu. That should be a x16 slot correct? Sorry dont feel like googling it right now or swapping. Wifi card is in slot 4. Hovering over bus interface section says pcie x2 v3.0.

 

[AmioriK]

X2 is going to hurt your performance, a lot.
In another thread someone had a similar issue cause by bent pins, but could also be caused by debris in slot or the pc being a dick. Reseat the card, check the slot for debris, etc

 

[ntdouglas]

X2 is going to hurt your performance, a lot.
In another thread someone had a similar issue cause by bent pins, but could also be caused by debris in slot or the pc being a dick. Reseat the card, check the slot for debris, etc

ok bear with me please. What is bent pins ? I have reseated the card. Everything is neat and clean inside. I do have an m.2 drive in the m.2 slot. That couldnt slow it that much could it? Its in the slot closest to th cpu. Being an older board i cant find the layout of the board and which slots are x16, x8 etc. Does anyone know this or find it?

 

[AmioriK]

ok bear with me please. What is bent pins ? I have reseated the card. Everything is neat and clean inside. I do have an m.2 drive in the m.2 slot. That couldnt slow it that much could it? Its in the slot closest to th cpu. Being an older board i cant find the layout of the board and which slots are x16, x8 etc. Does anyone know this or find it?

In the CPU socket. Since the those slots are wired to the CPU directly, which hosts the PCIe lanes. Did you removed the CPU from the socket recently? If not, and the problem developed recently, then we can safely rule this out.

And no, M.2 in the m.2 slot is most likely going to come off the PCH, not the CPU. Take out all cards, and then put only the GPU in and check. Also, go into the Motherboard BIOS and have a look at the configuration for the PCIE slots. Some boards have the option to change the link width in there, maybe something derped out? It's worth a check.

Easiest way to check if a slot is electrically 16x is to look into the slot itself and see if the metal contacts run the entire width of the slot. For example a 16x mechanical sot will have the full length slot but if its only electricaly 8x the metal contacts run only half the length, etc.

 

[ntdouglas]

I did find the layout of the board and my gpu is in the x16 slot. I'll have to open it up tonight and see what slot the asus wifi card is in. Its either in the x8 or x4 slot underneath the gpu. Worst case scenario is it would drop the gpu to x8 right? i believe the gpu is covering up the x1 slot though.

In the CPU socket. Since the those slots are wired to the CPU directly, which hosts the PCIe lanes. Did you removed the CPU from the socket recently? If not, and the problem developed recently, then we can safely rule this out.

And no, M.2 in the m.2 slot is most likely going to come off the PCH, not the CPU. Take out all cards, and then put only the GPU in and check. Also, go into the Motherboard BIOS and have a look at the configuration for the PCIE slots. Some boards have the option to change the link width in there, maybe something derped out? It's worth a check.

Easiest way to check if a slot is electrically 16x is to look into the slot itself and see if the metal contacts run the entire width of the slot. For example a 16x mechanical sot will have the full length slot but if its only electricaly 8x the metal contacts run only half the length, etc.

Havent removed the cpu since I built it 2 years ago. The problem could have been here since it was built. For pcie in bios everything is on auto. Ive tried changing settings in bios to gen 3 speed and same results. For what its worth I'm playing crysis 3 right now on high settings at 1080p and getting 100-130 fps.

 

[Vayra86]

Getting the impression all is fine in the world. If you have an x8 on the GPU it should not be losing any performance, and I fail to see how it would be lower.

We should not troubleshoot this further until OP has shown us a screenshot like such:

(if on Windows 10: hit Start, type 'snip', hit enter. Use the menu option to postpone screenshots by 2-3 seconds, take screenshot, mouse over the bus interface field so you get the popup).

Note; this value can change and will change even if you minimize a Window or for example have a live/active wallpaper. That is why mine shows x16 v1.1. Its a power saving feature, it will go down to whatever it can without sacrificing performance.

 

[ntdouglas]

Getting the impression all is fine in the world. If you have an x8 on the GPU it should not be losing any performance, and I fail to see how it would be lower.

We should not troubleshoot this further until OP has shown us a screenshot like such:

(if on Windows 10: hit Start, type 'snip', hit enter. Use the menu option to postpone screenshots by 2-3 seconds, take screenshot, mouse over the bus interface field so you get the popup).

Note; this value can change and will change even if you minimize a Window or for example have a live/active wallpaper. That is why mine shows x16 v1.1. Its a power saving feature, it will go down to whatever it can without sacrificing performance.

View attachment 118934

Took this screenshot last night. Says x2 v3.0. Couldnt find where windows stashed it to post. It was late last night lol. I'll post it tonight. If it's not too late when I get off work I'll check which slot the Asus wifi card is in. Almost positive it's in the 4th slot.

Ok here you go. Asus wifi card is in a x4 slot. The x1 slot is covered by the gtx 970. Remember this is an matx board.

In this day and age isnt there another gpu app or program/stress test app or something that shows gpu/bus speed besides gpuz? Didnt have time to remove wifi card and observe results. It looks like I could possibly move the gpu to a lower x8 slot to expose the x1 slot and insert wifi card in that. Didnt have time for that tonight as I worked 11 hours.

If it helps its an asus PCE-AC56 Dual band pcie adapter wif card.

Getting the impression all is fine in the world. If you have an x8 on the GPU it should not be losing any performance, and I fail to see how it would be lower.

We should not troubleshoot this further until OP has shown us a screenshot like such:

(if on Windows 10: hit Start, type 'snip', hit enter. Use the menu option to postpone screenshots by 2-3 seconds, take screenshot, mouse over the bus interface field so you get the popup).

Note; this value can change and will change even if you minimize a Window or for example have a live/active wallpaper. That is why mine shows x16 v1.1. Its a power saving feature, it will go down to whatever it can without sacrificing performance.

View attachment 118934

Bump

 

[ntdouglas]

Any help from anybody?

 

[AmioriK]

In this day and age isnt there another gpu app or program/stress test app or something that shows gpu/bus speed besides gpuz?

What does the NVIDIA CP say, look here> in "System Information"

Grab AIDA64 Extreme and take a look through the information it provides.

https://www.aida64.com/downloads

AIDA64 hasa GPGPU test. It can measure the bus interface bandwidth between CPU and GPU, that way we can determine the actual link width, and see if this a reporting error.

The Memory Write and memory Read measure the PCIE bus, AFAIK. Here is mine:

Assuming a bit of Overhead, this indicates I am running 16X Gen3, as Gen3 runs at 8GT/s, that is 1GB/s per lane, x 16. As I said there is some overhead on the bus so it's not going to be full theoretical.

Try this and post results pls

 

[rtwjunkie]

After reading your manual and studying the diagram as well as the listed restrictions and the chips responsible for the various lanes, you obviously have the GPU in the correct slot, and it should not be dropping down to PCIe 2.0. The PCIe x4 as well as the x1 furthest from the CPU are the only ones on the board using the 2.0 specs.

I think it is not inconceivable that reseating the CPU might be needed after inspecting all the pins.

 

[AmioriK]

After reading your manual and studying the diagram as well as the listed restrictions and the chips responsible for the various lanes, you obviously have the GPU in the correct slot, and it should not be dropping down to PCIe 2.0.

OP says GPU'z is reporting 2x Gen3 when slot is not in power save mode. Which is really wierd.

I think it is not inconceivable that reseating the CPU might be needed after inspecting all the pins.

it's a bit wierd since they did not remove the CPU before the problem started. CPU die itself or even the motherboard could be faulty at this point.

Anyway once they run the bandwidth test we can see if it really is running at 2x gen3, the bandwdith will be around ~1600-1900MB/s which is pretty potato. Since OP says they are playing games at decent FPS i am also inclined to suspect this may be a reporting error, as that bus bandwidth would cause significant hitching as the GPU loads stuff in and out of video memory.

 

[Lorec]

Could it be PSU issue?
It is the triple fan card with two pci-e connectors right? 8pin and 6pin?
how about if power delivery to the card is not sufficient?
like if his +12V rail is not giving sufficient voltage or something.
Just an idea though

 

[ntdouglas]

What does the NVIDIA CP say, look here> in "System Information"
View attachment 119102

Grab AIDA64 Extreme and take a look through the information it provides.

https://www.aida64.com/downloads

AIDA64 hasa GPGPU test. It can measure the bus interface bandwidth between CPU and GPU, that way we can determine the actual link width, and see if this a reporting error.
View attachment 119103

The Memory Write and memory Read measure the PCIE bus, AFAIK. Here is mine:
View attachment 119104
Assuming a bit of Overhead, this indicates I am running 16X Gen3, as Gen3 runs at 8GT/s, that is 1GB/s per lane, x 16. As I said there is some overhead on the bus so it's not going to be full theoretical.

Try this and post results pls

Thanks Amiorik. I will do this. Might have to wait until the weekend because I'm really busy at work now. I was gonna try pulling out the wifi card also and checking and/or swapping the gpu to an x8 slot also. And checking the x16 slot for debri as you mentioned too. Thanks for your time.

Could it be PSU issue?
It is the triple fan card with two pci-e connectors right? 8pin and 6pin?
how about if power delivery to the card is not sufficient?
like if his +12V rail is not giving sufficient voltage or something.
Just an idea though

Yeah I have an 8 pin and a 6 pin plugged into it. A faulty psu would piss me off because that thing was expensive and only 2 years old with not much use. Hopefully not.

 

[Athlonite]

It's more than likely not your PSU bad or insufficient power to your GPU would either have it not power up at boot, Which leave you with 1 of 3 possibilities

1: Bent pins in the CPU Socket = Pull CPU and check the pins
2: An PCIe slot going bad = not much can be done except throw the mobo away and buy a new one
3: Thermal creep of the GPU could be at just he right amount to cause a problem = Remove card clean the slot and replace the card

if none of the above then throw hands in air scream like a cut banshee and hit PC with sledge hammer until it works or you need to buy a new one

 

[ntdouglas]

Lol thanks a

It's more than likely not your PSU bad or insufficient power to your GPU would either have it not power up at boot, Which leave you with 1 of 3 possibilities

1: Bent pins in the CPU Socket = Pull CPU and check the pins
2: An PCIe slot going bad = not much can be done except throw the mobo away and buy a new one
3: Thermal creep of the GPU could be at just he right amount to cause a problem = Remove card clean the slot and replace the card

if none of the above then throw hands in air scream like a cut banshee and hit PC with sledge hammer until it works or you need to buy a new one

Lol thanks athlonite. Cant see it being bent pins or psu. What is thermal creep? If I get better performance without the pcie wifi card in, how is that comparable USB wifi card?

 

[chaosmassive]

try to check your PCI-E power setting

 

[ntdouglas]

try to check your PCI-E power setting
View attachment 119180

Thanks chaos I'll check that tonight.