My HD5830 runs at x8 instead of x16

[DTAT]

I have had this issue for a year. At first i fixed it by reseating video card. But it ran at x8 eventually. I reinstalled my os window 7 sp1 but no luck.

Here are what i tried and failed: get rid of dust of video card slot by using air compressor, clean video card (litterally), reseat both cpu and vga, install latest driver including beta driver, clear cmos.

I even changed a different card (fully working) it still ran at x8. So i guess my mobo (asus p55 chipset, no usb 3.0 no sata3) is malfunctioning.

I installed vga in the first vga slot (16x slot according to manual). So what should i do to make it work again? I am experiencing quite a frame loss in gaming.

Update1: Yesterday i inserted my hd5830 in a spare machine (i3 540, mobo with h55 chipset) and guess what it ran at x16 bandwith without a problem. So can i conclude that my mobo has failed?


P/s: Any advices, suggestion is appreciated.

 

[Maban]

Have you checked for a bent/broken pin on the CPU socket or damage anywhere along the way from CPU to GPU?

 

[Aquinus]

Over tightening a CPU cooler can cause issues like this because the pins on the motherboard won't always make good contacts with the CPU if you over-tighten it or tighten one side more than the others. I've seen this occur with PCI-E slots and with DRAM slots.

 

[DTAT]

Have you checked for a bent/broken pin on the CPU socket or damage anywhere along the way from CPU to GPU?

Yes i have. No bent or broken pin found. Also no damage on mobo. Visual inspection

Over tightening a CPU cooler can cause issues like this because the pins on the motherboard won't always make good contacts with the CPU if you over-tighten it or tighten one side more than the others. I've seen this occur with PCI-E slots and with DRAM slots.

Yeah because of that i had to reseat cpu but no luck so far.

Will try other mobo with my cpu and video card on. I'll update later.

 

[eidairaman1]

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P7P55D_PRO/specifications/

On some motherboards if that other pcie slot is occuppied the board will switch to 8/8

Read page 2-23 of your manual. From looks of that diagram you dont want any other pci e card in the other slot

 

[DTAT]

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P7P55D_PRO/specifications/

On some motherboards if that other pcie slot is occuppied the board will switch to 8/8

Read page 2-23 of your manual. From looks of that diagram you dont want any other pci e card in the other slot

I have only one video card. Other pci/pcie is not used.

 

[DTAT]

I was thinking could it be the cpu fault, not the mobo, socket or pcie slot. Cpu failed to deliver full vga bandwith as it should. Is there a way to test this? By changing to a different cpu maybe.

 

[eidairaman1]

Id say its down to either or unless if you can find a spare machine and test that card. Ps it doesnt matter if its a vc or not, if you plug in a pcie board in the second 16x slot (8x bandwidth) the bandwidth of the primary slot will half.

 

[eidairaman1]

Id say its down to either or unless if you can find a spare machine and test that card. Ps it doesnt matter if its a vc or not, if you plug in a pcie board in the second 16x slot (8x bandwidth) the bandwidth of the primary slot will half.

 

[thebluebumblebee]

X16/X8 should not affect your frame rate that much. Not enough to notice without benchmarking.

 

[DTAT]

Id say its down to either or unless if you can find a spare machine and test that card. Ps it doesnt matter if its a vc or not, if you plug in a pcie board in the second 16x slot (8x bandwidth) the bandwidth of the primary slot will half.

I insert my video card in a spare pc and it works like charm. x16 v2.0
P/s: my pc doesn't have any cards inserted in pci/pci-e slot other than 1 video card

X16/X8 should not affect your frame rate that much. Not enough to notice without benchmarking.

Unfortunately when i was playing AC IV Black Flag i experienced frame loss quite clearly. At that time i could make it ran at x16 again but now i can't although i used the same method.

Same old question: Could cpu fail to deliver full vga bandwith? Cpu malfunctions perhaps.

ps: please read post #1 for an update.

 

[Octopuss]

X16/X8 should not affect your frame rate that much. Not enough to notice without benchmarking.

Not with THAT card at least

 

[Aquinus]

Not with THAT card at least

PCI-E bandwidth really depends on the game, but more often than not it won't make that much of a difference because the majority of times where a lot of PCI-E bandwidth is used is when textures are being loaded into the GPU's memory when a game starts up.

 

[DTAT]

PCI-E bandwidth really depends on the game, but more often than not it won't make that much of a difference because the majority of times where a lot of PCI-E bandwidth is used is when textures are being loaded into the GPU's memory when a game starts up.

So from what you're saying i should just ignore pci-e bandwidth cause it didn't matter that much

 

[Aquinus]

So from what you're saying i should just ignore pci-e bandwidth cause it didn't matter that much

With one card, no. If it's not using the other 8 lanes for a reason, CFX might not work. Did you try running the card in the other PCI-E slot just to see if it would work?

 

[DTAT]

With one card, no. If it's not using the other 8 lanes for a reason, CFX might not work. Did you try running the card in the other PCI-E slot just to see if it would work?

Yes i did try. It works fine with other 2 pci-e slots (x8 slot and x4 slot)

 

[Aquinus]

Yes i did try. It works fine with other 2 pci-e slots (x8 slot and x4 slot)

Then I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[DTAT]

Then I wouldn't worry about it.

Basically, you're telling me to ignore the pci-e bandwidth and let video card runs at x8 although it suppose to do x16. Is GPU-Z giving me false reading? Correct me if i'm wrong

 

[Aquinus]

Basically, you're telling me to ignore the pci-e bandwidth and let video card runs at x8 although it suppose to do x16. Is GPU-Z giving me false reading? Correct me if i'm wrong

Could be. Power saving features sometimes disable PCI-E lanes when the system is idle. What I'm saying is you wouldn't know the difference even if it was running at x16.

 

[DTAT]

Could be. Power saving features sometimes disable PCI-E lanes when the system is idle. What I'm saying is you wouldn't know the difference even if it was running at x16.

So in term of performance i'd play games as usual not much loss frame. I feel at ease now.

Besides i remembered turning of power saving option under bios and OS. Perhaps there is something wrong with cpu built-in pcie controller

 

[The Mac]

how do you know you arent running at x16?

have you used gpu-z and run the benchmark to see if it changes under load?

modern cards/mobos are designed to drop to lowest possible level when idle.

 

[DTAT]

how do you know you arent running at x16?

have you used gpu-z and run the benchmark to see if it changes under load?

modern cards/mobos are designed to drop to lowest possible level when idle.

Checked with gpu-z (start render test) and then ran 3D Mark 11 in Xtreme mode. It still shows x8.

But then again its result in 3D Mark 11 (ver 1.03) is fine X1100. There a lot of people with the same video card have similar result to mine. I guess x8 bandwidth doesn't hurt at all