Question GPU in top PCIe slot causes black screen crashes

[Willemsmk]

Hi everyone, before my question I'll provide some background. Embarassingly enough I only discovered around 2 months ago that the top PCIe slot on motherboards generally runs at a much higher bandwidth than the bottom slot. Yep, for nearly 7 years I've been putting my GPU in the wrong slot, and always wondered why my PC underperformed for its specs, you can imagine my dismay. Either way, after I popped my GPU in the top slot, my PC started black screen crashing, first my displays show no HDMI input screens, then audio glitches and loops very quickly, and finally my pc auto restarts itself, and often this auto restart doesnt post and I have to reset manually.

This originally only happened while gaming, and completely randomly. I began checking my temperatures constantly to make sure this wasn't a temp issue. My GPU and CPU under load never hit over 65c, so it can't be that.
Eventually the problem got so bad my computer could not stay on for more than 10 minutes without this bizarre crash occuring. So I reluctantly switched my GPU back to the bottom slot, so I could use my PC for uni work.
Now my PC has not crashed once in the last week. I am perplexed as to why this issue is occuring, my BIOS is up to date, the GPU worked for months fine in the bottom slot before moving it, so I can't imagine the GPU is the problem. My motherboard is a couple months old too, however I had it for atleast a month before I move my GPU with no problems. The only thing I can think of is that this is a power issue, im currently using a 600w PSU and that should be more than enough for my wattage, I do not run any overclocks on this system.

If anybody has any advice as to what could be causing this, I would greatly appreciate it. I know I'm probably going to have to spend some money to fix this and swap something out, but I'd like to know what so I don't waste money. Any troubleshooting I have done has not shown anything out of the ordinary, which makes me believe maybe the power is spiking too high or too low for some reason and cutting, I don't know this is just a hunch.

Anyway sorry for waffling, any help appreciated

Specs:
CPU: Ryzen 5 2600x
GPU: XFX AMD RX 5600 XT
RAM: 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200Mhz
SSD: Kingston 120GB SSD
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB
PSU: Aerocool Integrator 600 w 80 Plus Bronze

Another thing I just thought of, my PC also faces considerable mouse delay after around an hour or so of gaming, this happens only in Warzone and Black Ops Cold war, I have to restart my PC to fix the issue and after around an hour it starts again, I wonder if that could be anything to do with power?

 

[rickypicky5]

You might try this:

How to clear the CMOS

Then move the GPU to the top slot and reboot.

 

[faalin]

Id replace the PSU, that areocool is a lower end unit made for office work not gaming rigs

 

[Willemsmk]

You might try this:

How to clear the CMOS

Then move the GPU to the top slot and reboot.

Should have mentioned I did also try this previously to no avail. But thanks for the suggestion!

 

[Willemsmk]

Id replace the PSU, that areocool is a lower end unit made for office work not gaming rigs

This is what I suspected but its good to have some confirmation, to be honest I was fooled by the low price when I bought the PSU a few years back on black friday, lesson learned. I'll replace it and hopefully that fixes my problem, thanks!

 

[rickypicky5]

This is what I suspected but its good to have some confirmation, to be honest I was fooled by the low price when I bought the PSU a few years back on black friday, lesson learned. I'll replace it and hopefully that fixes my problem, thanks!

Whereas I think it's a good idea to replace the PSU (it's not very good), I'd be more than a little surprised if the PSU is causing your issue. I hope others here will provide their 2 cents on the subject.

 

[Willemsmk]

Whereas I think it's a good idea to replace the PSU (it's not very good), I'd be a little surprised if the PSU was causing your issue. I hope others here will provide their 2 cents on the subject.

Noted. I'm not holding out too much hope however as you said the PSU is not ideal. It's actually the only component in the PC that hasn't been replaced within the last year and I've had it for well over 3. I'll replace the PSU and bump the post later on with my results. Hopefully it is just the PSU, and if it isn't then it'll be back to sqaure one. Thanks for your input

 

[drivinfast247]

Find a setting in BIOS regarding PCI-e Gen3/Gen4 Switch it to the other value available.

 

[rickypicky5]

Noted. I'm not holding out too much hope however as you said the PSU is not ideal. It's actually the only component in the PC that hasn't been replaced within the last year and I've had it for well over 3. I'll replace the PSU and bump the post later on with my results. Hopefully it is just the PSU, and if it isn't then it'll be back to sqaure one. Thanks for your input

I think replacing the PSU is a very good idea. Good luck!

 

[Willemsmk]

Find a setting in BIOS regarding PCI-e Gen3/Gen4 Switch it to the other value available.

Thanks for the suggestion! My motherboard does not support past gen 3 as far as I'm aware and this is with the most recent BIOS version. Although I did switch my PCI switches manually to gen 3 from auto in the hopes that makes any difference. And as I understand my card is backwards compatible with gen 3 and shouldnt cause any issues, but you never know i guess.

 

[Willemsmk]

I think replacing the PSU is a very good idea. Good luck!

Thankyou