M5A97 Only running my R9 280x at x8

[Ben Mador]

Hello,

My M5A97 is only running my Sapphire R9 280x TOXIC at PCIe x8 instead of PCIe x16,

Its really bugging me as I am only getting 20 - 40 FPS in Battlefield 4 set on Medium preset @ 190x1080 60hz and I think this may help me?

Any help would be greatly appreciated,

I can also supply AIDA64 Reports just let me know what you want selected so I don't have to post 30 pages of Report lol,

Thank you again,

Ben

 

[cin19]

Make sure the pcie2.0x16 is clean.
Recommend to update the AMD chipset driver and the BIOS, then try the 280x in the pciex16 slot again, if you still have problem, that means the pciex16 slot has problem, which is hardware problem. You can see this on our forum.
You either RMA the MB if it is under warranty or use the 280x in the pciex8 slot, or buy other MB, there is small difference between the pcie2.0x16 and pcie2.0x8 here is the review "Impact of PCI-E Speed on Gaming Performance" https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Impact-of-PCI-E-Speed-on-Gaming-Performance-518/

AMD chipset driver http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/chipset?os=Windows%208%20-%2032 because the chipset driver comes with pcie controller driver. If it is the not the driver problem, then it is the hardware problem.

 

[Ben Mador]

Thanks for your reply cin19,

By clean you mean wipe it down clean?

I have the BIOS updated up until ASUS stopped supporting it for this model,

I also have the latest chipset driver (14.12),

If I open AMD CCC Panel and look at the hardware information it tells me "Graphics Bus Capability: PCIe 3.0" and below it in the next field it says "Maximum Bus Setting: PCIe 2.0x8"


Okay so not much of an improvement, although I heard that Dual GPU cards performed much better at x16? and I am of the understanding that an R9 280x is a Dual GPU card? I mean its MASSIVE and requires dual 8 pin PCIe power,

I am just trying to figure out what is causing me to have such little FPS when I have what I think are okay components,

AMD FX-4170 BE
ASUS M5A97
Sapphire R9 280x TOXIC Edition
G.Skill Ripjaws F3-14900CL9 1866mhz 2x4GB Dual Channel Kit
1TB SATA3 WD HDD

Is something out of place here please let me know or should I be expecting jittery low FPS gameplay for this type of hardware?

 

[Ben Mador]

**SOLVED**


I read around and heard that people were losing their x16 by having extra pcie x1 to x4 devices, so I started by unplugging my extra gigabit adapter from my PCIe and that didn't help, so I even tried taking out a standard PCI 56kb Modem adapter I have lying around for desperate times and this didn't help,

So through mucking around cleaning out my PCIe x16 port with compressed air and cleaning my video cards pins, I thought to myself "Hey I wonder if I switch back to DVI instead of HDMI it will help" and doing so fixed the problem, CCC shows x16 again Woo Hoo!

I switched to HDMI so I could plug my headphones into the Monitor instead of behind my desk and into the Motherboard, but hey it looks like I will be using the motherboard for my sound now and using DVI on the card