[SOLVED] Mining Rig Wont Register 5th GPU

Jan 29, 2021
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Hi,

So I have 4 x MSI 3080's and 1x MSI 3060 in an ethereum mining rig. I'm using an Asus Z309-A prime motherboard with a western digital easystore SSD. I can get 4 GPU's to work in both Windows and HiveOS, but as soon as I add the 5th, I cant seem to get past bios., and the bootable SSD disappears from the list of available bootable drives. USB shows my windows bootable media, but the hard drive is not recognized. I have 4G turned on and have messed around with the PCI settings trying Gen 1, Gen2, Gen3, and any. The good news is that the motherboard shows the 5th pci slot being used under the graphics cards setting in bios. Any helpful suggestions on how to remedy this are most appreciated.
 
Hi,

So I have 4 x MSI 3080's and 1x MSI 3060 in an ethereum mining rig. I'm using an Asus Z309-A prime motherboard with a western digital easystore SSD. I can get 4 GPU's to work in both Windows and HiveOS, but as soon as I add the 5th, I cant seem to get past bios., and the bootable SSD disappears from the list of available bootable drives. USB shows my windows bootable media, but the hard drive is not recognized. I have 4G turned on and have messed around with the PCI settings trying Gen 1, Gen2, Gen3, and any. The good news is that the motherboard shows the 5th pci slot being used under the graphics cards setting in bios. Any helpful suggestions on how to remedy this are most appreciated.
Make and model of the power supply?
 
Jan 29, 2021
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Is the issue only with the 3060Ti or generally with a 5th card?
What I am saying is, have you tried another GPU or 3x 3080 and the 3060Ti to see if you also have issues?
Great question. It's with any of the cards. I can get the 3060ti to register as the 4th card by itself...just not as the 5th.

Also, I have messed around with the positioning of the cards, and the ASUS bios show the order of how it likes the cards to be installed. PCI video cards slots 1 - 3 and then the PCI express expansion slots 1 - 3 in order. This is important as only when they are inserted in the proper configuration, will bios recognize the fifth card. I have also messed around with the GPU risers and cables to triple check that they work and are properly installed.
 

tecmo34

Administrator
Moderator
Not sure what your CPU is but that gen normally supports 16 PCIe lanes most likely (for example on the i9-9900K). When you have 4 GPU's, they are running at x4 through the PCIe lanes through the CPU to equal 16. You add a 5th card, you run out of PCIe lanes on the CPU since they run in either 16, 8 or 4. I don't think that combination will be able to support 5 GPU's.

I think you would need an AMD sTRX4 or Intel X299 motherboard / CPU combination to run 5 GPU's as you are wanting to do.

I'll be nice and won't even ask how the heck to did you grab five RTX 3000 series cards in the first place and most are lucky to get one (though I got a FTW3 Ultra's for a 3090 (sold to a friend), 3080 (mine), 3070 (son's) from EVGA queue system).
 
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Jan 29, 2021
8
0
10
Not sure what your CPU is but that gen normally supports 16 PCIe lanes most likely (for example on the i9-9900K). When you have 4 GPU's, they are running at x4 through the PCIe lanes through the CPU to equal 16. You add a 5th card, you run out of PCIe lanes on the CPU since they run in either 16, 8 or 4. I don't think that combination will be able to support 5 GPU's.

I think you would need an AMD sTRX4 or Intel X299 motherboard / CPU combination to run 5 GPU's as you are wanting to do.

I'll be nice and won't even ask how the heck to did you grab five RTX 3000 series cards in the first place and most are lucky to get one (though I got a FTW3 Ultra's for a 3090 (sold to a friend), 3080 (mine), 3070 (son's) from EVGA queue system).

Thanks. I waited in line at Microcenter at 4 am with some friends a couple of weekends ago. For those looking to get a 3080, this worked well.

So each 3060 or 3080 GPU uses 4 lanes? (4x4=16?)

The goal is to have 8 GPU's total... so I would need a board that can support 32 lanes or more?

I found this guide which I am currently working with:

https://forum.getpimp.org/topic/9/setting-up-motherboards-for-mining