Non working PCI-E slot on Asus P8Z68-V GEN3 Please help :)

[lukatce]

Hi main PCI-E slot stopped to work today 🙁
Yesterday it worked normally everything then I turned it off and when i turned it on at morning it didn't worked.
I didn't moved anything inside PC.
I switched gfx on second slot and it work. I checked if any pins are broken inside first slot and there are none.
Any idea why it would stop to work ? Maybe it have PSU to do something with that ? Fan on PSU started to make weird noises.
Edit4: from that time again SSD stopped to work few times. So probably best to replace whole mobo or just PSU because of that high voltage warning for SSD ?

Second slot is only PCI-E 2.0 x8 but it should be PCI-E 3.0 x8 So I would get similar bandwidth as PCI-E 2.0 x16 7880MB/s vs 8GB/s
Tested in Furmark and GPU runs at 99% I have to test with games. x8 is probably not enough for gaming right ?
How I can set it to PCI-E 3.0 at second slot. I remember when I had on first it worked 3.0 and then a year later it showed only 2.0
How I can check if first PCI-E slot is broken ? any pin check at bottom of mobo with multimeter ?
Mobo is Asus P8Z68-V GEN3 3402 bios and GPU is Gigabyte GV-R928XOC-3GD rev1 and PSU is LC Power 850w (ye I know bad PSU)
Edit: Forgot to mention one fan didn't turned on at first slot (worked only manual turn) and in second slot it turn on automatically

Mobo manual if in any help https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/m...Z68-V_GEN3.pdf

Edit: So I lose max 3-4% at PCE-E 2.0 x8 ?
I forgot to mention.
At same time SSD didn't worked after. First it showed BSOD error and then suddenly even SSD stopped to work.
BSOD: KERNEL DATA INPAGE ERROR SSD working now with no data loss.
After I just put PC down into lying down position and SSD started to work. Weird as HDD worked while SSD didn't in standing up position.
I rechecked cables and everything was connected. I don't get it how PCI-E slot stopped to work it might be connection on mobo. I wasn't moving PC since it was working.
As there is only 3-4% difference I will use just second slot now. Probably isn't worth to replace mobo just because of that, right ?

Taking everything off takes just too much time as case is too small and SilverArrow cooler is complicated to take off and install again.
Case Enermax Chakra is just too small and PSU is on top and it's way too small space to remove everything with big mobo

Edit 3: After that again SSD stopped to work again and HDD couldn't be recognized now both are working. All happened after Windows 10 update to new build. I understand for data but SSD didn't worked at all I also don't have a clue why at same time GPU slot would stop to work ? better I replace that PSU it's like 10 years old
SSD Utility also gave me a warning for high voltage.

 

[jay.wooster]

Moving a GPU from x16 to x8 equates to a drop of approx 1-3 FPS according to the benchmarks i have seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJuj16gRoBI

 

[The Original Ralph]

i just had the same problem with sata connections disappearing or not recognizing connected drives, and one PCI-e slot, where my (boot) NVMe SSD is mounted in an expansion card

strangest thing was in BIOS, it would show the drives in the list of drives, but not shown in the section where you set boot priority

I cleared RTC, then cleared CMOS and reflashed BIOS and all came back. but it happened again, and this time would recognize the boot drive in the PCIe slot or a cloned SSD on a sata port. Removed the boot drive in the PCIe slot and recleared RTC & CMOS, and reflashed BIOS and all appears well for now, but i can't mount the boot drive in that PCIe slot - if i do, it kills that slot and one sata port, so i've left the boot drive out of the PCIe slot -

i suspect either my BIOS controller chip or the PCIe slot is going bad

 

[jay.wooster]

Ralph,

Not to hijack the thread but have you checked which SATA ports are disabled by having the M.2 installed ? Typically at least one or two SATA ports do not function when you have an M.2 installed (because of Optane), would check your Motherboard manual to see if you have inadvertently disabled the SATA ports by using an M.2 slot that is tied to the SATA ports.

 

[The Original Ralph]

i'm aware that the M.2 slot disables 2 of the sata ports, but this is a NVMe drive mounted in a PCIe expansion card in a PCIe slot and has been in that slot for 2+ years. PCie slot mounted M.2 doesn't disable any sata ports - i keep or kept a cloned backup SSD in one of those hot swap 2 bay external mounted units and never had any issue with that sata port dis-appearing

I actually took the PCIe expansion card with drive to another computer (the one in sig below) and mounted it to totally wipe the drive, and was going to reclone the backup drive back to it, hoping it was just a corrupted MBR partition. It wiped fine, and i even copied some movie files to it to make sure it was working fine. When i took it back to the orig computer - no love - as soon as i mounted it, system would not boot on the backup drive that it had been booting up on since the dis-appearing ports began - the backup drive's sata port was showing "empty" in whatever page they're listed on, and on the page where drives are listed (same as the boot priority page) it would show up correctly identified, but would not show up in the boot priority list. Neither would the backup drive. Also what i didn't mention in the interest of brevity, the more times i'd try that PCIe expansion card with the NVMe drive, the more stuff would dis-appear, like USB ports.

Each time to correct i had to clear RTC, clear CMOS and then reflash BIOS - one time i forgot to clear RTC and it didn't correct - went back and repeated procedure including clearing RTC, and all was well. I've got a back up Mobo i bought when i saw the z97m-plus boards were becoming scarce

i can't profess to be that computer literate, but i researched it pretty thoroughly on the web, and more than a few of the "experts" indicate repeated corrupting BIOS & disappering sata & USB ports seem to be indicative of bad controller on mobo or bad BIOS chip

thanks anyway