P5N32-SLI-SE-Deluxe Motherboard PCIe x16 Slot Question

[MonkeyMan806]

Hi Everyone... question for those in the community that love to help those that have no clue...

Back Story: I have a Asus P5N32-SLI-SE-Deluxe Motherboard in an Alienware Area-51 computer. The system was built with a nVidia 7950 GX2 graphics card that has started to give my driver and performance problems. On the last attempt to update the drivers the video card would not run the monitor (i.e. black screen of death but could hear the start up sounds). I couldn't get it to work so I tried switching the video card from the PCIe x16 Slot 1 to the PCIe x16 Slot 2 spot and it came on fine.

Since this point in time I replaced the video card with a new MSI R5770 Hawk card that will run fine in the second slot but not in slot 1 (same as nVidia issue). So I am sad but came to grips with the fact that somehow the slot 1 spot got fried.

Question Time: So the manual stats that single cards should be ran in slot 1 (recommended)... well that it's going to happen now is it. So leaving the card in the second PCIe x16 slot I went into my BIOS and noticed there is a section for Primary Graphics Adapter and the options are as follows:

PCIE2--->PCI--->PCIE1
or
PCIE1--->PCI--->PCIE2

The manual says this is for "Allows for selection of graphics controller to use as primary boot device". Currently it is set to PCIE1--->PCI--->PCIE2.

Does this mean I should swithc the BIOS setting to refelect the PCIE2--->PCI...>PCIE1 option or is this meant for something totally different. As you can see I am not a tech guy with this stuff... any help please.

ALSO... Here are links to the manual if it helps those out there that want to help


http://dlsvr03.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/P5N32-SLI%20SE%20Deluxe/e2708_p5n32-sli_se_dlx.pdf

Motherboard Layout on PAGE 30
Motherboard Primary GRaphics Adapter Section on PAGE 102

 

[jaquith]

Well the only real fix is to replace the MOBO or try to clean the PCIe (1) 'if' possible. I did check and your MOBO has 32-lanes, pg 11, so it's x16/x16 - so unless you want SLI you're fine.

Regarding the BIOS:
PCIE2--->PCI--->PCIE1
or
PCIE1--->PCI--->PCIE2

I would change to PCIE2--->PCI--->PCIE1; the reality if 'PCI' and 'PCIE1' are blank 0.25~{few} seconds of boot time will be shaved-off.

 

[MonkeyMan806]

Thanks for helping me out jaquith... not really worried about boot time as it's pretty fast. I was more worried about the card not running the "way it shoud" if it was left unchanged. I will not be doing CF or SLI on this machine so the single card will be fine.

Thanks again for your help

 

[jaquith]

For clarity either BIOS PCI order works if others are empty, the 'lag' is the 'if empty...next...if empty...next...initialize' and if you had multiple GPU(s) which one do you want to initialize. This is considered a tweak and not a requirement in your setup.

You're Welcome & Good Luck!