Radeon 7950 wont work in primary Z77 Mpower PCI 3.0 Slot?! Help!

[Honestly3k]

Hi all.

I bought an MSI Z77 Mpower motherboard with I7 3770K and HIS Radeon 7950 ICEq Boost Edition 3gb.

Ever since I built the computer it WILL NOT boot up with the GPU card in the first/primary PCI 3.0 slot of the motherboard.

It will boot up perfectly fine in the middle PCIe slot. Cant try the one to the left of the board as there are connected cables in the way.

My question is, is the card going to be running slower/not up to its potential in this middle slot?

As I read that the one it wont work in uses 16 lanes, the middle one 8 lanes?

Or am I just being daft? I'm a little out of touch with recent hardware developments.

Heres a screen shot of my GPUz results

Here's when I do the render test, I'm looking at 'Bus interface' here

This is GPUz results for when the card is in the middle slot and its booting into windows/behaving normally in this slot.
Faulty slot the computer will not even boot the bios.

Am I being silly or is something amiss?

Thank you

 

[rolli59]

Looks to me that you found a perfect reason to RMA the board, it is just not acceptable to accept broken hardware because the user can make it work. Think of it this way, you buy a car and the brakes in the rear do not work but it stops since they work in the front, is that acceptable?

 

[Honestly3k]

I bought this board back in January though, I just got thinking recently why it wont work in this slot.

Does it affect the cards performance not being able to work in this slot?

Its a lot of effort to dismantle the PC again to RMA it

Thanks

 

[rolli59]

Well in you screen shots it shows it at X16, what does the BIOS report?

 

[Honestly3k]

When you hover the mouse cursor over bus interface it says in more detail-

'The graphics card reports that it supports: PCI-E x16 v3.0'

Then below that it says-

'It is currently running at PCI-E x2 v1.1'

It also states that the GPU cards go into lower power consumption modes when not in use, and when I do the render test that is built into GPUz it changes from v1.1 to v3.0

So I guess the PCI-3 3.0 is working but why only at x2 speed?!

 

[rolli59]

No that is in power savings mode it is running 3.0 at X16 when rendering. You realize with continuing to use the board it will never be able to run dual cards?

 

[Honestly3k]

Well its basically its saying 'PCI-E x16 v3.0 @ x2 1.1' OR '3.0' when rendering

Only the 1.1 changes to 3.0 during rendering, nothing else, the x16 its displaying in the bus interface box is just stating that it CAN run at x16, not that it is, the numbers after the @ symbol denotes what its actually running at currently?

Essentially reporting that it can run at x16 but is only working at x2?

Otherwise I don't really get the purpose of the x2 being there?

I realize that yeah, but I probably will never run two in SLI/crossfire so it wont bother me enough to RMA it unless its running below its potential in the middle slot

Thanks so far

 

[rolli59]

Well in your BIOS it will state the mode and speed the slot is running in, will take away confusion.

 

[Honestly3k]

Nothing in the BIOS about that. And I looked through all the menus I could find.

Painful the BIOS navigation on this board....

 

[rolli59]

In any case if it is like you say not running full speed you are loosing out and should RMA they board which I would have done in the beginning. It takes me 5-10 min to disassemble so I would not call it a lot of work. The real concern is the time without computer during RMA which is the only weak argument. Can be solved with buying another board and then resell either after RMA.

 

[Honestly3k]

I thought there was a 28 day period after purchase that you can raise an RMA and not after that? Which leaves me pretty screwed on that front.

I guess so, but for someone as lazy as me its an effort, plus I would have to source a new rear bracket for my CPU water cooler as that's only installable with double sided tape and it tears boards to pieces trying to remove it!

PITA, il think about replacing it at some point, for something better

 

[rolli59]

I thought there was a 28 day period after purchase that you can raise an RMA and not after that? Which leaves me pretty screwed on that front.

I guess so, but for someone as lazy as me its an effort, plus I would have to source a new rear bracket for my CPU water cooler as that's only installable with double sided tape and it tears boards to pieces trying to remove it!

PITA, il think about replacing it at some point, for something better

Your board has 3 years of manufacturers warranty. In the US retailer for 30days. In Europe retailer during the manufacturers warranty!
File a ticket with MSI support.

 

[Honestly3k]

So today I tried my old Radeon 4850 in the main primary PCIe slot. Computer boots into windows and works fine with this card.

But doesn't want to know with the 7950 plugged in.

So annoying.

Also checked the motherboard cpu pins, none are bent so can also rule that out

 

[rolli59]

That is really strange since both cards have the same connector. Do you have a friend that can try the 7950 in his computer?

 

[Honestly3k]

I actually had the card RMA'd back to overclockers when I first bought it as my socket AM3 amd board would not boot with it in either.

But they said it was OK and sent it back to me

It did work fine in my brothers socket AM2 amd board albeit at pcie 2.0 rather than pcie 3.0

I guess I will never get to the bottom of this

 

[rolli59]

So maybe the problem is the card after all! It is possible that HIS has a VGA BIOS update for it.

 

[Honestly3k]

I don't think so, going by the HIS website it seems they only have the ATI catalyst latest downloads, nothing about BIOS updates

I will need to try other cards on my board, and my card in other PCIe3 boards to a process of elimination I think

Its the only way, shame no one I know has as good spec a PC as I have

 

[rolli59]

I would go to HIS and create a support ticket with the problem you are having, they may have seen it before.