[Solved] PCIEx16 3D crash problem , PCIEx8 3D all Ok

[Rart]

Hello

Intel I7-4790K
Asus Maximus VII Ranger
Gigabyte GTX 960 Windforce 2x oc
Power Corsair CS750M
G-skil 8 Gbs ram (2x4Gbs)

My new pc has a problem , since it was build , it works fine using windows 7 (folders , pictures..all) and on the internet and watching videos ...
But running a more demanding 3d game or benchmark the nvidia driver crash (nvidia Display driver stopped responding and has recovered) after some seconds ,
for example on Valley Benchmark 1.0 ,Heaven Benchmark 4.0 ,3DMark ,3DMark 11 and others .

Did many tests without luck :
Installed all nvidia drivers (using Display Driver Uninstaller before install the new drivers) .
Installed chipset update, sound update, Intel(R) Management Engine Interface update (<<this is needed???) , AMDA00_Win7-8-8-1_V1010 something about USB's , so that all the device manager can be without the yellow interrogation symbols "?"
Did CPU stress test with IntelBurnTest 2.54 , all ok .
Did a memory test with memtest86+-4.20 , 3 pass's , all ok .
Did 3 motherboard bios updates .
Tried 2 screens , 1 dvi-i to dvi-i , 1 dvi-d to hdmi
Tried hdmi to hdmi but i get a very red screen and a look of just 256 colors in windows , i will talk about this later<<<<<
Tried many different settings in the bios , UEFI .
And alot more things that i don't remember now...

After alot of tests , changes , updates :
i have found that this problem happens with the card installed in the PCIEx16 slot ,
But works ok if its in the PCIEx8 slot .
In the PCIEx8 works very well , theres no nvidia driver crashs , theres good fps on Valley and heaven (the tests i use more) .


After all this , whats the problem ?
•Motherboard PCIEx16 slot Faulty ?
•CPU is Faulty ?
(i read somewhere that the CPU controls the PCIEx16 lane . About the x8 lane ,the CPU doesn't control the PCIEx8 lane or it does ? )
•Video Card is Faulty ?
Is possible that a video card it self works ok in the PCIEx8 slot but dont work in the PCIEx16 slot ? (because its somehow damaged using x16 "system" ? )
•Other thing ?

I tested a old card(7900GS) in the PCIEx16 slot and works without crashs but that card is not so demanding as a GTX 960 tho
(The 7900GS i tried it in the Valley test but the fps were very low , but the driver didn't crashed. I need try it again but in the game LFS for example to see if crashs or not , because the driver crashs also in that game with the GTX 960 )

Any other tests i should do ?
What you guys think about this?

Thanks

 

[Rart]

I tested a old card(7900GS) in the PCIEx16 slot and works without crashs but that card is not so demanding as a GTX 960 tho
(The 7900GS i tried it in the Valley test but the fps were very low , but the driver didn't crashed. I need try it again but in the game LFS for example to see if crashs or not , because the driver crashs also in that game with the GTX 960 )

Did some tests with the old 7900GS card , just running the game LFS , the driver doesn't crash and get around 120 fps .
But if i alt+tab out of the game and run GPUZ pciexpress render test , the driver crashs multiple times , (LFS+GPUZ test running at same time = driver crash) , this happens in the pciex16 and x8 too.

Running the game LFS (not very demanding game tho) with the GTX 960 in the pciex16 slot , the driver crashs after around 10 or 15 seconds of gameplay .

With pciex16 the driver crash with just one 3d program . With pciex8 its possible put valley , heaven , game lfs , performance test 8 , all this programs running at the same time and no problem , 0 crashs .

Any idea about what part is defective ?

 

[Rart]

Case closed and Solved .
Faulty Gigabyte GTX 960 Windforce 2x oc .

Got a new Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 Gaming 8G and works great at the pci-express x16 slot .

The difference is huge in terms of fps , in the Valley Benchmark at the start (first frames\scenario), the GTX 960 gets 64 fps max (both AA off) and the GTX 1070 gets 170 😛