I need Help real bad.

[Zando_]

Just now, PhenixFel said:

The electronic enthusiast that I am cried when I saw it. I immediately wanted to make a post on here to show everyone.

Yeah, that's... eesh. True big brain moment. Or more, spur of the moment decision made in ignorance of the basics of PCBs and how they work. 

[mariushm]

Actually the card may still be usable, but you may have to cut the connector further, to convert it into a x4

 

The pci-e slot is designed to be modular, so you can insert a x4 or a x8 or a x16 card into a x16 slot, and the slot will detect the size of the card automatically. However, it does that by detecting if a contact is present or not on the edge connector of the video card.

 

See https://pinouts.ru/Slots/pci_express_pinout.shtml

 or the image below

 

For the card to be detected as x8, all 49 contacts (B12 to B49 in the picture) after the notch have to be present. Must not be more or less. The 47th contact tells the pci-e slot that you inserted a pci-e x8 card

IF one contact is missing then the card should work at x4, but the extra contacts can cause problems.

So in theory you COULD further cut the contacts all the way to making the card a pci-e x4 ... basically leave just contacts B12 to B32 and no other contacts after it

 

also due to the way he cut the pcb at the edge connector there may be traces shorted there. it wouldn't hurt to get a sharp blade and scratch the insulation off those curvy traces on the top (those are the pci-e lanes) and use a multimeter on continuity mode to see if they're shorted or not ... if they're shorted, then use the sharp blade to make a cut in the trace on the top of the card, as the two wires may be shorted at the edge connector.

 

 

[PhenixFel]

4 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Yeah, that's... eesh. True big brain moment. Or more, spur of the moment decision made in ignorance of the basics of PCBs and how they work. 

Lol for real. I never seen anything like it

[Zando_]

Just now, PhenixFel said:

Lol for real. I never seen anything like it

Lmao. Probably because usually people with access to a 1070 they can casually chop up at least know it's a bad idea. But I've seen people drill holes directly into the radiator of AIOs to drain them instead of just removing the tubes so... yeah it's not super surprising. Unique, but not totally out there bad ideas wise. 

[PhenixFel]

3 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Actually the card may still be usable, but you may have to cut the connector further, to convert it into a x4

 

The pci-e slot is designed to be modular, so you can insert a x4 or a x8 or a x16 card into a x16 slot, and the slot will detect the size of the card automatically. However, it does that by detecting if a contact is present or not on the edge connector of the video card.

 

See https://pinouts.ru/Slots/pci_express_pinout.shtml

 or the image below

 

For the card to be detected as x8, all 49 contacts (B12 to B49 in the picture) after the notch have to be present. Must not be more or less. The 47th contact tells the pci-e slot that you inserted a pci-e x8 card

IF one contact is missing then the card should work at x4, but the extra contacts can cause problems.

So in theory you COULD further cut the contacts all the way to making the card a pci-e x4 ... basically leave just contacts B12 to B32 and no other contacts after it

 

 

Woah whaaaaaat for real? Could anyone second that? Seems intriguing 

[mariushm]

1 minute ago, PhenixFel said:

Woah whaaaaaat for real? Could anyone second that? Seems intriguing 

Yeah, it's also the reason why those cheap pci-e riser cables for mining work

The usb cable that's used between the tiny board that goes into the pci-e x1 slot has enough wires to connect the B12 to B18 and A12 to A18 contacts in the x16 slot.

The contacts in front of the notch are for power and the power comes from the separate power connector (12v, and 3.3v is made on the pci-e x16 board with those chips)

So that's how a pci-e x16 card would work through such adapter but will only work at up to pci-e x1 speed.

 

Now you can modify the card but make absolute sure you have all the contacts up to B32, including B32 ... that will make the card a pci-e x4 one... maximum pci-e x4.

 

[akio123008]

13 minutes ago, PhenixFel said:

Woah whaaaaaat for real? Could anyone second that? Seems intriguing 

I will, but instead of cutting off the contacts (and risking damaging the PCB somehow) I'd just cover pins 33 and up in electrical tape, that's a lot safer.

[PhenixFel]

oh interesting! I actually have some of those cuz I am a crypto miner so I know and understand what you're saying. Interesting. This is good news.

[mariushm]

Also see at around 7 minutes in the video below if you don't believe me :

 

 

[PhenixFel]

 

Just now, mariushm said:

Also see at around 7 minutes in the video below if you don't believe me :

 

 

Thanks for the visual aid

[Curious Pineapple]

Your friend is a complete tit.

 

You may be able to salvage that card though, got a 4X slot you can stick it in? Even a 1x will do.

[PhenixFel]

11 minutes ago, Curious Pineapple said:

Your friend is a complete tit.

 

You may be able to salvage that card though, got a 4X slot you can stick it in? Even a 1x will do.

I'm on it. I will give an update asap

[ryder_]

1 hour ago, PhenixFel said:

I just got gifted a Gigabyte rtx 2070 free from a friend and but there's a problem. He was experimenting with it. He chopped off like half of the pci gold metal contacts lol. I installed it into my computer and it doesn't post. I gives me 4 beeps and shuts down.. I don't know what was going thru his head. I would like to see if anyone can tall me if I'm wasting my time. If I can use it please tell me. See attached photo.

you can contact gigabyte they may cost you a higher rate but that would be better than buying a better one

 

[straight_stewie]

2 hours ago, PhenixFel said:

He chopped off like half of the pci gold metal contacts lol

There's only one damaged pin in the picture. Is that the only pin that's damaged?

 

@mariushm If it's just that one pin, it might be fixable using copper tape, and a very, very, very, VERY steady hand.

If we're talking about cutting the connector down to make a x4 card anyway, it might be worth letting an experienced person give it a try.

[PhenixFel]

Okay so I did the electrical tape repair and now the system is giving me 2 beeps andthen 3 beeps and didn't post. What does that mean?

[PhenixFel]

1 hour ago, PhenixFel said:

Okay so I did the electrical tape repair and now the system is giving me 2 beeps andthen 3 beeps and didn't post. What does that mean?

[PhenixFel]

Guys I read that 5 short beeps is a cpu issue. Could it be a compatibility issue? 

 

My build is 

ASUS Prime x470-pro 

AMD Ryzen 7 2700x

4x 8Gb Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 2400Mhz

Samsung 970 Evo Plus series

 

[Tristerin]

WTF

 

1.) Your friend has very little knowledge of DIY with PCBs as we can tell.

 

2.) Sell it on EBAY as a busted card for a couple hundred bucks with description and pics.

[PhenixFel]

How much can I get do you guys think?

[Sauron]

4 hours ago, PhenixFel said:

I just got gifted a Gigabyte rtx 2070 free from a friend and but there's a problem. He was experimenting with it. He chopped off like half of the pci gold metal contacts lol. I installed it into my computer and it doesn't post. I gives me 4 beeps and shuts down.. I don't know what was going thru his head. I would like to see if anyone can tall me if I'm wasting my time. If I can use it please tell me. See attached photo.

Contrary to what some other people are saying you can get it to work - you just need to chop off more of it so it only has x4 contacts. Unless there's more damage to it elsewhere of course. If you don't feel like cutting it it should be enough to put some electric tape over the extra contacts. I've seen this work in the past and it still should unless nvidia is artificially preventing it.

[PhenixFel]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

Contrary to what some other people are saying you can get it to work - you just need to chop off more of it so it only has x4 contacts. Unless there's more damage to it elsewhere of course. If you don't feel like cutting it it should be enough to put some electric tape over the extra contacts.

I really really wanna get it to work lol. When have you ever or anyone really gotten a 2070 for free lol I haven't 

[Sauron]

Just now, PhenixFel said:

I really really wanna get it to work lol. When have you ever or anyone really gotten a 2070 for free lol I haven't 

well, try the electrical tape, if nothing else there's no harm in trying.

[PhenixFel]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

well, try the electrical tape, if nothing else there's no harm in trying.

I will try harder haha. Right now the motherboard is making 2 beeps and then 3 beeps. But I'm still working on it

[mariushm]

Nail polish also works ... or you can just use a sharp blade to cut the gold fingers.. Also it's obvious but don't forget to actually insert the pci-e power connectors. Kapton tape is also great.

 

I encourage you to continue with experiments, and I also suggest plugging the video card in the bottom x16 slot as that one is connected directly to the chipset instead of the cpu and electrically it's pci-e x4

 

As for the beeps, the codes vary with the bios model, award bioses are different than ami bioses and so on. Google for the codes, you'll find plenty of lists

 

// electrical tape can be too thick and you could damage your pci-e slot because the pins inside the slot have to put some pressure on the gold contacts of the video card and electrical tape is just too thick so the pins inside the slot may lose some of that elasticity if you go overboard with tape.

[TheRandomness]

This would've worked just fine if they were more careful with their trimming in the first place. I've done this before to an old card and reduced it to PCIe x1 because it was fun. Just need to make sure there's no shorting between the PCB layers along the cut, can be made sure of by sanding the cut area and coating it in something unconductive.

 

I'd also suggest actually making sure they cut the right amount off, perhaps there's too many pins and the system is getting a little confused.

 

- Also thread moved to Troubleshooting.