What could cause a GTX 970 G1 to run at PCIe x8 on any motherboard?

[Dabombinable]

^Title^, and this is another problem that's popped up with my GTX 970. (Other problems are; hitting 77^oC at stock, only overclocking to 130MHz fully stable-low ASIC score, loud fans under load). The motherboards that have been tested are:

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/H87MPRO/

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P5Q_Deluxe/

https://www.asus.com/au/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_Z97_MARK_2/

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P5Q_Turbo/

My GTX 650ti OC 2GB runs at x16 on all of them, so its not the motherboard.

[QueenDemetria]

2 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

^Title^, and this is another problem that's popped up with my GTX 970. (Other problems are; hitting 77^oC at stock, only overclocking to 130MHz fully stable-low ASIC score, loud fans under load). The motherboards that have been tested are:

My GTX 650ti OC 2GB runs at x16 on all of them, so its not the motherboard.

Damaged contact on the PCI-e connector? Also when you test the link speed, is it when the card is under load?

[Dabombinable]

3 minutes ago, QueenDemetria said:

Damaged contact on the PCI-e connector? Also when you test the link speed, is it when the card is under load?

Yes, and it reports x8 in GPU-Z all the time, where as my GTX 650ti shows x16 all the time.

[QueenDemetria]

1 minute ago, Dabombinable said:

Yes, and it reports x8 in GPU-Z all the time, where as my GTX 650ti shows x16 all the time.

Did you buy the card used or something?

[Morgan MLGman]

Smells like RMA? You could try up/downgrading the GPU BIOS, but that's about all you can do besides RMA AFAIK ;-;

[Dabombinable]

18 minutes ago, QueenDemetria said:

Did you buy the card used or something?

New, November 2014.

14 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

Smells like RMA? You could try up/downgrading the GPU BIOS, but that's about all you can do besides RMA AFAIK ;-;

I got it back after 5 RMA, so its pointless doing another RMA.

[Morgan MLGman]

Just now, Dabombinable said:

New, November 2014.

I got it back after 5 RMA, so its pointless doing another RMA.

Welcome to Gigabyte G1 Gaming... "The best GTX 970" according to some people on the forum when I keep saying it's not.

[QueenDemetria]

6 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

New, November 2014.

I got it back after 5 RMA, so its pointless doing another RMA.

Oh, so you probably have a refurb GPU then, which the morons who validate these cards often overlook many issues or glitches.

[Dabombinable]

2 minutes ago, QueenDemetria said:

Oh, so you probably have a refurb GPU then, which the morons who validate these cards often overlook many issues or glitches.

There was a mark I put on the back plate to ensure Gigabyte didn't do a Toshiba (refurb something that was utterly broken and give it to you as a replacement), it is the card I bought originally.

8 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

Welcome to Gigabyte G1 Gaming... "The best GTX 970" according to some people on the forum when I keep saying it's not.

Yeah....definitely not the best GTX 970.

[Maxxtraxx]

6 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

Welcome to Gigabyte G1 Gaming... "The best GTX 970" according to some people on the forum when I keep saying it's not.

I had 2 GTX 970 G1's, both overclocked to more than 1500 mhz with only a few mv of core voltage. Both were quiet and stayed cool(less than 70c for the bottom card and less than 80c for the top card).

Don't judge an entire lineup of cards sold by the thousands because of a small batch of bad experiences, some of which may not even be the card's fault.

 

35 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

^Title^, and this is another problem that's popped up with my GTX 970. (Other problems are; hitting 77^oC at stock, only overclocking to 130MHz fully stable-low ASIC score, loud fans under load). The motherboards that have been tested are:

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/H87MPRO/

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P5Q_Deluxe/

https://www.asus.com/au/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_Z97_MARK_2/

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P5Q_Turbo/

My GTX 650ti OC 2GB runs at x16 on all of them, so its not the motherboard.

Have you tried putting the card in another motherboard? or using a different pci-e 16x slot?

[Morgan MLGman]

Just now, Maxxtraxx said:

I had 2 GTX 970 G1's, both overclocked to more than 1500 mhz with only a few mv of core voltage. Both were quiet and stayed cool(less than 70c for the bottom card and less than 80c for the top card).

Don't judge an entire lineup of cards sold by the thousands because of a small batch of bad experiences, some of which may not even be the card's fault.

Doesn't prove anything. My MSI GTX 970 100ME Limited Edition went 1530mhz core/ 8005mhz memory without adding any voltage at all and barely passed 70 degrees while being barely audible. The fact that a G1 970 isn't "the best" 970 is pretty obvious though, you can't argue with that.

[Dabombinable]

Just now, Maxxtraxx said:

I had 2 GTX 970 G1's, both overclocked to more than 1500 mhz with only a few mv of core voltage. Both were quiet and stayed cool(less than 70c for the bottom card and less than 80c for the top card).

Don't judge an entire lineup of cards sold by the thousands because of a small batch of bad experiences, some of which may not even be the card's fault.

 

Have you tried putting the card in another motherboard? or using a different pci-e 16x slot?

Look at the motherboards that I've tried, and I've used both PCIe x16 slots on the Deluxe and Sabertooth with my GTX 650ti OC 2GB still being read at x16 where the GTX 970 is only working at x8. And since I just had to dial back the current overclock from 130MHz to 120MHz (worse than nearly all non binned Windforce cards) due to instability (+87mv otherwise its completely unstable), the fans are audible at idle and loud under load and it hits 77^oC with the fans and heatsink cleaned-it isn't the best, far from it.

[Maxxtraxx]

1 minute ago, Morgan MLGman said:

Doesn't prove anything. My MSI GTX 970 100ME Limited Edition went 1530mhz core/ 8005mhz memory without adding any voltage at all and barely passed 70 degrees while being barely audible. The fact that a G1 970 isn't "the best" 970 is pretty obvious though, you can't argue with that.

Exactly! One bad card does not prove that every G1 sucks. I would argue that ANY GTX970 from ANY major manufacturer has the potential to be the BEST GTX970 it is the silicon lottery after all... anyone anywhere could potentially end up with the best GTX970 simply due to luck.

[NumLock21]

Could be power saver.

[QueenDemetria]

6 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

There was a mark I put on the back plate to ensure Gigabyte didn't do a Toshiba (refurb something that was utterly broken and give it to you as a replacement), it is the card I bought originally.

Yeah....definitely not the best GTX 970.

Eh, they can still switch out the PCB though, just like how my sticker-bombed Asus laptop came back looking the same, while having a different serial number on the motherboard.

[Dabombinable]

3 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

Doesn't prove anything. My MSI GTX 970 100ME Limited Edition went 1530mhz core/ 8005mhz memory without adding any voltage at all and barely passed 70 degrees while being barely audible. The fact that a G1 970 isn't "the best" 970 is pretty obvious though, you can't argue with that.

One of the best (which I didn't know of at the time) Is probably the inno 3D, at full load its as loud as my G1 Gaming at idle. Still can't find much about it otherwise.

Just now, Maxxtraxx said:

Exactly! One bad card does not prove that every G1 sucks. I would argue that ANY GTX970 from ANY major manufacturer has the potential to be the BEST GTX970 it is the silicon lottery after all... anyone anywhere could potentially end up with the best GTX970 simply due to luck.

There are also GTX 980 that have similar issues-these GPU are supposedly binned, so that's supposed to take most of the luck out of the Silicon lottery. And the cooler itself while large is just as good as the smaller coolers with better fans on other cards. BTW, Gigabyte is the only manufacturer to put half of the vRAM chips on the back of the card with no heatsink or active cooling.

2 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

Could be power saver.

That only affects the PCIe lane speed, not the number of available lanes.

2 minutes ago, QueenDemetria said:

Eh, they can still switch out the PCB though, just like how my sticker-bombed Asus laptop came back looking the same, while having a different serial number on the motherboard.

I suppose that's possible-either way this card has the same problems as the original and the same ASIC score so (62.9%) that's not too likely.

[Morgan MLGman]

Just now, Dabombinable said:

One of the best (which I didn't know of at the time) Is probably the inno 3D, at full load its as loud as my G1 Gaming at idle. Still can't find much about it otherwise.

Really? I've looked it actually at the time I was choosing my 970, looked pretty damn cool with that little fan on top (IIRC) but I wasn't sure about that particular brand and decided to skip it

[Maxxtraxx]

47 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

^Title^, and this is another problem that's popped up with my GTX 970. (Other problems are; hitting 77^oC at stock, only overclocking to 130MHz fully stable-low ASIC score, loud fans under load). The motherboards that have been tested are:

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/H87MPRO/

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P5Q_Deluxe/

https://www.asus.com/au/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_Z97_MARK_2/

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P5Q_Turbo/

My GTX 650ti OC 2GB runs at x16 on all of them, so its not the motherboard.

 

My apologies, I completely missed(not sure how) that you had tried it on multiple Motherboards already.

 

One other thing that pops into my head, you're not running any other peripherals on the PC that would use any PCI-E lanes? Because even Z97 is limited to only 16 PCI-E lanes and any device that takes even one of those lanes will force the Graphics card to drop to 8x.

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, Morgan MLGman said:

Really? I've looked it actually at the time I was choosing my 970, looked pretty damn cool with that little fan on top (IIRC) but I wasn't sure about that particular brand and decided to skip it

The fans on it at load actually sound good, while those used by Gigabyte on all Windforce coolers (at the very least from the 600 series and onward) whine.

Just now, Maxxtraxx said:

 

My apologies, I completely missed(not sure how) that you had tried it on multiple Motherboards already.

 

One other thing that pops into my head, you're not running any other peripherals on the PC that would use any PCI-E lanes? Because even Z97 is limited to only 16 PCI-E lanes and any device that takes even one of those lanes will force the Graphics card to drop to 8x.

I'm using the H87M Pro at the moment, its got 1x PCIe 3.0 x16, 2x PCIe 2.0 x1, and 1x PCIe 2.0 x16 @ x2 (x4 with the x1 slots disabled).

[NumLock21]

Run the gpu with the Z97 Mark 2. In the bios there should be this gpu detect option and it should tell you what speed the gpu is running at.

[Dabombinable]

Just now, NumLock21 said:

Run the gpu with the Z97 Mark 2. In the bios there should be this gpu detect option and it should tell you what speed the gpu is running at.

It was running at x8 on that, just like all of my other PCIe motherboards (and I'm not using that motherboard as it needs a sound card since the onboard audio died).

[Maxxtraxx]

1 minute ago, NumLock21 said:

Run the gpu with the Z97 Mark 2. In the bios there should be this gpu detect option and it should tell you what speed the gpu is running at.

This... is a good idea!

 

3 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

The fans on it at load actually sound good, while those used by Gigabyte on all Windforce coolers (at the very least from the 600 series and onward) whine.

I'm using the H87M Pro at the moment, its got 1x PCIe 3.0 x16, 2x PCIe 2.0 x1, and 1x PCIe 2.0 x16 @ x2 (x4 with the x1 slots disabled).

the number of pci-e slots is not what the concern was, the processor and the chipset are limited to only 16 useable pci-e lanes of communication. so the 16x slot will only work at 16x if there are no other pci-e cards/peripherals/M.2 drives/ect in the system, otherwise it will operate at 8x.

[NumLock21]

Just now, Dabombinable said:

It was running at x8 on that, just like all of my other PCIe motherboards (and I'm not using that motherboard as it needs a sound card since the onboard audio died).

Your going to use that board just to see if it's your card that has the problem or is it gpu-z that's derping and not give you the correct info.  Looks something like this in the bios

[Maxxtraxx]

2 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

It was running at x8 on that, just like all of my other PCIe motherboards (and I'm not using that motherboard as it needs a sound card since the onboard audio died).

He's saying to NOT use gpu-z to detect the pci-e lanes, but instead checking the pci-e setup in the BIOS.

[Dabombinable]

Just now, Maxxtraxx said:

This... is a good idea!

 

the number of pci-e slots is not what the concern was, the processor and the chipset are limited to only 16 useable pci-e lanes of communication. so the 16x slot will only work at 16x if there are no other pci-e cards/peripherals/M.2 drives/ect in the system, otherwise it will operate at 8x.

The Gen 2.0 lanes run from the chipset, the top slot is the only one that uses lanes from the CPU, and as a result runs at x16, though only with my GTX 650ti plugged in.