How to test PCIe slots?

[orangecat]

So a while back a had some issues with my GTX970 so I sent it to goodbye for repairs. They swapped out a DVI port that was defective and sent it back telling me it was 100% working. Well I'm having issues with it in my PC but not another. I have a Asus P8Z77-M PRO motherboard and I the card has major issues in this board. I get black screen, flickering display outputs, computer locks up and restarts and all of this happens when I put any load on the GPU. I plugged the card into my dad's PC that has my old Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 motherboard and I ran furmark for hours with no issues at all and the second I put it back into my PC the issue come back. Now I can't use the top 16x PCIe slot because my CPU heatsink overhangs the first slot so I normally put it in the lower x8 slot and it worked fine for a long time. I assumed it was the slot so I went one slot lower and used the x4 slot below it and the same issues were present. I'm not sure why the card works in a different PC with lower specs and a much less beefy PSU but it does. Should I find a way to test the PCIe slot? I threw an RX460 in the same x8 slot and it seemed to work just fine and mind you that card draws all its power from the PCIe slot there is no external power like on my GTX970. Maybe I need a new motherboard or maybe I'm doing something wrong.

 

Any ideas?

[Evolution90]

Actually good question... same issue here except PSU burnt something on the motherboard.

 

I guess test it with another old GPU or something you don't mind getting ruined?

[Evolution90]

I would test mine with the 660Ti but i want to keep it.

[JakeNTech]

you could try with a PCIe WIFI card or USB card perhaps. 

[mr moose]

Have you got access to another PSU you can test with.  It sounds like power issues.

[orangecat]

9 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Have you got access to another PSU you can test with.  It sounds like power issues.

I do but I need to rip it out of another system first and I need time to do so.

[orangecat]

23 minutes ago, fixitnow said:

you could try with a PCIe WIFI card or USB card perhaps. 

I had a wifi card in there in the x1 slot and it didn't seem to have any issues. I also plugged in a different GPU and it seemed fine. It did crash once or twice for no reason so I'm not sure what's going on there but for the most part it had no issues.

[orangecat]

30 minutes ago, Evolution90 said:

Actually good question... same issue here except PSU burnt something on the motherboard.

 

I guess test it with another old GPU or something you don't mind getting ruined?

I tested it with an rx460 and it seemed fine for the most part. Biggest issue I had was it struggled to output video sometimes and I think they may have been because the iGPU was trying to take over as the primary output adapter instead of just staying turned off like it should. I can go the rx460 working though and other than it crashing once or twice (might be my Windows install) everything seemed fine with that card. It's just the 970 that doesn't like my motherboard or PSU it would seem.

[mr moose]

Just now, Kilobytez95 said:

I had a wifi card in there in the x1 slot and it didn't seem to have any issues. I also plugged in a different GPU and it seemed fine. It did crash once or twice for no reason so I'm not sure what's going on there but for the most part it had no issues.

Does the other GPU you tried use as much power as the 970?    If it does then it may not be your PSU.  But if it is just a small thing that runs only of the PCIe power then it's worth replacing your PSU to rule it out before spending an money.   Especially given you say the wifi card works in the PCIe slot.

[JakeNTech]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

Does the other GPU you tried use as much power as the 970?    If it does then it may not be your PSU.  But if it is just a small thing that runs only of the PCIe power then it's worth replacing your PSU to rule it out before spending an money.   Especially given you say the wifi card works in the PCIe slot.

 

2 hours ago, Kilobytez95 said:

So a while back a had some issues with my GTX970 so I sent it to goodbye for repairs. They swapped out a DVI port that was defective and sent it back telling me it was 100% working. Well I'm having issues with it in my PC but not another. I have a Asus P8Z77-M PRO motherboard and I the card has major issues in this board. I get black screen, flickering display outputs, computer locks up and restarts and all of this happens when I put any load on the GPU. I plugged the card into my dad's PC that has my old Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 motherboard and I ran furmark for hours with no issues at all and the second I put it back into my PC the issue come back. Now I can't use the top 16x PCIe slot because my CPU heatsink overhangs the first slot so I normally put it in the lower x8 slot and it worked fine for a long time. I assumed it was the slot so I went one slot lower and used the x4 slot below it and the same issues were present. I'm not sure why the card works in a different PC with lower specs and a much less beefy PSU but it does. Should I find a way to test the PCIe slot? I threw an RX460 in the same x8 slot and it seemed to work just fine and mind you that card draws all its power from the PCIe slot there is no external power like on my GTX970. Maybe I need a new motherboard or maybe I'm doing something wrong.

 

Any ideas?

You could get a GT610 and test with that. It's an auful card but isn't power hungry at all. I bought one just to have lying around to troubleshoot computers with no igpu.

[orangecat]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

Have you got access to another PSU you can test with.  It sounds like power issues.

Turns out it is a bad PSU.i tried a lower wattage RM450 and the was no issues. The second I put my V700 back in the system there was issues.

[mr moose]

35 minutes ago, Kilobytez95 said:

Turns out it is a bad PSU.i tried a lower wattage RM450 and the was no issues. The second I put my V700 back in the system there was issues.

Few, PSU's are cheaper than GPU's and depending on your motherboard cheaper than that too.