Why does this PCIe Configuration Not Work?

[FinalCPU]

I'm trying to get my 1X PCIe Gigabyte wifi card to work in a 16X slot wired for 8X, but it doesn't function in any configuration I try and have found no special settings in the BIOS.

 

 

EDIT: After doing some tests and checking GPU-Z to see the interface type, I noticed that the top slot was indeed running at 8x bandwidth.

This means that the motherboard is detecting the wireless card and sending bandwidth to it, but the card itself is only sending power to the bluetooth device (required with usb header to work).

To confirm this, I tested the card in all of the slots with and without the USB cable, noting the wifi works in all but the slot I want it to work in and bluetooth can function in that slot without wifi capabilities.

 

I thought that maybe it was a lack of PCIe lanes (16 provided by the CPU) however, given that the top slot graphics card used 8,

the bottom slot used 4 from the chipset and I only have 3 SATA 6gb/s drives, I should have had at least 2 to spare for a wireless card.

 

Unfortunately, this means my initial hypothesis that the top slot occupied with a graphics card wasn't detecting the wireless card in the 8x slot and not providing it bandwidth is false.

 

This seems to be due to some other issue, but I have no other hardware to swap in and test. In this situation it would've been best to get a full ATX motherboard, one with a built in wireless solution or, if absolutely necessary, getting a riser cable (TESTED: Does Work) for one of the graphics cards to open up a slot one was covering.

 

 

 

System:

Gigabyte Z170MX - Gaming 5 M-Atx motherboard BIOS F21 Edit: Updated to F22

XFX RX480 RS

EVGA GTX 960 SC

EVGA 600B PSU

Gigabyte Bluetooth dual band /ac wireless card rev 4.2

Intel i5 6600k

Kinston boot SSD, WD 1T 7200 rpm HDD

Windows Home 64bit

 

Perusing the manual, I didn't find any special rules about disabled PCIe slots, and yet that 8X slot works with both of my graphics cards but not for the 1X wifi card.

The pictures with the small network window are configurations that didn't detect the wifi card.

Here are the configuration examples:

 

 

I'd appreciate any help to resolve this, or an explanation as to why the wifi doesn't work while the bluetooth does in that particular slot.

 

 

Edited August 21, 2017 by FinalCPU
New Information

[Jurrunio]

Isn't the connector on the top right of the card a molex port? You will need to plug that in, just like connecting the PCIe power connector on a graphics card.

[DugzGaming]

2 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

Isn't the connector on the top right of the card a molex port? You will need to plug that in, just like connecting the PCIe power connector on a graphics card.

No that appears to be USB.

Your Intel i5-6600k Is Limited to 16 PCIe Lanes.

As some PCIe lanes are used by the board for the Audio, Sata, USB and other on board devices, you are prevented from using this setup.

• PCI Express Revision3.0
• PCI Express Configurations ^‡Up to 1x16, 2x8, 1x8+2x4
• Max # of PCI Express Lanes16

http://ark.intel.com/products/88191/Intel-Core-i5-6600K-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_90-GHz

 

[DugzGaming]

Also maybe try updating to the latest BIOS ver.F22a

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z170MX-Gaming-5-rev-10#support-dl

[Jurrunio]

3 hours ago, DugzGaming said:

No that appears to be USB.

Your Intel i5-6600k Is Limited to 16 PCIe Lanes.

As some PCIe lanes are used by the board for the Audio, Sata, USB and other on board devices, you are prevented from using this setup.

• PCI Express Revision3.0
• PCI Express Configurations ^‡Up to 1x16, 2x8, 1x8+2x4
• Max # of PCI Express Lanes16

http://ark.intel.com/products/88191/Intel-Core-i5-6600K-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_90-GHz

 

Not like this. Chipset also provide access to PCIe lanes

 

[FinalCPU]

On 8/19/2017 at 3:21 AM, DugzGaming said:

No that appears to be USB.

Your Intel i5-6600k Is Limited to 16 PCIe Lanes.

As some PCIe lanes are used by the board for the Audio, Sata, USB and other on board devices, you are prevented from using this setup.

• PCI Express Revision3.0
• PCI Express Configurations ^‡Up to 1x16, 2x8, 1x8+2x4
• Max # of PCI Express Lanes16

http://ark.intel.com/products/88191/Intel-Core-i5-6600K-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_90-GHz

 

I think I figured it out, since the board adjusts for the dual GPU setup and is sending 16 lanes to the first graphics card because that last slot is only on the chipset.

I wonder if I can manually set it to 8X bandwidth to force it to give bandwidth to the other slots. I'll update my BIOS to 22 from F21 and test some more.