My wifes computer has had a problem for over a year now, Where when you go to turn on it doesn't always want to 1st time. A simple beating would solve that problem. And now it wont turn on with the graphics card in, but not a problem when its removed. Am thinking its a problem with the motherboard myself. Wifes setup is I7 4790k Asrock Fatality Z97X Killer 16GB 2400 ram Palit super jetstream GTX 1070 EVGA 650 gold PSU I have a couple of questions. Is it possible to plug the gpu into a different slot and still use it in the short term? I know it wouldn't be as good, but as a temporary measure. Hopefully that would work. Or do we try and get another Z97 mb, In the hope that fixes things. Or do we throw caution to the wind and go for a new setup. Was thinking AMD. Problem i have is i dont have a spare system to try the gpu on. But i've always had my suspicion its the motherboard at fault. What do you all think we should do? Oops. I may have dropped this in the wrong place.
Figure of speech. I've put the card in the 8x slot and everything seems fine atm. 3d Mark shows same or slightly better results. Which makes me think the card was operating at 8x all along anyway. Strange.
There isnt much difference between pcie x8 or x16 so thats why perf is nearly identical My bet is the x16 slot has died or is damaged i had this happen on a z97 too
Do you think i should look for a new board, or go all in and go for a new setup like AMD? Or is it fine as it is, and see what happens?
The performance loss is minimal. And nowadays building a computer is a bit painful. The prices for hardware are eye watering, hold on that computer as long as it boots and functions.
Good advice, thanks guys. I was just a bit worried i could ruin the MB by using it that way for hopefully a long time. Cheers.
Like the others said just use the x8 slot you wont barely notice the diffrence. To get a used z97 board they are still Expensive as hell over $150-200 Not worth it at any rate. Save-up for a new pc slowly.
Likely 100% the reason why it won't boot is some of the pins for the PCI-express lanes from the processor on the socket itself might be just nicked a hair off-center, causing them not to touch when cold. Then when the machine's sat in a black screen state for a few minutes but power is running through it (sometimes as little as 10~30 seconds), hit reset and presto it boots. I had that issue but it was a goofy pad on my original c-stepping i7 920, never really bothered me but the 2~3 times a year I actually turned it off (to clean it). To find the pin that's goofed up, you'll have to take the entire board out, sit it on your counter/kitchen table or somewhere you can sit with lots of natural light, on a clear sunny day, and use a magnifying glass an a needle or mechanical pencil to nudge it back. Keep in mind if your hands are anything but steady, you could make it not boot at all. You can replace the motherboard with a Asus Z97-A or Z87-A (make sure it has Bios Flashback) or ASRock equivalent (brand makes little difference, just make sure it has flashback as your Haswell refresh processor wasn't supported when Z87 came out), for around 100$ or a little more. It IS worth fixing the computer if it does what you need it to. Sometimes the case (if it's a cheaper one or it got a shipping injury - not always obvious) is slightly off-square and causing one of the PCI-E cards not to seat 100% right, too. That fixing itself once it's warmed up would lead me to believe it's in the socket though. As above stated, if it does it only on cold boot, and if it fails booting and you leave it sit for a minute or two 'stuck' and hit reset or power cycle again and it works fine, that's a socket issue almost 100%. It's rarely been power supply related (not 100% ruling it out either), it's usually just from installing or removing the cpu a few times, those sockets are super-touchy like that. Normally common issues that show from this problem are the second set of two RAM slots won't work or will lock on bootup like bad memory, but other things can go out too, just depends how you installed the processor. Also, if you over-tighten the cooler, these issues can manifest also if some pins have more force on one corner of the socket than others. Sometimes fixing this, if you have a bolt-down cooler (not the stock pushpin-junk), requires less than a quarter-turn (to loosen) the screw on one corner of the socket. Always install the processor while the board is sitting ontop of the motherboard box before you put it in the case, to avoid these issues in the future with intel sockets, and don't over-crank the cooler down on it if using the bolt-down type. If you wish to just keep using it, you don't need to hit it, a light smack VS a full on tenderizing will do usually if that's the only way to do it. It might quit one of those times though. So do save up for a new one. Have a cheapo Asrock x570 motherboard (cheapest one out), some 3000mhz cl-15 bargain-bin memory, and a 3700x with the stock cooler (never put the Noctua in yet), and I love it. So having come from a 4790k myself I will say you'll/she'll love it. It sure sped up RIMWORLD of all things (and my content creation, of course). It's not night and day but if you do things like BeamNG Drive or other games which can make use of 6 or more 'real cores', definitely will help. Single-threaded increase in speed won't be drastic, but you're 1% lows will be substantially better and it won't bog nearly as bad with the extra cache memory and better scheduler. Recommend getting at-least a 3700x if coming from the 4790k for a good 2:1 increase in pure CPU performance, stock cooler is okay if you must use it, it's not really going to hurt performance. Just don't leave the mass of cheese-thickness thermal grease on in stock form on the AMD boxed cooler though, scrape some of it off after a test-mount with a store credit card off (only) one of the surfaces like I did or there will be way too much. --Good luck
