Death of a PCI express 3.0 slot

[richdog22]

Been a lurker here for a lil while and just recently built a new gaming rig following mfenn's build pretty closely ( Thanks mfenn!). System has been up and running for 2 wks or so.

This morning turned PC on and nothing. Fans start thats it. Nothing on screen. Great. A little troubleshooting narrows it down to vid card, mother board or PSU. I put vid card in another rig and it works fine. put vid card back in new rig but in PCI express 2.0 slot and it works fine. Vid card in PCI express 3.0 slot and nothing, no post/BIOS, just fans.

So to me it sounds like my PCI express 3.0 slot crapped out.

SO my question for you is should I RMA the board back to newegg or live with PCI express 2.0. How much of a performace hit will I see gaming.

I did a lil research on the subject and it sounded like if I do take any hit at all in performance its not much.

My current rig is:

i5 3570k overclock to 4.4Mhz at 1.21V with CM 212 evo cooler
Asrock z77pro3 motherboard
Sapphire HD 7950 3GB stock 925/1250 overclocked to 1125/1500 at stock volt
Samsung 128gb SSD
WD 1TB 7200rpm HD x 2
Lite on CD/DVD/RW
xfx pro550W bronze certified PSU
NZXT source 220
corsair xms3 DDR3 1333 8GB (2 x 4GB)
Windows 7 64 bit

RMA motherboard? or no?

What say you?

Thanks

Richard

 

[Sleepingforest]

On a single GPU setup, you wouldn't see any difference, but I would RMA anyway. A failed PCIe slot may be a symptom of something worse, waiting to fry your computer. Plus, new warranty period (in some cases)!

 

[mfenn]

Agree. You should be able to send it back to Newegg since it's only been two weeks.

 

[5ive]

Funnily enough I've been having the exact same problem.

It's a massive hassle but the board is going to be getting sent back. I could probably live with the integrated graphics as I don't do much gpu intensive stuff, but that's not the point. When spending money on something I'd hope it is fully functional.

 

[dawp]

the x16 2.0 on that board is an electrical x4 so if you keep it you will take a major performance hit. return it.

 

[richdog22]

Ugh x4....great

Back it goes then. Thanks for the input.

Richard