GTX 980 issues on ASUS Z97-A Motherboard

[Jonpaul37]

Good Morning,

Looking to see if anyone has experienced the same issue as I have with a GTX 980 (Gigabyte Windforce version) specifically on an ASUS Z97-A Motherboard.

I didn't have any issues until shortly after I upgraded from my GTX 780 to my GTX 980. but when it is plugged into the top - first PCI-E x16 slot, it throttles down and gets horrible framerates in anything I play. GPU-Z shows it running as PCI-E 3.0 @ x16 running at like 404 MHZ or something close to that.

When I plug it into the second slot it runs fine in games and I get good frame rates, etc... but GPU-Z shows it running at PCI-E 3.0 @ x8

Now, I have reinstalled drivers, used driver sweeper in safe mode, re-seated, etc... I still get the same results. Inspecting the motherboard shows no signs of physical damage and I am using the same PSU connectors when the card is in either slot so I know it is not the PSU or the card as it works fine in the second slot.

No temp issues, happens right away when firing up games.

Anyone? Suggestions, links, etc would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[96Firebird]

Any updates for motherboard BIOS?

 

[Jonpaul37]

I updated it to the latest a couple months ago but I can check again to see if there are any new.

 

[xorbe]

I have seen one other report of this over at the GF forum. 1st slot cranky, 2nd slot fine.

In game, what happens if you change the resolution down, and then back up? Does the frame rate return to normal?

 

[flexy]

Interesting..so it never goes into 3D Powerstate in 1st slot and stays at 400mhz?

 

[Termie]

Gigabyte has had problems with modern GPUs running at PCIe 3.0 x16 speed. You may be stuck with x8 speed. I've seen this posted in many forums and experienced it myself.

You can set the first slot to run Gen.2 speed if you'd like to use that slot and it should work.

Edit: sorry, I meant gigabyte motherboards, but perhaps this Asus is having a similar issue.

 

[Jonpaul37]

Xorbe:
The first time around I changed res up and down and back up again and some AF/AA settings and it seemed to help but that doesn't work anymore.

Flexy:
Seems so, I wish there was a way to turn throttling off and simply keep the stock-clock settings for the core and memory (I have not looked into that possibility yet if there is one)

Termie:
This seems like a Major concern if that is the case. Can't advertise something and not follow through, especially on their Flagship Nvidia GPU...

 

[xorbe]

I thought x16 and x8 were lanes, not anything to do with gen2 vs gen3 speeds. Is that right or wrong?

"Typical" video card throttling should only be 50-100 MHz and not really impact the gaming experience. Are you saying the core clock drops massively per MSI AB history graph?

There have been sporadic reports of forcing Gen2 to solve odd performance issues.

 

[Jonpaul37]

MSI AB history is showing between 350 MHZ and 550 MHZ give or take.

x16 is basically for single-slot cards, and if two cards, it would both cards on x8 and so the 2nd PCI-E slot is reserved for x8 for a secondary Video card.

 

[xorbe]

MSI AB history is showing between 350 MHZ and 550 MHZ give or take.

Any difference with driver 350.12 versus specifically 344.75?

 

[rgallant]

I updated it to the latest a couple months ago but I can check again to see if there are any new.

maybe reset the mb bios if you have not [uninstall vid. drivers before], sounds like it did not update the new card.
-also set the mb for gen 3

 

[Jonpaul37]

Well, seems like update of Video Drivers took care of it and I reseated it and installed a sound card as well but that shouldn't have anything to do with it.

I will post back if issue occurs again!

 

[Jonpaul37]

And so the saga continues. Turned off my PC last night after everything was working fine after updating the video card drivers, wake up this morning, fire up World of Warcraft, boom! 24 FPS when I was getting 97 FPS last night. funny thing is, the FPS slowly started adding up so within 5 minutes, I was up to 45 FPS in the same exact spot... This is interesting to say the least

 

[Termie]

Try setting your motherboard's primary PCIe slot to Gen.2 speed, just to make sure this isn't the issue.

 

[Jonpaul37]

Seems weird but issue not present since my last post. I did try setting to Gen2 in the BIOS but the issue hasn't happened yet.

 

[xorbe]

If you are on an x16 slot, single gpu, single screen, then Gen2 vs Gen3 makes no practical difference, iirc.

 

[ocre]

OP that is one super crazy situation.

Have you talked to Nvidia tech support yet?

You can start a ticket on their website, I would be contacting them for sure.

It may be something flaky with the board and/or power savings features.

BTW, did you completely remove to old driver before installing the new? A clean install is supposed to totally remove the old driver but i know that back in the day we used 3rd party software.

 

[xorbe]

I jumped around driver versions, and got some horrible stuttering fps, and had to use DDU last week to remove the drivers. Somehow a version was left over, yet not listed in Control Panel -> Programs.

 

[Jonpaul37]

Interesting.

Well, seems I may have resolved the issue.

Used Driver Sweeper to completely remove the remaining driver files in safe mode and then performed a clean installation and I've not experienced any issues since I last posted in this thread. Hopefully this helps with others as they may come across this issue as well.

 

[kriptkori]

PERMANENT SOLUTION

There is no problem with your Gpu, cpu, ram or any driver. only problem is motherboard itself, and there is solution.

I have the same system. z97-a and 4790k. This board have this issue and solution is to change bios setting to "asus optimal" mode. It overcloks the cpu a little bit. if you have a good fan did it. Another solution is going bios and exiting without save and let Pc boot, this doesnt work all time. Permanent solution is changing bios mode to "asus optimal" mode, or making overclok manually. you dont need to overclok each core. but you should overclock 1st one at least 1ghz. 1st core must be 45ghz others can stay at 4.4ghz. İf you dont make first core higher than stock speed it will not work. choosing pci gen 2 is anothor solution but it will reduces performance %3-2