Lost PCI-E lanes / lost my 10GbE-T PCI-E 3.0 x4 NIC

[VirtualLarry]

Ok, I have an Asus B450-F ROG STRIX ATX mobo here.

Ryzen R5 3600 CPU, water-cooled with 240mm AIO CM WC kit.

16GB GSkill RGB DDR4-3600 "for AMD", CAS-18-22-22-xx, 1.35V. Running FCLK 1800 to match DRAM.

2x 1TB Intel 660p PCI-E 3.0 x4 NVMe SSDs, in both M.2 sockets, running in RAID-0, CSM disabled.

Not overclocked on CPU (other than FCLK).

Had an MSI Ventus GTX 1660ti in top GPU (PCI-E x16 slot).
Had a Sapphire RX 470 4GB in bottom GPU (PCI-E x16 slot).
Had an Asus 10GbE-T PCI-E x4 NIC in lowest PCI-E x16 (x4 electrical) slot.

Everything worked, at that point. I could use my 10GbE-T NIC, I could mine on both GPUs, everthing work OK.

Fast-forward to today, I received my second MSI Ventus GTX 1660ti card.

I pulled the RX 470 out, and put the second Ventus into the second GPU slot.

BLAM! My 10GbE-T NIC no longer showed up, at all, not even as a "Code 10 - Cannot start", or "Unknown Device" in Device Manager.

It simply doesn't show AT ALL.

I was on 1.0.0.3AB, flashed 1.0.0.3ABB, still no joy, same as before.

When I installed the second Ventus card on the bottom PCI-E slot, I didn't remove the Asus PCI-E x4 NIC. But then I tried removing it and re-inserting it, if it got jostled or something. Still no dice.

So, I recall, that NVidia's standard for SLI, requires PCI-E x8 support for both GPUs. Only, these GPUs don't support SLI.

My understanding of the PCI-E layout for this board was thus:

CPU: PCI-E x16 lanes, split (x8) top GPU slot, (x4) bottom GPU slot, (x4) secondary PCI-E 3.0 NVMe slot, along with the dedicated PCI-E 3.0 x4 for the primary NVMe slot.

Then the PCI-E x1 and bottom-most x4 slot, were all PCI-E 2.0 off of the B450 chipset, and that plugging in any x1 slot would take away from the x4 electrical bottom PCI-E x16 slot.

So, I thought that I was good to go, and I was, everything was working, with both the original Ventus, the RX 470, and the Asus PCI-E x4 NIC.

My current working theory, is, that the x8 SLI requirement, is hard-coded into NVidia's drivers or BIOS or whatnot, and it's somehow "stealing" 4 more lanes, and running at x8, and not x4, in the bottom-most GPU slot.

That, or my Asus PCI-E NIC mysteriously died upon reboot, somehow.

Edit: Downloaded newest GPU-Z, 2.25.0, ROG skin (to match my mobo), it shows "Nvidia SLI: Disabled", AND WON'T LET ME SELECT THE SECOND CARD AT ALL!

There appears to be NO WAY in GPU-Z to select the second card, for some reason. What is going on here? I wanted to check the PCI-E width.

 

[PingSpike]

If you remove the card does it come back?

That is confusing. I remember reading about this board because its an unusual layout. My understanding of the lane assignment is the same as you laid out. It seemed quasi-legit since I didn't think the B450 chipset supported such splits.

I seem to recall nvidia SLI requires 8x/8x but I wouldn't expect the GPU to not exist at all.

Anyway, I guess I'd confirm the hardware worked elsewhere to isolate the problem.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, MSI AfterBurner detects both GPUs and can monitor both. I can't seem to check the PCI-E lane width allocations with AfterBurner though.

And GPU-Z just seems out-dated compared to the newest NV drivers that I just installed. That's probably why it's not detecting the second card.

Interestingly, the BIOS versions of both cards are NOT the same. Same card, though, as far as I can tell.

 

[vailr]

The ASUS NIC appears to include an Aquantia controller chip. Check station-drivers.com for an Aquantia NIC firmware update to version 3.1.90: https://www.station-drivers.com/ind...tory&Itemid=353&func=fileinfo&id=4125&lang=en
Also: latest driver version is 2.1.18.0:

Aquantia AQtion Network Adapter Drivers Version 2.1.18.0 WHQL

Windows

www.station-drivers.com

Note: no guarantees if those updates would fix the problem. May require temporary removal of the recently added video card. Or: removing & replacing the NVMe SSD with a standard 2.5" SATA SSD may provide enough extra PCIe lanes to get both video cards and NIC working again.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I tried the official newest AQuantia drivers, and they wouldn't install for the Asus NIC. Which I thought was weird, I recall reading reviews, where people installed the AQ drivers, and they worked better than the newest Asus drivers, but it appears that the newest AQ drivers contain some sort of "lock-out" code, to only work on their "own" NIC cards, and not just cards containing their chip. So I suppose, based on what I observed.

Edit: Yep, already tried those drivers, those were the ones that wouldn't install for this NIC.

 

[vailr]

Did you try the Aquantia NIC firmware update?