Help PCI-E x16 stuck at x1

i just got a new mobo, m5a99x, and gpuz, cpuz, aida all show pci express to be at x1 with a capabilty of x16.

Works fine in my old board and I tested at gtx 260 in the new board and it was at x16.

Tried reseating, cleaning etc, what is going on?

Btw i tried this in both pci express slots and again both at x1, specs in the sig and there seems to be no options in the bios for pci express link, bios also updated.
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CPU: Phenom II 965
Graphics: XFX HD6950.
RAM: 8GB 1600Mhz DDR3 (Corsair and Gskill modules)
HDD: OCZ Agility 60GB SSD And Samsung F3 500GB
PSU: Antec Truepower New 650

I think it is actually the gpu, just tried it back in my old mobo and it wont even boot no matter what you try, stuck in the gtx 260 perfect every time, again with the new mobo amd card stuck at x1, gtx 260 is at x16.

Ive had a few other problems with this card which include having to manually set the 2d clocks to avoid artifacts, common problem apparently, and the driver crashes numerous times which was only fixed by setting the cards clocks to constant( or just not very low like the powerplay settings do)

I cant find anything in the bios for the pci express lanes, only for the frequency, pci express spread and few other bits and bobs but not for the lanes.

Cards been deemed faulty by xfx. Awaiting returns process now

Dwarf said:

In addition to what essenbe mentioned above, slightly loosen all motherboard mounting screws to allow the board to move slightly when you insert the card. It could be an alignment problem, which is often solved by doing this. Don't forget to tighten the screws afterwards.

Btw i tested the mobo out of the case in case of this issue to ensure this was not the issue, it boots but again still stuck at x1

sorry about my newbie question.. from what i know the PCI E x1 and the PCI E x16 are differents slots as the picture display here : http://cdn.avsforum.com/2/25/25ea8192_20050601.gif .
so how did you pluged the same video card to those both slots ? ( the x1 and the x16 )
thanks in advanced ..

Still .. those are different ports .. does he uses any adapter?

Yax1 said:

Still .. those are different ports .. does he uses any adapter?

A PCIe x16 slot can usually run cards that are x1 x4 x8 and x16.

If the card is designed as x1, it will run at x1 in a x16 slot.

In this case the card was faulty and would only run at x1 even though it should run a x16

Yax1 said:

Still .. those are different ports .. does he uses any adapter?

Methinks we had a failure to communicate. PCI-e have two ways they are "measured". The physical length of the slot is measured by the number of lanes it is potentially able to support. The most common physical slot sizes seen are x1, which is that little stubby one, and x16, which is the full length one. However, not all full length PCI-e slots are able to run all of the signal lanes. Many are assigned only x8 or x4. Often, due to processor and other supporting chip limitations, some PCI-e slots are connected to the same source and share lanes.

For example, on my motherboard, there are two blue slots, two black slots and two white slots. All of them are full length but not all of them support the full 16 lanes. Each blue slot can run a maximum of 16x (also called 16 lanes). The black slots run at 8x and the white ones run at 4x, even though they are physically 16x long (yeah, I know, it's weird; I'll get into that in a moment). To further confuse the issue, each blue slot and the nearest black slot share the same 16x lane allocation. As long as only the blue slot is populated and its paired black slot is empty, the blue slot will be able to run at the full x16. But if I were to also plug something into the paired black slot, then both that black and the blue slot above it would run at only x8 each. Even if I plug a 16x capable graphics card into a blue slot and another in its nearest black slot, both will run at only 8x each. Oddly enough, the drop from 16x to 8x reduces performance by only a few percent, not half as one would think. That's why two graphics card running together can give much more performance than one by itself, despite running on half the lanes.

If only the black slot is populated, it is still limited by the motherboard to x8. The two white x4 slots will run at x4 no matter what is plugged in elsewhere up to a point. Motherboards have limits to the number of total lanes that can be used. Usually, that is determined by the type of CPU used. CPUs designed for the Z77 and Z87 boards, for example, are limited to 24 lanes. X79 boards can run up 40 lanes. Some boards can increase that amount by having an extra chip added to the board. On the flip side, some boards share PCI-e lanes with other functions on the board, such as additional SATA or USB ports. If those ports are activated and/or used, the PCI-e slot those ports are stealing lanes from will no longer work. If the PCI-e slot is activated, then those additional ports won't work.

One can use a freeway to describe how lanes work in a computer. A freeway may be wide enough for eight lanes but the traffic engineers may decide to paint only six lanes. This limits the amount of traffic that can flow through the freeway even though it physically has room for more.

In the case of the OP's card, it appears it is defective and is allowing only one lane of traffic to flow. To return to the freeway analogy, say there are 16 lanes of traffic on one side of a freeway (I know, some freeway!). An accident occurs that closes all but one of the lanes (two semi trucks tangled?). That is essentially what appears to have happened with the OP's card.

I hope this is a bit clearer than mud. It took me a while to grasp the concept.