MAG Z790 PCI slot issue?

csin82

csin82

csin82

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21 Oct 2012
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50
Hi

I have an MSI MAG Z790 DDR5 motherboard and a Zotac 4090 all mounted in a LianLi Lancool III case. After connecting everything up, I appeared to be getting no power to the GPU. The green LED near the 12v plug was on so everything appeared fine there with both the Corsair 12vhpr cable and the adapter that came with the card but the system would not detect the GPU. I could get a display via the CPU (13700K).

After a bit of troubleshooting, it appears that the GPU has a very poor connection with the PCI slot. Eventually I found a stable position by booting to the bios and wiggling it around until the LEDs came on and were stable. Even now I'm not confident it will continue to work if the PC is moved. I did a bit of cable management and it stopped working again - took some time to get it back. I do have my old 2080Ti I could try, but now the GPU is working again (and I'm sure I'm not doing the card or the slot any good with the pressure it takes to get it to work) I'm reluctant to take the new card out again. As I'm using a Lancool 3, I've no option to try a vertical mount with a riser.

Anyone else seen this before, or have I just got unlucky with either the motherboard or the card? My concern is with only 1 of the 3 PCI backplate screws plugged in, and no GPU support, its not going to stay put forever!
 
I'd make sure there's no obstruction as BUDFORCE suggests.

Did you have to do the standoffs yourself, or were they pre-installed?

Are you 100% sure that the PCI backplates were all removed? I once had this problem and after much confusion and swearing, I realised that I'd left one of the backplates attached and had screwed the card in over the top of it :o
 
To get my 7900xt to fit my MSI MAG x570 I had to take a Dremel to the top of the sata ports to get the card to seat properly.

Bit extreme I know but I only use 1 Sata port anyway. I did end up destroying one but I think if you were careful enough you could take off just enough material for the card to fully click on and leave the ports intact.

It'll void your warranty on your board though.

It can't be that many cards, but I did find some Reddit posts of people with the same board having issues with other cards. Seems it isn't just specific to my board and is a bit of a design flaw on MSI's part putting the sata ports in line with the top PCIE slot.

I like MSI boards otherwise though.
 
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Thanks all - hard to see with it all in place but will check those SATA ports the next time I go in there - I'm not using any of them at the moment anyway. Its all working (for now) so will just enjoy the thing this weekend!
 
So its definately the slot. Nothing appeared to be obstructing it yet even after it finally clicked, it failed a few days later. So I tried my lighter, 2 slot GPU (2080Ti) and that isn't stable either.
So can anyone recommend a Z790 board? I'd like to re-use everything else. If anyone has this: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/zota...dr6x-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-13e-zt.html in an Intel board can you let me know which you have please?

If I still can't get it working with a replacement board then lick my wounds and prebuilt it is :D
 
csin82 said:
If I still can't get it working with a replacement board then lick my wounds and prebuilt it is :D
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You could buy one of the cheaper DDR5 B760 boards, just to see if you can get it working, e.g. Gigabyte B760/B760M DS3H, or MSI B760M-P/B760 Gaming Plus.

I had a few minutes to burn so went on a Zotac hunt and I found some reported profile entries for the TUF Z790-Plus (just the first board that popped into my head):

 
My last build was a 6700K. With my gaming habits (4k single player with the eye candy cranked up) I'm generally GPU limited. So I keep my platform for a long time and upgrade the GPUs every 2 to 3 generations. So I'd want the PCI-E 5 option. So will likely stick with Z790.

After a hunt for the additional PCI power cable, I stuck the 4090 into my old 6700K machine. Solid connection, first time. Won't be standing it up... So the GPU is fine. I have now snapped the PCI socket clip on the MAG so have damaged it accidentally. I'm confident it's the mobo tho. Without going into details likely to get me in to trouble, I have about 10 days left on my no questions asked replacement policy but it only covers like for like and takes a while. So planning on getting something with less Google and Reddit hits and maybe just sell the MAG replacement when it comes. I was fooled by an attractive bundle it seems!!

Given what I spent I'm beginning to regret my rather tight part sourcing techniques. I do want to avoid RGB wherever possible tho!

Until then, I have the most unbalanced PC build ever!!

So if anyone has that actual card and another board id still appreciate hearing from you.
 
csin82 said:
So if anyone has that actual card and another board id still appreciate hearing from you.
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For what it is worth, I did google the device IDs reported in the profiles and they came back with the Trinity, so I'm pretty sure there's at least one board that works fine, or at least it works long enough to complete the benchmark.
 
Re read what I said and it could have come across wrong. Thanks for the suggestions and the work. A little frustrated right now but that's no excuse so I'm sorry if I appeared to be disregarding your post.

Nothing is going to show up before Tuesday now so I've got time to sleep on it and decide tomorrow!
 
csin82 said:
Re read what I said and it could have come across wrong. Thanks for the suggestions and the work. A little frustrated right now but that's no excuse so I'm sorry if I appeared to be disregarding your post.
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I didn't take it that way, it is all good :D

I was just clarifying, because random links to a random website might not seem very reliable, but I often use this site with very old motherboards to see what cards work/don't work and it's very useful that it reports the exact model of motherboard and bios version, alongside the card. For most mainstream boards there are dozens and dozens of profiles.
 
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