3rd 7950 not detected

[StYleY]

Hi OCUK,

I bought a 3rd Sapphire 7950 Vapor-X for my PC (mining) yesterday but can't get it to work properly. This is my setup:

MB: MSI Z77A-GD65
PSU: 1200W Antec Truepower Quattro
CPU: Intel G530
RAM: 8GB Kingston HyperX


Details:
PC has been running fine for 1 month with 2 7950s running next to each other.
Added a 3rd card yesterday but can't get Windows to detect the 3rd card.

Problem seems to be with the 3rd 16x PCIE slot, I tried swapping cards and slots, all combinations of slot/gpu/power connecters work fine except when the 3rd 16x PCIE slot is used. Also, MB bios seems to be of the latest version.


Does anybody have any suggestions for this problem?

Thanks in advance,
Styley

 

[tribz]

Looks like your gonna need a CPU upgrade also, from your manual ....

 

[StYleY]

Looks like your gonna need a CPU upgrade also, from your manual ....

Wow, that's good and bad news I guess, thanks for this information.

Do you reckon the card will run fine if I connect the card to the 1x slot with a 16x -> 1x PCI-E riser cable?

 

[tribz]

I think I'd bite the bullet and get a new CPU. The cheapest Ivybridge Celeron is only £33. I'd do some further research though to make sure it will definitely fix it.

 

[StYleY]

I think I'd bite the bullet and get a new CPU. The cheapest Ivybridge Celeron is only £33. I'd do some further research though to make sure it will definitely fix it.

Thanks tribz,

I can get the cable and the CPU fairly easily, hope to get the delivery of the 16x -> 1x riser cable today. If it doesn't work I will go to a nearby shop and get a cheap IvyBridge Celeron. I will post the results here.

 

[StYleY]

Alright! Finally got everything up and running last Saturday, had a lot of issues with remote access and driver installation because this is a headless machine and I actually don't have a monitor.

The 16x -> 1x PCI-E riser cable is working perfectly fine now.

Thanks for the help tribz!

 

[tribz]

Interesting to know that the extender works fine, cheers.

 

[Freddie1980]

Even if your using this for mining won't the 3rd 7950 be crippled by the lack of bandwidth running through a 1x slot?

 

[tribz]

From what I've read, apparently its fine. Looking at some of the reviews for the slot extenders, mid range cards seem to game fine(ish) on them.

 

[StYleY]

Even if your using this for mining won't the 3rd 7950 be crippled by the lack of bandwidth running through a 1x slot?

Nope, not a problem at all for mining apparently.
Like tribz said, it will be a bottleneck when you are gaming but for mining it's absolutely fine.

Made some pictures, could possibly help some people out in the future.

16x from card attached to 1x converter cable

Conventional 16x slot on the left, 1x slot with the converter cable on the right