PCIEx16 3D crash problem , PCIEx8 3D all Ok

[Rart]

Hello

Intel I7-4790K
Asus Maximus VII Ranger
Gigabyte GTX 960 Windforce 2x oc
Power Corsair CS750M
G-skil 8 Gbs ram (2x4Gbs)

My new pc has a problem , since it was build , it works fine using windows 7 (folders , pictures..all) and on the internet and watching videos ...
But running a more demanding 3d game or benchmark the nvidia driver crash (nvidia Display driver stopped responding and has recovered) after some seconds ,
for example on Valley Benchmark 1.0 ,Heaven Benchmark 4.0 ,3DMark ,3DMark 11 and others .

Did many tests without luck :
Installed all nvidia drivers (using Display Driver Uninstaller before install the new drivers) .
Installed chipset update, sound update, Intel(R) Management Engine Interface update (<Did CPU stress test with IntelBurnTest 2.54 , all ok .
Did a memory test with memtest86+-4.20 , 3 pass's , all ok .
Did 3 motherboard bios updates .
Tried 2 screens , 1 dvi-i to dvi-i , 1 dvi-d to hdmi
Tried hdmi to hdmi but i get a very red screen and a look of just 256 colors in windows , i will talk about this later<<<<<
Tried many different settings in the bios , UEFI .
And alot more things that i don't remember now...

After alot of tests , changes , updates :
i have found that this problem happens with the card installed in the PCIEx16 slot ,
But works ok if its in the PCIEx8 slot .
In the PCIEx8 works very well , theres no nvidia driver crashs , theres good fps on Valley and heaven (the tests i use more) .


After all this , whats the problem ?
•Motherboard PCIEx16 slot Faulty ?
•CPU is Faulty ?
(i read somewhere that the CPU controls the PCIEx16 lane . About the x8 lane ,the CPU doesn't control the PCIEx8 lane or it does ? )
•Video Card is Faulty ?
Is possible that a video card it self works ok in the PCIEx8 slot but dont work in the PCIEx16 slot ? (because its somehow damaged using x16 "system" ? )
•Other thing ?

I tested a old card(7900GS) in the PCIEx16 slot and works without crashs but that card is not so demanding as a GTX 960 tho
(The 7900GS i tried it in the Valley test but the fps were very low , but the driver didn't crashed. I need try it again but in the game LFS for example to see if crashs or not)

Any other tests i should do ?
What you guys think about this?

Thanks

[Margus]

Witch OS you use? Is latest chipset drivers installed 26 from intel site. Is memory mixed sticks eg differnt or identical? Did you oveclocked cpu?
Its canbe faulty videocard i ask the old card runs 16x? check videocard power plug maybe its seat too soft.

[Margus]

Witch OS you use? Is latest chipset drivers installed 26 from intel site. Is memory mixed sticks eg differnt or identical? Did you oveclocked cpu?
Its canbe faulty videocard i ask the old card runs 16x? check videocard power cable plug maybe its seat too soft.

[Rart]

I use Windows 7 ultimate X64 , I also did other new W7 installation in other hard drive but the problem still happens .
The chipset driver that i installed is from the Asus Maximus Ranger site Version 10.0.20 Intel(R) Chipset Software Installation Utility V10.0.20 for Windows 7/8/8.1 32bit & 64bit.(WHQL) Intel_Chipset_Win7-8-8-1_V10020.zip
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/MAXIMUS_VII_RANGER/HelpDesk_Download/
I was looking for a chipset driver in the intel site but could not found any for maximus ranger Z97 intel chipset .
Can you post the link ?

I found there this Intel® Chipset Device Software (INF Update Utility) Chipset_10.0.26_Public.zip, installed it but nothing happened tho .
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/20775/Intel-Chipset-Device-Software-INF-Update-Utility-
Installed also this Intel® Driver Update Utility , it search automatically or manually for drivers , but was empty , no drivers found .
http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect?iid=dc_iduu

Memory is identical , bought 2 sticks in the same pack , Gskill .
I tried with just 1 stick of ram but the problem happens anyway , tried bout one by one .

I didn't overclocked the CPU , i also loaded the best default setting (or how its called..) in the bios and saved .
Right now the only settings that i have changed in the bios are: changed the pciex16 and x8 to gen 3.0 and i think thats all.
I tried gen 1 and gen 2 but still crashs the driver .

About the old card 7900gs , i installed it today again in the pciex16 and x8 and the result is , it has the same behavior in bout slots .
Running just the Valley test , the driver doesn't crash but the fps are very low , around 3 or 4 fps.
Running the game LFS with the AIs the driver don't crash and i get around 120fps , but if i alt+tab out of the game and run GPUZ pciexpress render test , the driver crashs multiple times , (LFS+GPUZ test running at same time = driver crash)
The old card runs at x16 1.1 and x8 1.1, numbers from GPUZ doing the render test .
The GTX 960 runs at x16 3.0 and x8 3.0 .
I can't test with other new card , that would help but....

I tried with just one power cable (cable with a "Y" because this card has 2 connectors) and also with 2 cables , but driver crash anyway.
The seat of the plug seems all ok , tight.

Was doing some tests with the Valley test , pciex8 = 70fps , with pciex16 crashs 5 times in the first minute and then freezs the pc or reboot .
With the program Afterburner , i moved the Power Limit from 100%(default number) to 47 and it was possible do a full valley test with out crashs but the result was just 63fps and very unstable , sometimes crash others don't , if its more than 47% it crashs all the time .
To test the Heaven benchmark its impossible use 47% , to don't crash need be around 40% or less , Heaven test is more "heavy".

With pciex16 the driver crash with just one 3d program . With pciex8 its possible put valley , heaven , game lfs , performance test 8 , all this programs running at the same time and no problem , 0 crashs .

Thanks for the help.

[Rart]

Case closed and Solved .
Faulty Gigabyte GTX 960 Windforce 2x oc .

Got a new Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 Gaming 8G and works great at the pci-express x16 slot .

The difference is huge in terms of fps , in the Valley Benchmark at the start (first frames\scenario), the GTX 960 gets 64 fps max (both AA off) and the

GTX 1070 gets 170 😉