Card is running in x1 mode. WTF?

[mfh6375]

I just installed an 8800gt 512mb superclocked and I get the following message at start up: Alert! PCI-e card is running in x1 mode. Press F1 to continue, or F2 to enter set up utility.

Pressing F1 lets windows continue booting and ends up at the desktop like normal. I have not tried F2, yet. I wasn't sure if I should.

The pc that I installed this card in has a P4 3.6ghz HT and 925x motherboard. I am very aware that this is bottlenecking the card, but I plan on building a new pc in the next month or two.

I called evga. The guy wasn't exactly sure what the problem was. He suggested the maybe my older mobo did not support PCI-e 2.0. He said to press F1 to continue. He said to go to their website and update the bios for the card. I did. But, I still get the same message at startup. Card runs just fine, although it is obviously being held back by my cpu.

I plan on calling evga back, but thought maybe I'd get a better answer here.

I ran GPU-Z. It did say "PCI-E x16 @ x1".

I ran CPU-Z. It says my PCI-e link width is x1, but max supported is 16x. Is there a setting I can change? Motherboard has a 925x chipset. Not sure exactly what model, though. It's a Dell.

Obviously, this card is in a x16 slot. It would not even fit in a x1 slot. Anybody got any ideas? Thanks in advance.

 

[mfh6375]

Nobody has any idea?

 

[duzcizgi]

Looks like you have problem with either mobo pcix controller or graphics card pcix controller. Try the mobo with a different graphics card and/or try your graphics card with a different mobo.

 

[jamesgoddard]

Dust / gunk in the PCI-e socket possibly blocking a contact or two???

 

[hsetir]

It's a bug with 8800gt.
In bios try searching for a option called PEG Force X1 and disable it.
And do set the NB core voltage below 1.5 or 1.45.

 

[dagger]

Did you overclock fsb and forget to lock PCIE at 100mhz? It could cause the card to throttle back to 1x.

 

[mfh6375]

Well, this pc is a Dell. So, the bios doesn't have any of the options that you guys mentioned. I'm building my own in a month or so. I won't have to put up with these Dell limitations anymore. Thanks for the suggestions, though.

 

[mreg]

Some Dell PC's PCI-E slot is version 1.0. New video cards are usually version
2.0 (maybe 1.1 or 1.0a ?). So they not work with 1.0 slot
at x16 speed and fall back to x1 speed automatically.

As far as I know there is no BIOS update, nor workaround to solve this
annoying behavior.