2 PCI-E ports stopped working after plugging in new HDMI cables

[Cyrus Cee]

Man I guess I have terrible luck or something. I'm just asking to confirm if my suspicions are true. I have an ASRock Z97 Extreme4 which comes with 3 PCI-E x16 ports. I've used it for a month with no issues except for an HDMI cord that was a tad bit too small, and so I ordered two of these: http://www.amazon.com/HDMI-High-Speed-Cable-Feet/dp/B000AA2RCY/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8
After I received it today, I plugged it in and everything worked fine and I went out to get some food. When I came back, one of my monitors was out. After half an hour of troubleshooting I came to the conclusion that both HDMI cords were faulty and that one of my PCI-E x16 ports stopped working after trying different combinations of cables and graphics cards and PCI-E x16 ports. But it gets better. I tried the HDMI cords on another PCI-E x16 port and shortly after, THAT port stopped working. So I think its safe to say that two faulty HDMI cables have killed two of my PCI-E x16 ports as no combination of my graphics cards and the faulty/working HDMI cables produces a signal from those ports. My question is really just a confirmation as to whether or not I'm missing something obvious like a BIOS setting that changes when you change HDMI cables.
Thanks for reading.

 

[getochkn]

$2 cables with about a $1 in shipping and packaging costs, sometimes you get what you get.

It could be the issue. Does the third port work now with either video card or the good cables. Stay away from the cheap cables.

 

[Cyrus Cee]

$2 cables with about a $1 in shipping and packaging costs, sometimes you get what you get.

It could be the issue. Does the third port work now with either video card or the good cables. Stay away from the cheap cables.

The third port works just fine (I'm using it as we speak), but the other two have just stopped working after having the faulty cables plugged in. I was unaware that cheap cables could actually cause a problem like this; at worst I just expected $3 to be wasted on cables that didn't work.