Hey everyone! I'm trying to figure out a situation with my new PC build. I have an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D, a Palit RTX 4070 SUPER, and Crucial 64GB DDR5 RAM (2x 32GB) running on a GIGABYTE B650M AORUS Elite motherboard. Everything was working fine after I updated the BIOS, but then I decided to upgrade by adding a Gainward RTX5080 as a second GPU. To make it fit, I bought a Lian Li riser cable to connect it to the second PCIe slot.
Initially, everything was good, but things went south on the second boot when the RTX 4070 wasn't recognized anymore. By the third boot, I ended up with a black screen and the DRAM LED on, even after removing the second GPU. The only way to get the PC booting properly was by removing one stick of DDR5 RAM, but putting it back caused the same boot issues.
Now I'm worried that the PCIe riser or having two GPUs might have damaged my RAM. It worked initially—so could the RAM have been faulty from the start? I'm also concerned about warranty and replacements since they're now quite pricey and I bought them from Amazon France but I'm outside the EU. Any insights on this?
2 Answers
It sounds like your RAM issues could be due to power fluctuations. With two power-hungry GPUs, your 1000W PSU might be struggling, especially if it’s not very efficient, which could overload the system and affect stability. This might lead to overheating or damage in RAM or other components. If you haven't already, try using a different USB port for your keyboard when trying to access the BIOS; sometimes that helps on boot.
Actually, you can run two different GPUs in the same machine. It's not always ideal, but it's doable. If you were trying to make that work, the configuration might have been the real issue here. But there's definitely no hard rule against it, so I wouldn’t completely close the thread just yet.
Exactly! Just because it's tricky doesn’t mean it can't be done. Compatibility and drivers can be a headache, though.
Good point! Just to add, if you're still unsure, try running a memtest86 USB drive after you remove the second GPU. That will help check if the RAM is really faulty.