PCIe 4.0 - What generation should I pick in my bios to turn off PCIe 4.0? 5700XT Black Screen Fix

Question

I have a AMD RX 5700XT GPU paired with a Ryzen 2700x CPU, and have been having a ton black screen crashing while gaming. My computer stays on, sound stays on, but both my screens turn black. There's no way out of it other than a hard reboot...

One of the suggested solutions to this problem is to turn off PCIe 4.0 via the BIOS.

I have an X570 Aorus Elite Motherboard which supports PCIe 4.0. To turn it off, do I choose "Gen 3"? Mine is current set to "Auto".

This screenshot is a little different than my options, I only have:

1. Auto
2. Gen 1
3. Gen 2
4. Gen 3

My guess to why I'm missing Gen 3 is because I'm using a AMD Ryzen 2700x. It could be that Ryzen 2*** series CPU's don't support Gen 4?

My BIOS is updated to the most recent revision F12f.

My motherboard manual says:

PCIe Slot Configuration

Allows you to set the operation mode of the PCI Express slots to Gen 1, Gen 2, Gen 3, or Gen 4. Actual operation mode is subject to the hardware specification of each slot. Auto lets the BIOS automatically configure this setting. (Default: Auto)

If anyone has other suggestions for 5700XT fixes, please let me know. This is driving me crazy.

Solution

I have a AMD RX 5700XT GPU paired with a Ryzen 2700x CPU, and have been having a ton black screen crashing while gaming. My computer stays on, sound stays on, but both my screens turn black. There's no way out of it other than a hard reboot...

One of the suggested solutions to this problem is to turn off PCIe 4.0 via the BIOS.

I have an X570 Aorus Elite Motherboard which supports PCIe 4.0. To turn it off, do I choose "Gen 3"? Mine is current set to "Auto".

The advice isn’t applicable to your hardware. While your motherboard might support PCIe 4.0 your processor doesn’t support it. Which means it doesn’t matter what option you select, because PCIe 4.0, is already disabled.

My guess to why I'm missing Gen 3 is because I'm using a AMD Ryzen 2700x. It could be that Ryzen 2*** series CPU's don't support Gen 4?

You indicated you can select PCIe 3.0, your unable to select any revision of PCIe, that your hardware doesn’t actually support. Your processor doesn’t actually support PCIe 4.0

You can try and explicitly select PCIe 3.0 but it doubt it will make a difference. You indicated the GPU works some of the times, if this problem was caused by a firmware setting, you likely would have been required to explicitly configure the slot to get it working initially.

If anyone has other suggestions for 5700XT fixes, please let me know. This is driving me crazy.

It sounds like this problem is something that has recently started to happen which indicates it’s a driver issue not a hardware issue. One way to verify that’s the case is to reinstall Windows, install the same AMD display drivers, and see if the problem can be reproduced.

If you can reproduce the issue, that’s an indication you have a hardware problem, likely caused by the GPU starting to fail. It can indeed be possible for a GPU to work, unless you are explicitly exercising the problem silicon, which would not happen, without running software that requires that silicon. If this problem happens without running software that changes the troubleshooting steps considerably.

Comments

[Ramhound]

The manual for your motherboard should specify what each of those options does specifically. Have you checked that?

[Kellen Stuart]

@Ramhound I added what my motherboard says for that setting.

[Ramhound]

If you do not have a PCIe 4.0 option it means your hardware doesn’t support it. It also means if you select Auto then it would be selecting PCIe 3.0 by default. So you all the options you have listed would “disable” PCIe 4.0 since your hardware doesn’t support it.

[Kellen Stuart]

@Ramhound Yeah, it turns out my 2700x doesn't support PCIe 4.0. I should've known... The bad news is now I still need to figure out my black screen issues.