Author

Topic: Identifying Bad PCIE riser cards (Read 207 times)

legendary
Activity: 3738
Merit: 1708
January 02, 2022, 11:36:36 PM
#15
In most cases, it is not the riser that is to blame, but the cables that carry the signal between GPU and motherboard. They can have poor shielding quality, poor contacts at the joints. The real problem due to risers can be the failure of the converter, which directly converts 12V to 3.3V. Such risers can kill the video card when this converter burns out. So, it's better to use risers with double conversion 12V-5V-3.3V.

This is actually true. Before you swap a riser you should try and swap the usb cable first. And since you are just changing the cable it’s an easy swap and doesn’t require removal of anything.

My issue wasn’t with the shielding but it was actually with the cheap pins inside the USB plug. When you plug it in a few times the pins bend and when you plug it in again the pin won’t touch the connection. You can easily fix this just by taking a small screw driver and bending the pins back and it should work again.
member
Activity: 1196
Merit: 26
January 02, 2022, 05:02:46 AM
#14
The best way to find bad risers i use phoenix miner benchmarks choosing each gpu by one by. I saw for example 1 gpu showed 1450mhs something like that. and is easy to see which card is that because fans will turn on that chosen gpu.
member
Activity: 227
Merit: 24
December 24, 2021, 11:53:28 AM
#13
You can't identify a bad one unless the riser caught fire, if you think a riser is the problem change it to a new one, as a miner it's wise to have extra components like power supply, risers, ram and even extra motherboard just in case
member
Activity: 618
Merit: 21
December 23, 2021, 03:32:37 PM
#12
In most cases, it is not the riser that is to blame, but the cables that carry the signal between GPU and motherboard. They can have poor shielding quality, poor contacts at the joints. The real problem due to risers can be the failure of the converter, which directly converts 12V to 3.3V. Such risers can kill the video card when this converter burns out. So, it's better to use risers with double conversion 12V-5V-3.3V.
legendary
Activity: 1610
Merit: 1026
December 23, 2021, 12:42:15 PM
#11
If the thermal pads release liquid when heated and this liquid gets into the raiser, then this can cause the video card to turn off. Some video card models unfortunately emit liquid, but it does not cause a short circuit.
If this is a problem, then install the video cards while standing.
member
Activity: 369
Merit: 16
$CYBERCASH METAVERSE
December 21, 2021, 03:34:46 AM
#10
You can't identify a bad riser just by guessing which is which, you will need new risers to start testing them out one by one, risers are weird some times they will look good in shape to the eye but that doesn't mean they will work, I've changed up to 4 risers in the last 7 months already
legendary
Activity: 3738
Merit: 1708
December 19, 2021, 11:20:56 AM
#9
Bad risers are very difficult to find. Especially when you got like 5-6 in a single rig. Sure it would be easily to find a bad one if it blew something on the board such as a capacitor however that was never the case for me.

Since they are very cheap you should just completely replace them and see if the problem goes away. If it does, lately all those “potentially bad” ones and test them one by one. However this is not always easy because it doesn’t always crash right away, can run for a long while before you get issues and hence why diagnosis is so difficult.
member
Activity: 248
Merit: 13
Futiracoin.com
December 19, 2021, 03:12:44 AM
#8
If the GPU is used I suggest cleaning the GPU pins, I've came across a problem which I thought was the riser and later I found out it's the pins on the GPU so after good cleaning it got detected easily
full member
Activity: 378
Merit: 135
December 18, 2021, 08:13:06 PM
#7
This is why when I am building a rig or adding a card I always do it one at a time. Usually, the first thing I will do to troubleshoot is to swap out a riser to ensure that is not the issue.  When you add cards in bulk it can become very frustrating trying to isolate the problem if its one bad riser somewhere. While it may take longer to do one card at a time it will save you frustration when you run into a problem.
legendary
Activity: 3388
Merit: 1059
December 18, 2021, 05:09:17 PM
#6
It is much worse if you have it in an 8 gpu rig and the whole system hangs, leaving those 8 gpus on standby lol

Yes. Having  spares is a must, but having a rig with one card (with riser) (you can still get away with 2 card rig), that functions as a test rig will keep you from throwing good riser and cables. What if it is the cable? You could have thrown the riser, vice versa.

It can also be the sata, moles and pcie connector that is getting getting burned(not fully burned)-->this might not be "that' noticable, can easily be overlooked.

member
Activity: 223
Merit: 13
December 18, 2021, 03:00:23 PM
#5
This is why it's necessary to have spare parts in the house, spare risers and spare GPUs are very useful when it comes to troubleshooting, you can easily swap a riser for another or a GPU for another to know what is dead and what's working
full member
Activity: 1386
Merit: 220
December 18, 2021, 02:17:59 PM
#4
Some symptoms are just harder to troubleshoot. If you have a dead GPU you already have a head start.
But if you have a dead system you start from the back of the pack. A binary search can speed up fault identification.
Disconnect half the GPUs. If everything works the problem is in one of the removed GPUs, otherwise the fault
is still in the system.
legendary
Activity: 1610
Merit: 1026
December 18, 2021, 01:28:00 PM
#3
The most dangerous thing is a raiser with lower capacitors or a raiser with a short circuit. This can only be determined by visual inspection.
If you buy from a trusted supplier and the video card works for some time, then only by replacing the raisers.
I bought all raisers on aliexpress, or from people who also bought raisers on aliexpress.
member
Activity: 155
Merit: 10
December 18, 2021, 09:19:26 AM
#2
Just swap the riser with a new one, risers behaves somehow something and they won't reveal any burnt sign or so, the only way to safe your time is to use a brand use riser, good luck with your search
member
Activity: 290
Merit: 40
December 18, 2021, 08:23:58 AM
#1
So I did a quick search and didn't find anything on this topic.

After a 2 hour rebuild I tracked down a bad PCIE riser card on a rig(77% system interrupts with nothing apparently wrong).   Other then the fact it took 2 hours due to a slow process of elimination and a PC running like a slug for no apparent reason. 

Is there a method of tracking down or Identifying a a bad pcie riser card that doesn't take a long time?
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