GTX 1060 compatible with no PCIe power connection.
GTX 1060 compatible with no PCIe power connection.
Looking for potentially very technical troubleshooting assistance. I have an ASUS GTX 1060 6GB graphics card, a Gigabyte x470 Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi motherboard, and an EVGA Supernova 750 G3 power supply. This is a three-year-old custom-built system that has had no issues before. No parts have been replaced. Only additional RAM has been installed (four months ago, no issues). The other PCIe slots are not populated with any adapters or the such. Nothing has been tuned or purposely overclocked. I am having PCIe power issues with this card. It has two LEDs near the 6-pin connector that normally lights up the solid red LED when it is not powered (but the PSU is plugged into the wall and switched on) and lights up the solid white LED when powered. TL;DR: I had to take out my graphics card and put it back in order to work on other areas of the board. As I finished, I plugged in the PCIe power to my graphics card (proper side of cable), with the system turned off but the PSU accidentally switched on. I heard a click (fairly certain it was not a sparking sound) but the LED turned red and stayed red. No flashes. Did I possibly short my graphics card or PSU? How likely is it to damage either components when plugging in PCIe power while the system is off but PSU is switched on? Can the card be dead and still shine a red LED? Photos of the card and connections are attached at the end of the post. As I am in a time crunch, I cannot perform very intensive troubleshooting at the moment such as ordering in new parts. More Detailed Report for In-Depth Troubleshooting: Spoiler I was recently cloning my NVMe boot drive to another NVMe SSD. Because one of the two M.2 slots is annoyingly located under the PCIe x16, I had to remove my graphics card to install the new SSD into the M.2a (which I now realize is the faster one, but that's off topic). Now, I had just come home from a long and tiring drive, so without thinking very hard, I kept my system powered off, but the PSU was switched on when I pulled out the 6-pin from the GPU. The LEDs switched from white to red, and I unseated the graphics card. I installed the SSD, reseated the graphics card, and plugged in the 6-pin, all while the system was off but the PSU was switched on. The red light turned white upon connection, and I powered on the PC and did my cloning work. The system was on for approximately 45 mins before I finished my operation and powered it back down. Then, I decided to take out the graphics card again to take out the M.2 SSD. I did this because I did not have the standoff for screwing in the SSD installed, and I wasn't comfortable with leaving it sort of hanging there, even if the graphics card was pushing it down, keeping it parallel to the board. So I unplugged the 6-pin from the graphics card (again, system powered off but PSU switch on), removed the card, uninstalled the SSD, and reseated the card. Here's where I think the issue began. After reseating the graphics card, I went to plug in the 6-pin PCIe power. As I did before, I held onto the white plastic shroud, with a stabilizing index finger on the edge of the PCB, with one hand while plugging in the power with the other. Since it is a tight fit, I always wiggle the connector left and right a bit as I plugged it in. The light went from red to white just as before. However, this time, when I finally plugged it in all the way and heard a click, the LED suddenly switched from white to red. I am fairly certain I heard a click sound. Not a spark. I did not see any flashes of light. But now, no amount of unplugging/replugging the power, reseating the card will turn the light white. When powering the system on anyway, the monitor expectedly displays the 'power down and connect the PCIe power' message. I thought I possibly snapped a pin, but upon inspecting both the power connector and the cable, they both looked fine. (Photos attached.) How likely is it that I shorted the card? It's still displaying a red LED instead of nothing. Can the card be dead and still shine that LED? Peeking into the card with a flashlight, I don't see any burn marks around the capacitors I could see. I am not comfortable with removing the plastic shroud to get a better look. Removing the card and slotting it into a different PCIe slot (x8) still resulted in a red LED. Using a different VGA cable did not solve the issue. Or could it be the PSU? Is it possible to kill all the VGA connections on a modular PSU but not the rest of the connections? (Because the rest of the system can power on, spin its fans, and post.) Swapping around the power connection on the PSU side to one of the other five modular VGA did not solve the issue. (And no, I did not plug in the 6+2 pin side to the PSU.) Using a different VGA cable did not solve the issue. Blowing out the connector and cable head on both ends (PSU and card) with compressed air did not solve the issue. Switching off the PSU, unplugging it, removing the card, pressing the power button on the case a few times, before reversing those steps and powering on the system again did not solve the issue. Since the Ryzen 2000 desktop CPUs do not have integrated graphics, I essentially cannot use my desktop. (I still have access to a copy of my data and a much weaker laptop to work on.) With a big deadline coming in one-and-a-half weeks, I cannot perform very intensive troubleshooting at the moment, such as ordering in new parts or driving a few hours to salvage my old desktop for parts to swap in and troubleshoot. Clarification to what I said in my detailed report: I might be mistaken that my system was technically able to 'post.' It powers on and goes straight from a black screen to the "Please power down and connect the PCIe Power Cable(s) for this graphics card" error message without showing the AORUS boot screen. Edited January 3, 2022 by Kodeplay10 Clarification on system being able to post.
Confirming the 6+2 pin connection. The second image shows an extra pin that's tilted and not properly aligned.
It looks like everything is connected properly. Because those additional pins aren’t needed, I’m simply allowing it to hang freely within the casing (the opening there appears deliberately crafted).
Oh no, I see what happened. I messed up for a few minutes. I fixed the post once I noticed it.
It appears the 12V isn’t working when the device is turned off, which suggests the LED is only reacting to a grounded surface. This makes sense because it could damage components. I might have missed that the PCIe port also stays powered down in off mode, so my assumption could be incorrect.
The sound seemed to approach me, but I wasn't sure where it came from. Initially it felt like the connector clicking, but later it sounded more like a soft tap. This made me think it might have been a pin snapping, though that doesn’t match the appearance. It didn’t originate from the opposite side of the case or seem like background noise in the quiet room. I’m uncertain about the meaning of the red light—it could mean grounding, but I haven’t checked ASUS’ site for details. Regarding power, a forum discussion noted PCIe devices shouldn’t be powered when the system is off, though it’s unclear if that means they need power to work or just require no power while idle. There’s also mention of PSUs providing 5V standby for USB, which I’m not sure would affect a 12V connection issue.
Confident a bright red light on the ASUS GPU means a power delivery problem. Do you have a power supply tester?
The system can now post updates about the situation. I think I figured out what the clicking sound meant—it was the PCIe latch securing properly. It suggests the card wasn’t fully inserted before, but the push from inserting the 12V power completed it. I’m uncertain if this might harm the card, as the LED briefly changed color when the connector reached two-thirds in, then returned to red after the latch clicked and full insertion. I included an image (attached) for reference. While looking up what the red LED signifies, I learned from a reliable source that the motherboard also shows LEDs while powered on, which could be useful. I’m not sure if the VGA light reinforces the same message as the GPU’s red light.