Hi everyone,
I built a new PC in March, and ever since I am having an intermittent issue that I do not have a solution for. Once a week or biweekly, on startup my PC starts lagging, the screen goes black and restarts with a crash dump. Sometimes it doesn't crash for a few minutes, before that the mouse and all apps are noticeably laggy until I do a manual restart. When the crash occurs it either points to nvlddmkm.sys with VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE or DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION, or to dxgmms2.sys with VIDEO_SCHEDULER_INTERNAL_ERROR. The same behavior also happens after waking from sleep sometimes.
After some debugging I discovered the root cause using GPU-Z: on bad boots the PCIe link speed shows as **Gen 1.1 instead of Gen 5.0**. The GPU is clearly failing to negotiate the full PCIe 5.0 link during POST and falling back to a degraded link speed, which then causes everything downstream to fail. I saw the same issue, but it usually happens with MSI X870 boards, I did not find references to my exact motherboard, here are a few examples:
- https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threads/mag-x870-tomahawk-wifi-rtx-5080-persistent-video_tdr_failure-0x116-crashes.417159/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgamingtechsupport/comments/1qs7xni/stutteringlag_and_occasional_restart_after_waking/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/AMDHelp/comments/1n3jwgl/stuttering_after_pc_random_startup_or_waking_from/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/v0eeb7/stuttering_after_waking_up_from_sleep_solved/
System specs:
- GPU: GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 5080 WINDFORCE OC SFF 16G
- Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING B850-PLUS WIFI
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
- BIOS: Version 1644 2026/03/19
- NVIDIA Driver: 596.36 (clean installed via DDU a few days ago)
What I've already tried:
- ✅ Updated BIOS to latest version
- ✅ Reseated GPU
- ✅ Replaced 12VHPWR cable
- ✅ Disabled iGPU in BIOS
- ✅ Ran memtest86 multiple times - passed
- ✅ Ran OCCT VRAM stress test - passed
- ✅ Ran Furmark GPU stress test - passed
- ✅ Clean driver reinstall via DDU
- ✅ Disabled Fast Startup in Windows
- ✅ Disabled PCIe ASPM in both Windows power settings and BIOS
- ❌ Now I forced PCIe Gen 4 in BIOS as a workaround and debug step, but that was only yesterday, so not conclusive yet
Key observations:
- Stress tests pass completely - the GPU is stable under load once properly initialized
- The problem only occurs during boot and sleep/wake transitions
- A manual restart after a bad boot results in a clean boot with correct Gen 5.0 link speed
- The issue is intermittent - roughly once a week, not every boot
- No riser cable in use - GPU is plugged directly into the motherboard
Current understanding:
This appears to be a PCIe 5.0 link training reliability issue between the B850-PLUS and RTX 5080 during cold boot. The link occasionally fails to train at Gen 5 and falls back to Gen 1.1, leaving the GPU in a degraded state that eventually causes the driver crashes.
Questions:
- Has anyone else with an RTX 5080/5090 on an ASUS TUF Gaming B850 Plus board experienced this specific PCIe link speed fallback at boot?
- Did forcing PCIe Gen 4 in BIOS fully resolve it for you?
- Are there any BIOS settings beyond ASPM that are known to improve PCIe 5.0 link training stability on ASUS B850 boards?
- Is there any other solution that worked for similar issues I have not tried yet?
- Is this worth an RMA at this point or is it clearly a firmware issue that will be resolved through a BIOS update?
Any help appreciated - especially from anyone who has gone through this and found a definitive fix.