So today I received my replacement motherboard from Memory Express after the defective onboard sound debacle. This time round, I figured I’d primarily use the onboard sound, but keep the X-Fi for situations where it was needed. So, I selected to place the X-Fi into the very top PCIe slot (x1_1). Problem-it spat out the above error when I attempted to install drivers.

Now, after going to Google to check what was going on, I realized that the answer wasn’t going to be something simple. So, Step 1, update the BIOS in case it is a resource conflict (or a user-setting something wrong when configuring the uEFI configuration-meaning ME). In the end, it looked to be a conflict between the P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 configuration for the x16_3 slot’s number of PCIe lanes.

Moral of the story, leave it at AUTO as x1 seems to not agree with PCIe x1_1 and disables the mid-board USB 3 ports.