yep all my cards work fine over the 1x slot with the USB riser.
this Motherboard is like 7 or 8 years old. EVGA 113-M2-E113
Well if you have not tried to run another card in that slot I would do so first. Of course if other cards fail to start in that slot then you can pretty much bet you burnt your PCIE slot then.
The problem with the mobo that old is that you are going to have a hard time finding one cheap.... and many times you almost need to get all new hardware. I learn that the hard way already. Had a bunch of 775's all ddr2 .... replacing cost a ton due to no IDE support on the new mobos, let alone need new ram and cpu on top of it.