Even if you're fine with risers, that might not be enough. If the bridge lanes are PCIe Gen 3, as many consumer boards have, your Gen 5 card might not init. I extensively tested several motherboards to try and get my AM5 CPU talking to a triple Radeon AI Pro 9700 XT setup, and they absolutely refuse to come up on PCIe3. I was using dummy EDID plugs for them, so they think they have a display, ruling out that issue.

What I eventually had to do was buy a used Threadripper box to run those cards, because PCIe Gen 4 definitely works.

To be super blunt, this also sounds like a “you” problem.