ASUS Z87 Motherboards - Overview, Guides and Official Support

raja,

Can we get someone at HQ to give us an answer on what is happening and possible work around to the situation or a bios update. Appears to happen after changing board and cpus out for a few users below so I suspect its gonna come down to either issue with a combination of power supplies or memory.

this user had same ram, tried swapping his board and cpu out and that did not resolve the issue. He had to switch to an msi board and everything worked. See below for his specs.
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1755301/plz-booting-problems.html

3 other folks with red cpu light on z87-a in this thread. Some same memory, some slightly different. another person in this thread changed his board and cpu out 2 times and still got red cpu led.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1732558/asus-z87-red-cpu-led.html#.


different ram same issue see here, never responded what solution was.
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1792710/asus-z87a-hanging-cpu-led-boot.html


I myself have changed out hte board at microcenter for another z87-a and another cpu. The new board and the new cpu got a red cpu led a day after. I have all defaults set with bios 801. On the first board I had the problem with bios 1405 and it looks like others from the thread have had the red cpu led problem on bios 1405.

I am now in the process of trying to determine if the root cause is bad power supplies or bad memory combinations. My gut tells me the board doesn't like the memory. I am now running my low profile crucial ballistic tactical ram at 1.5volts versus 1.35volts. Set it at that since Saturday night and so far no problems yet, However I did get the double boot/post ac power pump after about 25 successful reboots. I'm hoping that this was the normal and perhaps the intel memory controller finally retraining my memory correct. I am keeping a log of everything I have tried in this post:

http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?38894-asus-z87-a-cold-boot-hangs-red-cpu-light

Again if someone from HQ could give us an answer on what is happening or possible work arounds that would be great. Appreciate any help you can provide
 
New BIOS for the Impact. I hope this fixes my USB issue I was having. It does mention:

1 Enhance compatibility with some USB device.
2.Revise help string in BIOS.

Wonder what the "Revise help string in BIOS" actually means
 
proudx said:
raja,


Again if someone from HQ could give us an answer on what is happening or possible work arounds that would be great. Appreciate any help you can provide
Click to expand...

Probably memory instability. CPU will halt with CPU or DRAM light depending where in the training start process things are unstable. You can try adjusting memory timings and voltages.

-Raja
 
Raja@ASUS said:
Probably memory instability. CPU will halt with CPU or DRAM light depending where in the training start process things are unstable. You can try adjusting memory timings and voltages.

-Raja
Click to expand...

Thanks. So far so good with 1.5volt since last Saturday. Is it possible to disable memory retraining completely or reduce the times it does try and retrain? Side effects?
 
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No you can't "disable" memory training - especially from power cycle. Memory is trained because it has to be, to work. The memory controller performs a series of operations over the memory bus to ensure that signal times are in sync between banks etc - that's what makes the memory stable enough for the processor to use.
 
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Quick word or warning to anyone running the z87-Deluxe and Sandforce controller SSD's (Corsair GT's, 840 Pro's). Stay away from the 1504 UEFI update, the board lost the ability to detect the Samsung 840 pro I have hooked up and refused to boot (Disk read error) from the Corsair Force GT (and occasionally wouldn't detect that either). Rolled back to 1405 and everything is alive again.
 
Kor said:
Quick word or warning to anyone running the z87-Deluxe and Sandforce controller SSD's (Corsair GT's, 840 Pro's). Stay away from the 1504 UEFI update, the board lost the ability to detect the Samsung 840 pro I have hooked up and refused to boot (Disk read error) from the Corsair Force GT (and occasionally wouldn't detect that either). Rolled back to 1405 and everything is alive again.
Click to expand...

840 pro does NOT have Sandforce controller.
 
I can comfirm that bios 1504 will NOT work with Samsung 840 pro. I had to revert to 1405. MB gives code AC - something regarding AHCI - that will not happen with 1405 that stops at A0.
 
dahlberg said:
I can comfirm that bios 1504 will NOT work with Samsung 840 pro. I had to revert to 1405. MB gives code AC - something regarding AHCI - that will not happen with 1405 that stops at A0.
Click to expand...

it has nothing to do with the 840 pro.
i'm running it fine with M6F
 
Was anyone able to plug in speakers and headphones, both with sound output at the same time on the back panel?

I could do it on my old board with ALC888, but I can't do it with ALC892?!
 
Warl0rd said:
Was anyone able to plug in speakers and headphones, both with sound output at the same time on the back panel?

I could do it on my old board with ALC888, but I can't do it with ALC892?!
Click to expand...

Where do you plug headphones in the back of Z87-Plus? Speakers, I assume, are connected to Line Out (Green).
 
Yes I plug the speakers on the green back panel, and for the headphones I would like to do it like on the previous board, connect it on any other plug and in the drivers assign it to "headphones".

But apparently I can't retask the back panel once speakers are already connected :(

The only way I figured out to have both speakers and headphones working simultaneously was to plug the headphones on the front panel and on the drivers set it to "mute rear output device when front headphone plugged in" then once I plug in the headphones I select "speakers" instead of headphones (or it will mute the back plug).

If instead of "mute rear output device" I select "play different audio streams", then the audio only gets to either the speakers or the headphones, not both :(
 
Warl0rd said:
Yes I plug the speakers on the green back panel, and for the headphones I would like to do it like on the previous board, connect it on any other plug and in the drivers assign it to "headphones".

But apparently I can't retask the back panel once speakers are already connected :(

The only way I figured out to have both speakers and headphones working simultaneously was to plug the headphones on the front panel and on the drivers set it to "mute rear output device when front headphone plugged in" then once I plug in the headphones I select "speakers" instead of headphones (or it will mute the back plug).

If instead of "mute rear output device" I select "play different audio streams", then the audio only gets to either the speakers or the headphones, not both :(
Click to expand...
I didn't even know other outputs could be re-tasked like that.
 
Is there any way to adjust fan speeds on the BIOS (i.e. set them to 100% if temp > 80ºC), or do I really need to install AI Suite 3 so I can access Fan Xpert?

I known that in the bios there is silent, standard, turbo, but I would like a bit more control and current version of speedfan doesn't detect any fans.
 
Hi everyone,

I assembled a system around a Z87-Pro and it's been giving me a lot of trouble :(

I'm experiencing random freezing (full system freezing, not even the reset button on the case works) and I can't figure out why. memtest86 went fine, OCCT went fine, nothing is overclocked, nothing is changed in BIOS. Win8 x64.

The system will freeze when not doing anything demanding. Like typing this message, for example - it'll just randomly freeze for no apparent reason, requiring a 4-second button shutdown. And because it's a freeze and not a BSOD, there's nothing in the event viewer. I was suspecting Chrome as my second browser to be the culprit because there's loads of reports of Chrome doing just that, but I got two freezes in the last half an hour *without* Chrome running. Mind you, on occasion launching Chrome would freeze the computer, so I thought that was it, but it's not.

I'm on BIOS 1405 and the drivers seem to be recent enough. There's a slight version bump on Realtek audio (not on the ASUS site, though) and Atheros networking (ASUS; haven't checked Atheros itself).

What to do? I'd understand if there was freezing under load, but it's the opposite. What could be faulty? I only have the keyboard, mouse and old UPS attached, there are no 3rd-party drivers for anything since it's a brand new build... I'm just clueless. The system even went through a reinstall after Windows Update hosed it, and there was freezing before and after, so it's not that, either.

Forgot to mention that I've even been running some games without issues. Like I said - it's all fine except when it's not. Can't reproduce it by doing something specific. The freezing happens on its own, when it feels like it. Cold computer, warm computer, running for 10 minutes or 2 hours - doesn't matter. Entirely unpredictable.

Help!
 
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Kor said:
Quick word or warning to anyone running the z87-Deluxe and Sandforce controller SSD's (Corsair GT's, 840 Pro's). Stay away from the 1504 UEFI update, the board lost the ability to detect the Samsung 840 pro I have hooked up and refused to boot (Disk read error) from the Corsair Force GT (and occasionally wouldn't detect that either). Rolled back to 1405 and everything is alive again.
Click to expand...
I upgraded to the latest 1504 on my Z87-PLUS and my Samsung 840 EVO works just fine.

Matija said:
Hi everyone,

I assembled a system around a Z87-Pro and it's been giving me a lot of trouble :(

I'm experiencing random freezing (full system freezing, not even the reset button on the case works) and I can't figure out why. memtest86 went fine, OCCT went fine, nothing is overclocked, nothing is changed in BIOS. Win8 x64.

The system will freeze when not doing anything demanding. Like typing this message, for example - it'll just randomly freeze for no apparent reason, requiring a 4-second button shutdown. And because it's a freeze and not a BSOD, there's nothing in the event viewer. I was suspecting Chrome as my second browser to be the culprit because there's loads of reports of Chrome doing just that, but I got two freezes in the last half an hour *without* Chrome running. Mind you, on occasion launching Chrome would freeze the computer, so I thought that was it, but it's not.

I'm on BIOS 1405 and the drivers seem to be recent enough. There's a slight version bump on Realtek audio (not on the ASUS site, though) and Atheros networking (ASUS; haven't checked Atheros itself).

What to do? I'd understand if there was freezing under load, but it's the opposite. What could be faulty? I only have the keyboard, mouse and old UPS attached, there are no 3rd-party drivers for anything since it's a brand new build... I'm just clueless. The system even went through a reinstall after Windows Update hosed it, and there was freezing before and after, so it's not that, either.

Forgot to mention that I've even been running some games without issues. Like I said - it's all fine except when it's not. Can't reproduce it by doing something specific. The freezing happens on its own, when it feels like it. Cold computer, warm computer, running for 10 minutes or 2 hours - doesn't matter. Entirely unpredictable.

Help!
Click to expand...
If its freezing at light loads perhaps something related with idle states? Do you have the new C states enabled? is your PSU haswell certified? if not try disabling them.
 
Warl0rd said:
I upgraded to the latest 1504 on my Z87-PLUS and my Samsung 840 EVO works just fine.
Click to expand...

Evo's aren't Pro's and the Plus isn't a Deluxe (similar yes, but not the same hence the different UEFI). There is no merit in this statement from a troubleshooting standpoint.

The fact remains that both myself and another user here have both reported problems with the 840 Pro (and in my case also a Force GT) on the 1504 firmware on a Deluxe, one that disappears the moment we revert to 1405. The problem does not appear to effect all drives as someone has advised that M400's appear un-effected by the issue, my initial diagnosis was slightly off in this case since I only have so many kinds of SSD's to test with myself.
 
Just trying to pass the message that 1504 does works fine in some combinations and your reported problem doesn't apply to all boards/ssds.

people shouldn't be afraid of upgrading, but its always best to keep a copy of a known stable bios prior to upgrading :)


Does anyone here use HWMonitor? are your voltages displayed correctly? mines aren't, like it reports CPU VCORE 1.8v (thats the CPU input voltage, not the vcore). also only display 2 fans out of 4 I have on my system...
 
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Warl0rd said:
If its freezing at light loads perhaps something related with idle states? Do you have the new C states enabled? is your PSU haswell certified? if not try disabling them.
Click to expand...
I can try disabling them (they're probably on by default - haven't even checked), but I'm not sure if it'll do anything... The PSU is fine with Haswell.

The more I think about it, the more sense makes that possibly it's the wireless thingamajig that came with the motherboard. During all eight or nine of the freezes, I had at least one browser open. Chrome would sometimes freeze on startup. Two of the freezes happened when I was - oh, the irony - downloading some drivers.

I'll try to run a torrent download and see what happens.
 
Haven't tried a torrent yet.

Disabled the fancy C states, installed somewhat newer wireless/sound drivers, the computer ran fine (including Chrome) for about 5 hours, then I went to drink some water and came back to it being frozen.

Any more ideas? :(

Edit: Someone on teh internetz said "disable aggressive LPM, put the SSD port to hot-plug, and also disable link state power management inside Windows", so I did all of those things. If that won't work, what's left except to throw either myself or the computer under a train?
 
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do you have dedicated video card? if so you can try removing it and using the cpu vga. far fetched, but could rule out vga driver issues...
 
Warl0rd said:
Does anyone here use HWMonitor? are your voltages displayed correctly? mines aren't, like it reports CPU VCORE 1.8v (thats the CPU input voltage, not the vcore). also only display 2 fans out of 4 I have on my system...
Click to expand...

HWMonitor 1.23 reports it correctly but 1.24 has stuffed it up. Maybe use HWInfo.

Kor said:
Evo's aren't Pro's and the Plus isn't a Deluxe (similar yes, but not the same hence the different UEFI). There is no merit in this statement from a troubleshooting standpoint.
Click to expand...

Have you tried changing the Interrupt 19 value in BIOS? From memory this was introduced due to SSD problems for some..
 
error-id10t said:
HWMonitor 1.23 reports it correctly but 1.24 has stuffed it up. Maybe use HWInfo.
Click to expand...
Yeah, tried HWInfo today, it shows almost everything correctly :)

I think the last time I tried it was some years ago and it was paid, but now its free :)
 
Warl0rd said:
do you have dedicated video card? if so you can try removing it and using the cpu vga. far fetched, but could rule out vga driver issues...
Click to expand...
I'll try that if I get another freeze...

At this point, I'm almost certain that my computer has lupus (and we all know it's never lupus).
 
Kor said:
Quick word or warning to anyone running the z87-Deluxe and Sandforce controller SSD's (Corsair GT's, 840 Pro's). Stay away from the 1504 UEFI update, the board lost the ability to detect the Samsung 840 pro I have hooked up and refused to boot (Disk read error) from the Corsair Force GT (and occasionally wouldn't detect that either). Rolled back to 1405 and everything is alive again.
Click to expand...

We cannot replicate any such issue on the Samsung 840 Pro with UEFI 1504. Seems this might be an issue on your side. If you have any more details on how your system is configured and which port you have the Samsung 840 Pro on, together with FW version send it over. If you are oc'd in any way, list that as well. I suspect this may be an error of some other kind to be honest. No other user has this issue so far and we don't on our side either. Would appreciate it if you could clear this up so we're not chasing rainbows at HQ and for the sake of other users here so we're not into the realms of needless misinformation.


On a sidenote, the SF1200 drives are known not to work with Z87, and that's not something that is patchable. I'd suggest not using such drives with this platform at all - in case it has knock on effects on other drives as well.
 
When I shutdown my PC the keyboard Num-lock light stays on, is there any BIOS option to turn that off?

Even if I press the key it won't turn off, if I replug the keyboard the light goes off.

The keyboard is the Ozone Strike (I don't think that does matter, but I can try with another keyboard if needed) and its connected on the PS/2 port.
 
You can try enabling ErP and see if that helps - depends how your PSU handles ErP. If not, then nothing you can do.
 
Raja@ASUS said:
On a sidenote, the SF1200 drives are known not to work with Z87, and that's not something that is patchable. I'd suggest not using such drives with this platform at all - in case it has knock on effects on other drives as well.
Click to expand...

The Corsair Force GT is not SF1200 based, it's a SF2200 controller. As the drive is hooked up directly to the first SATA port on the board using the Asus provided SATA leads and only thing only variable was the UEFI version for the Z87 Deluxe (1405 to 1502) I'd say it's pretty clear that it's a firmware issue as rolling back immediately resolves the problem. The system was not over clocked during the update or during testing (only a crazy person would try to troubleshoot like that). The drive is running the most recently available firmware (5.05a).
 
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Another week and another BIOS update; 1602. So these BIOS string fixes that it quotes, are these actually fixes or what?
 
error-id10t said:
Another week and another BIOS update; 1602. So these BIOS string fixes that it quotes, are these actually fixes or what?
Click to expand...

Not that I can tell, the 1602 has the exact same problem as 1504 with regards to booting from my Force GT.

Works fine on my Z87-Pro machine with a Samsung Evo however.
 
After my computer ran fine for 6 hours yesterday and 4 hours today (and that was after I put all the SATA ports to hot-plug and enabled high performance in Windows power management), II had another freeze twenty minutes ago.

I took the cat for a vaccination, came back, the monitor was in standby. Shouldn't have been, since I told it to turn off the monitor after 60 minutes when plugged in (I have an UPS), and I was gone for about 40 minutes.

Wiggled the mouse, monitor turned on, computer was responsive for a short time, and then it froze. Finally remembered to open the case and look at the motherboard control indicator - it was stuck at "40", which is a code for "waking up from S4 sleep state".

Pulled the UPS USB connector out, rebooted, used powercfg & dumppo to set S3 as the maximum sleep option. Let's see how it goes now...

I've never had this much trouble with a computer before. An ASUS tech support guy told me to return the motherboard. I don't think that would solve anything.
 
Matija said:
Wiggled the mouse, monitor turned on, computer was responsive for a short time, and then it froze. Finally remembered to open the case and look at the motherboard control indicator - it was stuck at "40", which is a code for "waking up from S4 sleep state".

Pulled the UPS USB connector out, rebooted, used powercfg & dumppo to set S3 as the maximum sleep option. Let's see how it goes now...

I've never had this much trouble with a computer before. An ASUS tech support guy told me to return the motherboard. I don't think that would solve anything.
Click to expand...

I've had some trouble with c-states. Haswell certified and Haswell ready are way different and unregulated claims. C6 c7 can b problematic but yeah crash coming out of c4 makes the mobo or the psu look responsible. I have to assume you don't use ai suite?
 
I do use it, because of Fan Expert... Don't find any other use for it otherwise. If I get another freeze, AI Suite is going away and I'll make do with BIOS fan settings.

Before setting all the SATA ports to hot-plug and setting Windows to "high performance", I had iastor events about issuing reset commands to my RAID array. It wasn't the cause of any freezes, but the events were there. Haven't seen one in event viewer since.

Given the above, and after pulling out the UPS USB and getting rid of S4, for the first time in a week I'm slightly optimistic. Please, Oh Great Computer God, let this have been the solution to my freezing problems...

BTW, I also got rid of Windows 8 hybrid shutdown (which, well, also seems to put things in S4 according to Google). The next time I turn off my PC, I'm going to have a listen; so far I've had drives spin down, the monitor/fans turn off, hard drives spin up (staggered, as usual), then spin back down again. I wonder if this'll fix it, because it's both annoying and harmful to the drives.
 
Nope.

Spent three hours playing a game, exited, clicked around on the web... Freeze.

I'm uninstalling AI Suite. Let's see if that helps. If it doesn't, I have no more solid ideas left. Edit: Well, apart from maybe slightly increasing the voltage on something - but damned if I know what. Ideas?

I might be switching from wireless to ethernet on Monday/Tuesday, so that'll give me an opportunity to take the wireless adapter out of the equation as well.

Is the motherboard really defective? How am I going to prove it's defective? What if it isn't, and the replacement - should I get one - behaves the same?

Another edit: Would it perhaps help if I tried to install Windows Updates again? When I tried a week ago, Windows got hosed and I had to reinstall. Perhaps there's something...?
 
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Make sure you use the AI SUITE uninstaller as otherwise it leaves crap around..

I also got rid off Fast-Boot in Windows and disabled it and Hardware Fast Boot in BIOS because, they're a fail. They do not speed up anything.
 
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