ASUS Z87 Motherboards - Overview, Guides and Official Support

I was thinking of documenting my problem at http://vip.asus.com/ Is that what you mean with HQ?

I´ll try the new 1602 bios now. If it is not booting I might try to rebuild the array.

Definitely something odd with my board drive combination.

Updating bios higher than 1405 makes windows freeze at "Starting windows", i.e. at GUI launch.

Rig setup:
MB: ASUS Z87 Expert C1 stepping
Mem: 4 * Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz (CMZ8GX3M1A1600C10)
HD: 4 * Samsung 840 pro (128 GB) in raid 0 on intel controller
and 2 * OCZ Vertex turbo (64 GB) in raid 0 on intel controller
GPU: POWERCOLOR HD7850 SCS3 1024MB (AX7850 1GD5-S3DH)
CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K
PSU: Seasonic PowerSupply (PSU) P-520FL 520W

OS: Win7 64 bit Ultimate

Steps taken:
Updated bios from 1405 to 1504. Windows start stops at "Starting windows", i.e. at GUI launch. MB q-code sais "AC". Recovery console stops at the same stage. Windows installer stops at the same step.

Downgrading to 1405 and the system starts as usual. MB q-code at A0.

Updated bios from 1405 to 1602. Windows start stops at "Starting windows", i.e. at GUI launch. MB q-code sais "AC". Recovery console stops at the same stage. Windows installer stops at the same step.

Now, as suggested, I disconnected my 4 samsungs 840. Then rebuilt a raid 0 array fresh from start with the 2 OCZ vertex drives. Then started Windows setup. Same problem; Windows setup stops at "Starting windows", i.e. at GUI launch. MB q-code sais "AC".

Downgrading again to 1405 and the system starts as usual. MB q-code at A0.

Any suggestions?
 
Hi,

No, by HQ I meant ASUS Headquarters.


Let me know how it goes. Just backup any data in case things don't work out.


EDIT: just saw your above post. I will get the info to HQ and see if they can replicate for you. Will let you know if there is any other info I need. Can you also list what you changed in UEFI (if anything)...

-Raja
 
hey Raja will there be a 1002 bios for maximus vi hero? I noticed all the other maximus vi's have it, just curious
 
Is it known which Windows Update installs the Asus stuff? I'm not too keen on installing any updates, but if I try again, I'd like to know which one to avoid.

Still haven't had a freeze after getting rid of AI Suite and assorted services. If I don't get one by the end of this week, I'll finally declare the computer stable.
 
Hi,

No, by HQ I meant ASUS Headquarters.


Let me know how it goes. Just backup any data in case things don't work out.


EDIT: just saw your above post. I will get the info to HQ and see if they can replicate for you. Will let you know if there is any other info I need. Can you also list what you changed in UEFI (if anything)...

-Raja
Right, so yes I did some changes in bios:

VRM Spread Spectrum [Disabled]->[Enabled]
Dynamic Storage Accelerator [Disabled]->[Enabled]
CPU C states [Auto]->[Enabled]
ASPM Support [Disabled]->[Auto]
ASPM Support [Disabled]->[Auto]
SATA Mode Selection [AHCI]->[RAID]
Aggressive LPM Support [Auto]->[Enabled]
PEG - ASPM [Disabled]->[Auto]
PCI Express Native Power Management [Disabled]->[Enabled]
Native ASPM [Disabled]->[Enabled]
Thunderbolt Controller [Enabled]->[Disabled]
Thunderbolt bandwidth [X4 mode]->[X2 mode]
Bluetooth Controller [Enabled]->[Disabled]
Wi-Fi Controller [Enabled]->[Disabled]
USB Support [Partial Initialization]->[Full Initialization]
Boot Logo Display [Auto]->[Disabled]
POST Report [5 sec]->[4 sec]
Setup Mode [EZ Mode]->[Advanced Mode]
OS Type [Windows UEFI mode]->[Other OS]

Thank you!
 
I jinxed it.

After about 13 hours on Sunday, 5 hours on Monday, 5 hours on Tuesday and 3 hours today, it froze again. Went to have dinner, came back, frozen.

Which of the voltages can I boost a bit?
 
Hey every one got an issue with a Maximus VI Formula that won't post, error 99 solid red boot device led. I just spent an hour and a half round trip driving to the nearest Fry's because I spoke with Asus tech support and they suggested that the RAM I bought, Corsair Vengeance Pro 1866 2x 4GB may be the issue. So I went got some non pro 1600 Cas 9 which is also not on the list but the Cas 8 is and did not think it would be a problem, and same issue. Hard ware is as follows.

I5-4670K
Sesonic Platnium Series 860w PSU
EVGA GTX 770 SC ACX 02G-p4-2774-KR
Noctua NH D14
Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD
LG GH24 DVD writer
NEC Multisync 20WMGX2 display

Any Ideas that would cause this to happen, or what hardware would be the likely culprit, bad mobo, cpu etc? I've triple checked all connections and with this set up it is really easy to tell what goes where. I have no speakers but tried with head phones plugged in.
 
Make sure your cable connections to the Mobo from the PSU are all completely secure. It's possibly a bad board but did you get more corsair vengeance ram?
 
So you went and got a lower speed of the same RAM that also wasn't on the QVL? It's probably still a bad board.
 
Make sure your cable connections to the Mobo from the PSU are all completely secure. It's possibly a bad board but did you get more corsair vengeance ram?

That's the first thing I did, and more than once. I also tried a different hard drive and the stock CPU fan, which I just noticed seems to speed up and slow down. Took it being hooked a few minutes before it stayed more consistent.
 
oops sorry tried to edit my last post and it kind of ended up as a double post. True the RAM I got may have not been on the QVL, but with just a slight difference would that still cause such an issue? Don't mean to over symplify, honest question.
 
oops sorry tried to edit my last post and it kind of ended up as a double post. True the RAM I got may have not been on the QVL, but with just a slight difference would that still cause such an issue? Don't mean to over symplify, honest question.

I doubt it. Sounds like a bad board. Then again the only time I ever tried some of that pretty Corsair RAM (was ages ago, I avoid their products to this day even though it was my fault) it wasn't on the QVL and didn't work. Had to switch to Kingston... which gets a crappy rep and I never have problems with.
 
Definitely something odd with my board drive combination.

Updating bios higher than 1405 makes windows freeze at "Starting windows", i.e. at GUI launch.

Rig setup:
MB: ASUS Z87 Expert C1 stepping
Mem: 4 * Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz (CMZ8GX3M1A1600C10)
HD: 4 * Samsung 840 pro (128 GB) in raid 0 on intel controller
and 2 * OCZ Vertex turbo (64 GB) in raid 0 on intel controller
GPU: POWERCOLOR HD7850 SCS3 1024MB (AX7850 1GD5-S3DH)
CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K
PSU: Seasonic PowerSupply (PSU) P-520FL 520W

OS: Win7 64 bit Ultimate

Steps taken:
Updated bios from 1405 to 1504. Windows start stops at "Starting windows", i.e. at GUI launch. MB q-code sais "AC". Recovery console stops at the same stage. Windows installer stops at the same step.

Downgrading to 1405 and the system starts as usual. MB q-code at A0.

Updated bios from 1405 to 1602. Windows start stops at "Starting windows", i.e. at GUI launch. MB q-code sais "AC". Recovery console stops at the same stage. Windows installer stops at the same step.

Now, as suggested, I disconnected my 4 samsungs 840. Then rebuilt a raid 0 array fresh from start with the 2 OCZ vertex drives. Then started Windows setup. Same problem; Windows setup stops at "Starting windows", i.e. at GUI launch. MB q-code sais "AC".

Downgrading again to 1405 and the system starts as usual. MB q-code at A0.

Any suggestions?

Are you using two memory kits combined? If so remove one kit for now please. Combining two can be a bad idea for plug-and-play as the SPD will be programmed according to the density of a single kit, not two together...
 
Last edited:
I jinxed it.

After about 13 hours on Sunday, 5 hours on Monday, 5 hours on Tuesday and 3 hours today, it froze again. Went to have dinner, came back, frozen.

Which of the voltages can I boost a bit?

Run some stress tests on the system - not sure what DRAM you are suing, but if it's a single kit, enable XMP.
 
Hey every one got an issue with a Maximus VI Formula that won't post, error 99 solid red boot device led. I just spent an hour and a half round trip driving to the nearest Fry's because I spoke with Asus tech support and they suggested that the RAM I bought, Corsair Vengeance Pro 1866 2x 4GB may be the issue. So I went got some non pro 1600 Cas 9 which is also not on the list but the Cas 8 is and did not think it would be a problem, and same issue. Hard ware is as follows.

I5-4670K
Sesonic Platnium Series 860w PSU
EVGA GTX 770 SC ACX 02G-p4-2774-KR
Noctua NH D14
Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD
LG GH24 DVD writer
NEC Multisync 20WMGX2 display

Any Ideas that would cause this to happen, or what hardware would be the likely culprit, bad mobo, cpu etc? I've triple checked all connections and with this set up it is really easy to tell what goes where. I have no speakers but tried with head phones plugged in.


Unplug all devices apart from keyboard and see if the board will POST.
 
Run some stress tests on the system - not sure what DRAM you are suing, but if it's a single kit, enable XMP.
memtest86 went fine, OCCT went fine, gaming went fine... In fact, I don't think I've had a freeze when the computer was under heavy load. I'd need unstress tests :D

This is the memory (XMP is enabled):

HyperX Beast (T3) - 8GB Kit* (2x4GB) - DDR3 1866MHz CL9 Intel XMP DIMM
Part Number: KHX18C9T3K2/8X

I think I have three options left:

1) Slightly up the voltage on everything
2) Try to install Windows Updates again and pray they don't hose the system as before
3) Try to get a replacement mobo (which is going to be hard, as it can run for tens of hours without freezing)

If there was something that I could do to provoke the freeze, testing would be easy. Sadly, it's random, which is exactly why I'd have problems getting a replacement mobo - they'd stress test it for an hour and say it's fine, then bill me for the time.

Which voltages can I increase and to what limits?
 
Depends where the instability is coming from. You could end up on a wild goose chase if its another component or something else entirely.

If its not happening under load, then I'd try disabling things like speedstep and C-states and see if it still happens first. Keep any eye on the event logs as well.
 
Precisely - I have no idea what's causing it. Every time I think it's something, it turns out that it's not. In the beginning I was absolutely sure it was Chrome (there are many bug reports and a huge support thread on the issue of Chrome hard-freezing the computer), but then it froze without Chrome running.

C states are off, S3 is the lowest sleep state in Windows, EIST is on, but I'll turn it off for testing...

Event viewer doesn't say anything because it's a freeze, not a crash. Can't be recovered from - the whole system goes poof to the point of keyboard lights being frozen and the reset key on the case not working. Yesterday pressing the reset key shut down the machine entirely with a multi-second delay (although it did boot up automatically after that, and no, BIOS doesn't say "power up after power loss").

Made a full system image this morning so I'll try Windows Updates when I get back home from work. If WU blows up again, at least I can reimage instead of reinstalling.

I'm so annoyed by the freezing that I even had a dream about it last night - I dreamt that I got special sponge SATA cables that didn't vibrate as much from the hard drives, and that fixed it.

I mean... it's not like SATA cables vibrating can cause the computer to freeze? Right?
 
memtest86 went fine, OCCT went fine, gaming went fine... In fact, I don't think I've had a freeze when the computer was under heavy load. I'd need unstress tests :D

This is the memory (XMP is enabled):

HyperX Beast (T3) - 8GB Kit* (2x4GB) - DDR3 1866MHz CL9 Intel XMP DIMM
Part Number: KHX18C9T3K2/8X

I think I have three options left:

1) Slightly up the voltage on everything
2) Try to install Windows Updates again and pray they don't hose the system as before
3) Try to get a replacement mobo (which is going to be hard, as it can run for tens of hours without freezing)

If there was something that I could do to provoke the freeze, testing would be easy. Sadly, it's random, which is exactly why I'd have problems getting a replacement mobo - they'd stress test it for an hour and say it's fine, then bill me for the time.

Which voltages can I increase and to what limits?

Are the VCORE and CACHE voltages set to auto?

You've tried turning C-States off completely already iirc? If you had a psu that wasn't haswell cert. could need c6 c7 off

You are stock cpu clock frequency right? If not on stock then yes you will need to see what the voltage is running and bump the vcore and cache a bit maybe. Maybe like from 1.20 to 1.21. What OC are you running if any? I finally got mine totally stable at 4.2. Didn't need a lot of voltage either... Just needed to raise my cache voltage a wee bit higher than my actual vcore and it seemed to fix my problem. Idk if it would be prime95 stable 24 hours or not but it has not crashed in 3 days straight and I've been testing quite a bit.
 
All voltages are at auto. I have no idea what 90% of the BIOS options are for, so I'm not touching them :D When did computers and BIOSes become this complex?

C-states are off. The PSU is a brand new Seasonic Platinum 660W, and to my best of knowledge, it's fine for Haswell - especially since C-states are disabled.

Stock, no overclocking. Since the freezes happen at idle, I think the motherboard sets some kind of voltage (perhaps not even core voltage) too low and then it's hit and miss whether the CPU/southbridge/whatever can recover from that. I should read the manual carefully and see if I can apply a small +0.005-0.01 offset to various things and if it'll hold at low multipliers and voltages.
 
When you say C-states do you mean all of them or just C3 and C6?

CPUs are only unstable at ASUS stock sometimes if muticore enhnace is on or if the DRAM frequency is past Intel's stock spec (some XMP profiles over DDR3-1866 may need adjustemnt of VCC IO-D and Vcore).

-Raja
 
There's a setting called "enable C-states" (or something like that) in the BIOS, and I turned that off.

Multicore enhance is enabled, and freezing happened at 1333 as well.

I'll try disabling enhance and EIST later today... Let's see how that goes.
 
Are you using two memory kits combined? If so remove one kit for now please. Combining two can be a bad idea for plug-and-play as the SPD will be programmed according to the density of a single kit, not two together...

They are 4 packets with a single 8GB dimm in each. So there is an identical 8 GB dimm in each slot. I will try with just 2 dimms inserted tonight. First two slots from CPU?

Thanks,

Edit; 4 packs.
 
They are 8 packets with a single 8GB dimm in each. So there is an identical 8 GB dimm in each slot. I will try with just 2 dimms inserted tonight. First two slots from CPU?

Thanks,

Man that is a recipe for instability combining kits like that. You are lucky it works at all. It's not advised to combine multiple kits to make up a larger density. Just use a single module for now and enable XMP. See if you can get the OS to install or not. If not the issue lies elsewhere.
 
Why is that? Manual states that dimm module with the same timings should preferably be used. Nothing about them coming in one kit?
 
Because it fails to mention that memory is binned according to density. The denisty of a kit affects it's stability and required timings. The SPD and XMP is programmed taking the density into account, so if you increase the number of modules there are no guarantees it will be stable at a given frequency or set of timings. That's one of the reasons why buying a single kit of XX density is more expensive than combining kits to make the same density.
 
This time Windows Updates managed to install. I skipped all the security updates and just installed the core ones.

Chrome is at v31, which is supposed to fix all freezes related to Realtek drivers.

As far as software goes, this is all I can do and I've eliminated all possible software issues. Now I play the waiting game... If the damn thing freezes again, it's BIOS tweaking time and I can be positive it's a problem with the hardware.
 
When you get freeze is any light lit on the board?

After reboot do you check system event viewer for error messages?
 
Because it fails to mention that memory is binned according to density. The denisty of a kit affects it's stability and required timings. The SPD and XMP is programmed taking the density into account, so if you increase the number of modules there are no guarantees it will be stable at a given frequency or set of timings. That's one of the reasons why buying a single kit of XX density is more expensive than combining kits to make the same density.

Alright, so I think the problem is solved!

As suggested I removed all but one dimm. Then flashed from 1405 to 1602. After that I changed timings from auto to XMP. Also changed SATA from AHCI to RAID (obviously). Left the rest as is from flash defaults. Computer starts like a charm!

Now, re-installed rest of dimms. Computer still starts like a charm!

Concluded that XMP setting solved the issue and went about changing the rest of my bios settings (except that I keep XMP) back to what it was. Did these settings:

VRM Spread Spectrum [Disabled]->[Enabled]
Boot performance mode [Max Non-Turbo Performance]->[Turbo Performance]
Dynamic Storage Accelerator [Disabled]->[Enabled]
ASPM Support [Disabled]->[Auto]
ASPM Support [Disabled]->[Auto]
PEG - ASPM [Disabled]->[Auto]
PCI Express Native Power Management [Disabled]->[Enabled]
Native ASPM [Disabled]->[Enabled]
Thunderbolt Controller [Enabled]->[Disabled]
Thunderbolt bandwidth [X4 mode]->[X2 mode]
Bluetooth Controller [Enabled]->[Disabled]
Wi-Fi Controller [Enabled]->[Disabled]
USB Support [Partial Initialization]->[Full Initialization]
POST Report [5 sec]->[3 sec]

Problem is back! Computer freezes at "Starting windows" right at GUI start.

So I am changing back the bios settings one by one. It turns out that the computer will not start with Thunderbolt Controller disabled with bios 1602.

Rechecked and confirmed this. My setup and config will not start with Thunderbolt Controller disabled.

Thanks for the suggestions and help! It set me on the right path!
 
Finally got some time this evening to test the Force GT with the 1504 and 1602 firmware on the Z87-Delux with the hot plug options enabled, still crashes and burns. It just refuses to read the boot info off the drives, in spite of the fact that it can still read the contents of it at the file level from the UEFI itself. There just seems to be some straight up incompatibility introduced in the latest 2 revisions. Whatever Intel controller related changes were made post 1405 need to be looked at.
 
Finally got some time this evening to test the Force GT with the 1504 and 1602 firmware on the Z87-Delux with the hot plug options enabled, still crashes and burns. It just refuses to read the boot info off the drives, in spite of the fact that it can still read the contents of it at the file level from the UEFI itself. There just seems to be some straight up incompatibility introduced in the latest 2 revisions. Whatever Intel controller related changes were made post 1405 need to be looked at.

It's the management engine that has changed. We have no issues on our side thus far. Are you still using that Corsair bay to connect the drives?
 
It's the management engine that has changed. We have no issues on our side thus far. Are you still using that Corsair bay to connect the drives?

Not for that drive, I stopped hooking up the Corsair drive through it after the grief it caused when the board was released. All the tests I performed tonight where done with the drive fully isolated on plug 1 for the Intel controller, nothing else was attached.
 
Interesting. I will see if HQ have a Corsair Force GT to try and replicate the issue.
 
Matija, just to let you know you are not alone on the freeze thing :(

yesterday I had a freeze while browsing, today I had a freeze at browsing. both occurred about 30m after turning the system on.

Here mouse freezes for 1s, then moves a bit more then freezes completely.

yesterday when it froze the vga fans went 100% and I experienced double boot after hitting reset.

the rest is like your story, nothing on event viewer, system frozen with keyboard light on (unable to switch it), replugin USB peripherals don't even power them.
 
And I had another freeze a few minutes ago :) Left the computer idling for about 45 minutes, came back, frozen as usual. Replugged the KB and mouse and like you said, no power is being delivered. But I guess that's normal - I mean, the system is frozen solid and the USB controller misbehaves.

The good news seems to be that I proooobably don't get freezing while I'm doing stuff on the PC, like typing or moving the mouse (which happened before, when I had AI Suite installed). The bad news is that I still get freezing when the computer goes idle for a while. I'm tempted to run something that loads the cores, then go away for an hour or two and see what happens.

Either something goes to sleep and can't wake up, or a voltage for something drops below the stability treshold.

The experiments continue... Tomorrow is BIOS tweaking time.
 
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