Rampage IV Multiple Issues

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roadczar

Limp Gawd
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Mar 6, 2011
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What had started as a cool build is slowly turning into the most problematic build ever. I’ve been doing this for many years and don’t remember a mother board this troublesome.
I’m on my second board now and the second has more issues than the first.

List of issues:
Cold boot code 00 bug (same as the previous board)
http://roadczar.com/th10/?p=271

One of USB 3.0 controllers is not working (same as the previous board)
http://roadczar.com/th10/?p=297

Second BIOS will not boot. Also cannot switch to the second BIOS using the BIOS button on the motherboard. This is a new bug that was not found on the first board.

Trying to decide what to do next, another RMA or try for a refund?

Leaning toward a refund and getting ASRock X79 Extreme9 instead. :confused:

Edit: 1/28/2012

Root cause found, but not solution
I have two crossfired HD 6990s video cards and with three ASUS VE278Q monitors setup in Eyefinity configuration. The monitors are connected to video cards using three display port cables.

The monitors, video cards, and cable are all proven items from my prior build.

I have three following issues:
1. I cannot switch to the second BIOS via the BIOS button - this happens even on default BIOS settings.
2. Randomly disappearing USB 3.0 controllers – this happens even on default BIOS settings.
3. Code 00 cold boot problem if any CPU related performance options (clock, blck, etc) are set to any values other than defaults. As I had stated previously anything besides turbo=auto does not work regardless of memory settings or turbo ratio settings.


Root cause:
Disconnecting two of three display port cables resolves all three problems.
It does not matter which of the two cables I disconnect or which of the two video cards I use. I have tried every permutation of video cards, crossfire settings, cables, and monitors with exact same results.

I still think it is somehow related to the chipset, motherboard, or the BIOS. Bizarre issue...

Ideas?

Edit: 2/2/2012

Update, Shamino and the team from Asus were able to replicate the problem. In short, it was caused by out of spec displayport cables. Pin 20 was used, but should not have been connected. It was leaking voltage into the video cards.

Thanks Shamino, Raja, and Mason for helping to resolve this issue! It is so rare nowadays to get this type of attention and support from a large corporation.
 
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RMA that board back to ASUS (PM me if you want to do that with all of your details and the board serial number), I will loop in a tech and get him to pre-test one for you.

-Raja
 
Raja is the man. My R4E has been the best board I've ever owned! Not a single issue and it's been as rock solid reliable as all of my other Asus boards. :)

My guess is it's something else in your system roadczar. Or you are doing something wrong.
 
Appa said:
Raja is the man. My R4E has been the best board I've ever owned! Not a single issue and it's been as rock solid reliable as all of my other Asus boards. :)

My guess is it's something else in your system roadczar. Or you are doing something wrong.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your input. I'm sure I will get to the bottom of this with the help from Raja.

So what in my system can make USB controllers disappear? Bluetooth wink in and out? Inability to boot into the second bios, and get Code 00 at anything, but auto settings?

I’ve been in this hobby longer than many people have been a live and went through many generations of Asus motherboards.

Except for the extra I7-3930 CPU I have enough left-over high-end parts to build multiple PCs and used them to debug these issues without any luck.

Asus already acknowledged the Code 00 being an issue with the i-rog chip and written a one-off bios to provide a work around. With this BIOS I can run Prime 95 small FFTs @ 4.5 / 2400 for 24hours without ever going past 45c this is with two HD 6990s.

From an enthusiast perspective, besides the peripheral issues mentioned, the board is the easiest to OC and most stable board I have ever used. I want to make it work.
 
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did you know about the 20uf CPU Clockgen filter setting in bios that has to be enabled, not auto?
you do have CPU fan connector on "CPU Fan" header right?
 
cisco guy said:
did you know about the 20uf CPU Clockgen filter setting in bios that has to be enabled, not auto?
you do have CPU fan connector on "CPU Fan" header right?
Click to expand...

Hi thanks, yes, at this point every conceivable (related and unrelated :) ) bios option was tried.

This board will not boot at anything over 3200 even at the lowest memory settings - Unless I use the custom BIOS developed by ASUS.

This is WC setup, and the CPU fan is connected to the flow meter. I also tried disabling it in BIOS.
 
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just for giggles you gotta try an air cooler with fan plugged into CPU Fan header and speed control off in bios
 
cisco guy said:
just for giggles you gotta try an air cooler with fan plugged into CPU Fan header and speed control off in bios
Click to expand...

That would be quite an undertaking with my current WC setup, I have not used an air cooled setup in years so I'd have to buy one for 2011. :)

Since the board is 100% stable, what is your logic behind it?
 
If a mobo has cold boot issue over 2 boards it isnt stable - something aint right with your config

You didnt mention what WC rig (or any equip for that matter), and some have dual fans, high amp fans, slow rpm, fast rpm etc and that single CPU fan header is kind of picky for things to be kosher.
"Doug" with a deluxe went thru 8 pages of a cold boot thread here, and it turns out his H-100 was in the way of the three header on top of mobo - CPU FAN - OPT CPU and the black 3 pin volt test header, and he plugged it in to the black one (couldnt see it)
But I only mentioned it because you seemed to be a bit desperate.
I'm sure Raja will do fine by you
Just ignore my post, not relevant really.
Good luck
 
I had posted the links to my blog, but I understand and sincerely appreciate all the input. Just a little bit frustrated at the moment.

Parts list:
http://roadczar.com/th10/?page_id=2

This is my rig:

SAM_0627.jpg


Motherboard #2 being installed:

SAM_0624-1024x831.jpg


SAM_0605-1024x901.jpg


Front view:

th10_1.jpg
 
Is that a picture of a PC - or under the hood of a supercharged BMW?
I can see why changing things would be a bitch.
Actually, it looks like it would be a science project - heh

fwiw, Doug had your exact prob.(including using WC) Extreme Overclocked RAM and CPU ran like a champ ONCE IN Wndows
The "cold no boot random" issue is due to something really stupid happening DURING BOOT only. Whatever it is, its something the bios cant figure out by kicking down a step to a reboot/reset to do a double boot. And its right on the edge of booting, but sometimes it just cant.

Notice that when you boot after a long cold night, and it freezes, but works on a reboot or reset that the CPU has had a chance to heat up the WC block. If you never shut off the PC, it will work great endlessly.

I think you shot yourself in the foot with that elaborate cooling system. What would be easy is to lift the waterblock and see if the paste has spread evenly to indicate the block is strongly down and flat, The standoffs are new for 2011 mobo, may be slightly off in length. Heat makes things expand - especially copper. More heat could also help contact with one of those 2011 lga pins, esp if you touched the CPU pads with your finger. The Intel CPU install tut shows them using blue nitrile (no powder) gloves.

Would be nice to see a pic with that upper hose out of the way so I could see the CPU fan headers
Do you have a 4 pin fan with an RPM of 600 or higher as min to plug in there just by itself?
Then again, you just may have too many amps going to all those fans?
If you get another mobo or this one sent back again, at least try a "normal" aircooler like a Noctua, out of the case with no case fans hooked up, before you get the Space Shuttle wired for blastoff.
I have also read of a guy who fixed this prob with the new PLATINUM (not gold) Seasonic 1000W PSU (great +5VSB) The 1250W doesnt seem to be avail yet. Actually, looking at your parts list, it may be worthwhile to run 2 PSU - lol.
:D

And I'd bet that if you send your mobo back again, they will say works fine, and send it right back to you.
;)

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx...d=1&model=P9X79+DELUXE&page=1&SLanguage=en-us
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...fficial-X79-Motherboards-Support-Thread/page7
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1653127

As far as USB 3 - make sure you have USB set to auto in bios USB config

Edit:
2qs7wcm.jpg
 
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Great information.Thanks! I will look over in detail when I get home.

Agree on the PSU side and already planning on switching to a dual setup once I get my new MB :) I have good feeling given the testing Asus will do before shipping it. I'll bet you a buck it is a bad MB :) Should I PM you my PP account now or later :D

On the second BIOS side I am convinced the chip is fried, It gets really hot and is not acknowledged. This did not happen with the first MB.

I'll try to get better pictures.

Yes, I like hardware (PC and bikes) ;)
 
Oh, NOW you tell me the bios chip is smokin' - lol
No bet!
I would have bet you on the first mobo fer sure.
Dont really need "better" pics - just the unobstructed CPU fan headers general area, I want to see what you have goin on there

Edit: maybe the bios chip was hot because it was constantly in search mode - couldnt find useable rom
 
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roadczar said:
Great information.Thanks! I will look over in detail when I get home.

Agree on the PSU side and already planning on switching to a dual setup once I get my new MB :) I have good feeling given the testing Asus will do before shipping it. I'll bet you a buck it is a bad MB :) Should I PM you my PP account now or later :D

On the second BIOS side I am convinced the chip is fried, It gets really hot and is not acknowledged. This did not happen with the first MB.

I'll try to get better pictures.

Yes, I like hardware (PC and bikes) ;)
Click to expand...


When you do get the tested board, before you fire it up, do not use any waterblocks.Test with an air cooler on CPU if possible and single GPU. Just wondering if anything is pushing against the board. No other person has reported these types of issues(especially on two boards) and I am wondering if this is what is causing the issue with the iROG chip.

-Raja
 
Raja@ASUS said:
When you do get the tested board, before you fire it up, do not use any waterblocks.Test with an air cooler on CPU if possible and single GPU. Just wondering if anything is pushing against the board. No other person has reported these types of issues(especially on two boards) and I am wondering if this is what is causing the issue with the iROG chip.

-Raja
Click to expand...

I second this.

I hadn't experienced any issues like the OP described with the one we looked at.
 
All noted. I do have a spare PCI-e GPU. Air CPU cooler might be tough to locate locally for LGA2011, but I'll try...
 
Yes, but I have to change the backplate... Right?

In my opinion it is not a cooler related problem as there are plenty of people using Koolance 370 Block with LGA 2011 setups... It is a proven block ... We'll see.
 
Raja@ASUS said:
When you do get the tested board, before you fire it up, do not use any waterblocks.Test with an air cooler on CPU if possible and single GPU. Just wondering if anything is pushing against the board. No other person has reported these types of issues(especially on two boards) and I am wondering if this is what is causing the issue with the iROG chip.
-Raja
Click to expand...

What do you mean by pushing against the board? Shorting it on the back side against the tray? If so it would seem I would have more issues than I do today.
 
I read Doug’s story, mine is a different animal. While Doug experienced random issues, mine is 100% reproducible.
From my post on the rog board:

http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?9084-Rampage-IV-Extreme-00-Code-After-Shut-Down/page4


Update:
I did a lot of testing and was able narrow it down to the “turbo mode”. Basically anything besides turbo=auto does not work regardless of memory settings or turbo ratio settings.

Here is what I have tried:

Load F5 defaults – 5 shutdown cycles - all OK
Loaded recommended memory timings “11 11 11 31 2N” and tested 5 shutdown cycles for every speed from 1300 to 2400 (XMP) - all OK. (Turbo Ratio=AUTO)

Now the problem:

Setting Turbo Ratio to anything other than AUTO caused the code 00 cold start bug. Using turbo = auto mode PC runs at 3800 once it is booted up.

Even setting it to 33x100 causes the same issue.

If I disable turbo and limit CPU to 3200 all OK, but even at 3300 I get the code 00 cold start bugs.
Click to expand...

My CPU fan header LOL
fanheader.JPG
 
roadczar said:
What do you mean by pushing against the board? Shorting it on the back side against the tray? If so it would seem I would have more issues than I do today.
Click to expand...

I mean when one uses water-blocks and tubing on CPUs and GPUs there are times when the board warps slightly due to mounting pressure. Given the issues you have experienced, best advice would be to keep things ultra simple when you get the new board just to see if things are a-okay.


One last thing that also springs to mind is a somewhat faulty PSU. If any of those rails have excessive AC, the long term effect would be damage to onboard components fed from that rail. Of course, if you can rule out all certainty of that then ignore this. I mention it as it can be very hard to find and depending upon the nature of the PSU problem can take time to manifest.

-Raja
 
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Raja@ASUS said:
...
One last thing that also springs to mind is a somewhat faulty PSU. If any of those rails have excessive AC, the long term effect would be damage to onboard components fed from that rail. Of course, if you can rule out all certainty of that then ignore this. I mention it as it can be very hard to find and depending upon the nature of the PSU problem can take time to manifest.
-Raja
Click to expand...

Thanks Raja.

My opinion it is not PSU- just because the 1500 watt Strider came out of my previous WC rig that ran for years in a ASUS P6T Deluxe based configuration. (I know things can change)

I wanted to switch to a dual PSU setup anyway and will be using 2 Enermax EPM850EWT / EPM1200EWT PSUs. This may not be a popular choice here :p, but I've had very good luck with Enermax brand for many years in the past.(1500 Strider was an experiment.)

From the dual WC cooled HD 6990 perspective - as you may have seen in the picture I am using a ridgid EK parallel bridge. With this bridge the cards have zero play / movement when secured to the MB tray and put only little pressure on the PCI-e slots.

Temperature wise - both CPU and cards never go above 50c even after running Furmark / Prime 95 extereme burn-in for 8 hours straight. Both GPUs and CPU were overclocked 1350/950 and 4.5 MHz)

Aircooled - HD 6990s were at over 90c
 
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roadczar said:
Thanks Raja.

My opinion it is not PSU- just because the 1500 watt Strider came out of my previous WC rig that ran for years in a ASUS P6T Deluxe based configuration. (I know things can change)

I wanted to switch to a dual PSU setup anyway and will be using 2 Enermax EPM850EWT / EPM1200EWT PSUs. This may not be a popular choice here :p, but I've had very good luck with Enermax brand for many years in the past.(1500 Strider was an experiment.)

From the dual WC cooled HD 6990 perspective - as you may have seen in the picture I am using a ridgid EK parallel bridge. With this bridge the cards have zero play / movement when secured to the MB tray and put only little pressure on the PCI-e slots.

Temperature wise - both CPU and cards never go above 50c even after running Furmark / Prime 95 extereme burn-in for 8 hours straight. Both GPUs and CPU were overclocked 1350/950 and 4.5 MHz)

Aircooled - HD 6990s were at over 90c
Click to expand...

Still, my best advice first time experiment = breadboard build without any WC. And as it is two boards, whatever you can nail out for absolute certainty for this third board makes sense.
 
Also updated original post for clarity...

Root cause found, but not solution
I have two crossfired HD 6990s video cards and with three ASUS VE278Q monitors setup in Eyefinity configuration. The monitors are connected to video cards using three display port cables.

The monitors, video cards, and cable are all proven items from my prior build.

I have three following issues:
1. I cannot switch to the second BIOS via the BIOS button - this happens even on default BIOS settings.
2. Randomly disappearing USB 3.0 controllers – this happens even on default BIOS settings.
3. Code 00 cold boot problem if any CPU related performance options (clock, blck, etc) are set to any values other than defaults. As I had stated previously anything besides turbo=auto does not work regardless of memory settings or turbo ratio settings.


Root cause:
Disconnecting two of three display port cables resolves all three problems.
It does not matter which of the two cables I disconnect or which of the two video cards I use. I have tried every permutation of video cards, crossfire settings, cables, and monitors with exact same results.

I still think it is somehow related to the chipset, motherboard, or the BIOS. Bizarre issue...

Ideas?

cisco guy you should have taken that bet :)
 
O.K. Let me first say I am no 3 monitor Display port expert, so please go easy on me - heh
Maybe I can learn something here.

As far as my understanding goes, you can use a SINGLE card as a three monitor eyefinity, say 2 DVI and one DP. But the DP as center monitor needs active powered dongle
Then you can xfire two supported vidcards or 3 supported vidcards Xfired to ea other and these create a virtual single output to 3 monitors. AFAIK you still need the center monitor to be live DP.
No?
Three separate passive DP cables to 3 monitor DP receptacles would not seem to be workable as three, which may be backed up by your two monitor only problem.
http://support.amd.com/us/eyefinity/Pages/eyefinity-dongles.aspx

There are also 3 levels/grades of DP cables

So the question is have you done this config before and it worked on another mobo?
With the 6990's?

BRlEp.jpg
 
Raja@ASUS said:
RMA that board back to ASUS (PM me if you want to do that with all of your details and the board serial number), I will loop in a tech and get him to pre-test one for you.

-Raja
Click to expand...

You sir, are exactly why (when I can afford to) I am going to buy an Asus board, because I know that I can come here and someone that is ACTUALLY with the company and who is truly interested the their customers experience (even if it turns difficult) is here to help out and get shit done.

tl;dr You rock.
 
Cisco I have been running multi display setups for a while now. It is OK to run all monitors using native display ports. You can also run a combination of display ports and one DVI port. Dongles are only required to convert from display port to either DVI or HDMI for monitors that so not have native display ports.

HD 6990 have native displayport 1.2 support. All of my monitors do as well.

Anyhow, my issues are not with Eyefinity which functions perfectly, but with the strange impact it has on the motherboard during low level post.

Yes, I'm running Catalyst 12.2 drivers. This is not a driver issue by any means.
 
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STrooperTK421 said:
You sir, are exactly why (when I can afford to) I am going to buy an Asus board, because I know that I can come here and someone that is ACTUALLY with the company and who is truly interested the their customers experience (even if it turns difficult) is here to help out and get shit done.

tl;dr You rock.
Click to expand...

I concur, Asus support has been superb!
 
roadczar said:
Cisco I have been running multi display setups for a while now. It is OK to run all monitors using native display ports. You can also run a combination of display ports and one DVI port. Dongles are only required to convert from display port to either DVI or HDMI for monitors that so not have native display ports.

HD 6990 have native displayport 1.2 support. All of my monitors do as well.

Anyhow, my issues are not with Eyefinity which functions perfectly, but with the strange impact it has on the motherboard during low level post.

Yes, I'm running Catalyst 12.2 drivers. This is not a driver issue by any means.
Click to expand...

If you remove power from the monitors during POST does that have any impact on POST behaviour at all?

-Raja
 
Raja,

Removing power during post does not resolve issues.

If I execute Windows soft shut down and prior to post remove the power (unplug ac) form either all or any two of three monitors then I can post and switch BIOS. It also works when I unplug any two or all display ports.

Just softly shutting down my system without unplugging or removing monitors/displayports results in the code 00 and the inability to switch BIOS issues.

I’ve also tried mixing connection types (i.e. one DVI / two display ports and two DVI / one display port) resulting in exactly the same issues.

My monitors are ASUS VE278Q.

:confused:
 
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Sounds like some kind of DC issue.

Only other thing I can think of that may help is going to the Advanced>APM section of UEFI and enabling all "wake on" features.
 
Raja@ASUS said:
Sounds like some kind of DC issue.

Only other thing I can think of that may help is going to the Advanced>APM section of UEFI and enabling all "wake on" features.
Click to expand...

Enabling "wake on" did not resolve the issue.

Not sure what you mean by "DC issue".

Do you mean DC power? By now I have tried it with four separate PSUs, three separate monitors, five separate cables, two separate video cards, and three separate motherboards. I have tried every conceivable BIOS option and all versions of BIOSes.

I also have an open RMA with Intel to replace the processor.

What's next? :confused:
 
DC issue in this instance means some kind of power short or over-voltage breach with those cables plugged in. If it's in hardware then I have no idea if it can be patched.
 
Raja@ASUS said:
DC issue in this instance means some kind of power short or over-voltage breach with those cables plugged in. If it's in hardware then I have no idea if it can be patched.
Click to expand...

Raja,

I'm not sure what to do with this information. Same Eyefinity setup functioned perfectly with my prior Asus ASUS P6T DELUXE V2 motherboard.

What are next steps? Will you run this by Asus engineers?
 
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