Asus P8Z68 Deluxe/Gen 3 Won't Boot After Bios Upgrade

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sdavm

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Hi All,

I'm new to this forum so please bear with me. I've seen similar question to mine posted here, however, none of the suggested solutions have worked.
My build is as follows:
Mobo: Asus P8Z68 Deluxe Gen 3
Intel Core i7 Chip set 2600K 3.4 GHZ 8MB
RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB
Graphics Card NVIDIA Quadro 600
Corsair H80 Cooling Kit
CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 PSU
Western Digital Black SATA 2 TB HD w/64 MB and 6.0 HDD
Operating System: Windows 7 Pro 64 bit

My system build went smoothly and the computer has been performing flawlessly for 3 months so I know there is nothing wrong with any of the components or anything with the way I put it together. If flat out worked and worked great.

However, as I wanted optimal performance for doing pro audio as well as video I had planned from the beginning to overclock my machine. That's the whole reason I selected the components that I did when planning the build.

Rather than doing it manually, though, I used the Asus software utility that automatically overclocks the machine for you (one would assume within safe limits). After using that, however, a strange thing began happening. The utility would say that the overclocking had been successful, and claimed to have boosted the speed to around 4.6 GHZ -- not spectacular compared to what a lot of people claim to achieve on this forum, but a respectable boost of around 38% nevertheless and I was satisfied with that. I wanted performance and stability and didn't want to wear out my components prematurely by going too far with the overclocking. Anyway, the problem was, the overclocking that the utility claimed was happening was not verifiable using CPUID or any of the other utilities that measure it. And, n fact, in benchmark speed tests, my computer actually did worse than before I ran the Asus utility. From all appearances it seems that the overclocking wasn't taking effect. The clock speed reading would disappear and revert back to approximately stock speed immediately afterwards.
So, during my research in trying to get to the bottom of that, someone suggested that I might need to update my BIOS. I checked on the ASUS website and, sure enough, a new version of the BIOS for my mobo was just released in mid February.
I downloaded it, read the instructions and warnings concerning how to install it and decided to again use the ASUS utility designed to update the BIOS for you. The utility said the install was successful and my machine began to reboot. Everything looked like it was going well except that when it got to the BIOS screen, it would fail to boot and then would just restart the machine, doing that over and over a couple of times until the machine just stays on while showing a totally blank, dark screen.
There are two LEDs that light and stay on inside the box while it attempts to boot. One, is the "Boot Device" LED and the other is the "DRAM" LED. Additionally, the error code eventually settles on 55 which, according to the manual, means "memory not installed" (I'll get back to that in a minute).
Now, before everyone tells me to remove the CMOS battery and either move the jumper to the alternate set of pins for 15 seconds, or press the "Clear CMOS" button on the rear panel, let me assure you I've done that. Or, more accurately, maybe I should say that I've tried to do that. If anyone out there actually owns one of these boards, you'll quickly find that the "jumpers" that they refer to in the manual don't exist on this board (and btw, neither does the page they refer you to from that page in the manual itself). Complicating matters is that, though the back panel does indeed have a tiny, pin-hole, in the back, around which the words "CLR CMOS" are written, there IS NO BUTTON there. I've seen the button depicted in the diagram on the ASUS website and I assure you mine does not have one. I'm not sure if you're supposed to stick the end of a paper clip or whatever through that little hole but there is no button. However, as all the advice relating to this problem seemed dependent upon clearing the CMOS, I knew it must be important to try to somehow make that happen. So, I removed my cooling unit (a huge pain, as well as my graphics card and could get enough access to that part of the mobo to see that it did appear to have some type of pressable switch on the inside. So, I removed the CMOS battery, pressed the "CLR CMOS" switch from the inside of my case" and tried to boot up again. Still, it would not boot.

I also tried removing two sticks of memory, as well as disconnecting my internal hard drive and seeing if it would go into the BIOS but nothing worked.

I get the same problem: it restarts, begins to go through the boot sequence but when it reaches the screen that shows the ASUS logo with the instructions to press the delete key to get into the BIOS ... you can press that key all day but nothing will happen.

So, please, is there anyone out there who has any idea of what the problem might be? Again, let me repeat that there wasn't a thing wrong with this machine before I tried to update the BIOS so it's highly unlikely that a key component failed just at that particular time. I'm puzzled why it seems to think there's no memory installed though. And, yes, I went back over everything and made doubly sure everything is set firmly in its socket.

Please help if you can and suggest other things I might try.

Thanks in advance.




 
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bleechy

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I have the non gen 3 version of this board and had a pain with the Asus software... it was awful so I just uninstalled it. I also had a hanging post which I fixed with a cmos reset (I have jumpers)

I've looked at pics and I can see a switch for it on the IO panel (http://www.pcper.com/image/view/7589?return=node152541) Do you not have this?

On a side note have you checked that all your power connectors on the mobo are still connected, the LED lights on my board illuminate if these are not connected.

Also just remembered the first time I installed the mobo I had to hold the memok button with one dimm slot installed to get past the hanging bios.

gl!
 

sdavm

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Hi thank you for replying. With respect to the picture, the place on my mobo where that switch would come through the back panel is covered by the panel covering itself ... in other words, there's no cutout for it. Instead, there is a tiny, pin-sized hole there where you could conceivably stick a paper clip or something that size through that "might" succeed in depressing the switch. As I would have to remove the entire motherboard from the case to get access to it as illustrated in your picture, I instead removed the cooling unit which allowed me to take a tweezers and attempt to press the switch from the inside. However, as I didn't get a real good look at what I was pressing, I can't be 100% sure that I successfully pressed it. I'm pretty sure I got it though.

Is there anything else that I have to do while pressing that switch to reset the CMOS, aside from taking the CMOS battery out? Does it have to be out for any specific length of time?

I did recheck all of the connections a couple of times. I also pressed the memOK button which did nothing ... but didn't try your trick of doing it with only one dimm slot installed. Maybe I should try that next.

What really puzzles me is why it's giving error code 55 which means "no memory"?

If there are any other tricks you or anyone else reading this can think of to get it past the hanging bios, I'd love to hear idea.

Thanks again for replying,
Really appreciate the help!
 

catatafish

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I recently updated the BIOS as well. I noticed it did a few things. One is it undid my overclock. Another is that some of the settings changed, and it did change my memory profile. I had to go in to the BIOS and change my memory to match my sticks. The XMP choices went away, so I manually chose 1600.

Also, doesn't your mobo have a MemOK! button? It's supposed to help with diagnosing memory issues.

I would first go through the BIOS before you do anything and look for anything fishy. I wish I could tell you more specifically what I had to do, but it was a few things....one of which is setting the memory properly. Oh, I also had to reset it back to RAID because it defaulted it to AHCI. It also wiped out all my saved BIOS profiles.

The battery removal is easiest way to reset it....just take it out for about 15 seconds and put it back in. But try fiddling with your BIOS and the MemOK! button first.

Edit:
Doh! Just noticed you already tried MemOK!.
 

bleechy

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Yes try the few things here and hopefully it will work.

When I reset the CMOS I followed my guide which said:
Turn off computer, Move the jumper (So I guess press your button) for 5-10 seconds, Move the jumper back, power on, Hold Del during boot.

BTW Reading about your overclocking when you started.. these chips have speedstep, basically no stress no overclock. Might be the reason you could not see the overclock in cpuid.
 

sdavm

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Thanks for the reply, catatafish, the problem is I can't get into the BIOS. When it begins to go through the boot routine, it makes it to the ASUS screen where it says to press the delete key to enter the BIOS but nothing happens when you do that and the computer just restarts, then hangs forever in limbo with a dark, blank screen.
I did remove the battery several times and for much longer than 15 seconds. I also depressed the CLR_CMOS button (as best I could ... pls refer to earlier post) as well as the MemOK button. Nothing seems to work, I just can't get it to actually go into the BIOS. If I could get it to do that, I'm reasonably sure I could get it to boot simply by restoring the defaults.
 

sdavm

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[/quote]

Thanks for the tip, Bleechy, I'll definitely give it another try (I read what you said in the manual also but it's confusing considering the jumpers they refer to aren't present so I can't "move them back" for example ... and also the button that's supposed to be accessible from outside the case isn't).

Interesting about what you said about the overclocking ... so, if I understand you correctly, I won't see any indication of my overclocking working unless it's under stress. That makes sense. What leads me to believe that the overclock simply didn't "take" though, is that when I did perform the benchmark tests, it did somewhat poorly on them -- worse than before the auto overclocking done by the ASUS utility ... you would think that would not only put the machine under the required stress to get an overclock reading, but that the performance would be faster than the stock settings.

Overclocking aside, right now, I'd just settle for being able to get it to boot!
 

bleechy

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Just thought of something, incase your bios is corrupt... being a firmware update it could be (never hapenned to me before so I really don't know). You can place a bios file onto a usb stick (in the root), plug it into the motherboard and then switch on.
If the bios is corrupt it should install that version for you, just a thought ^^

With the overclocking...when you get the comp working. Use Prime95 and CPUID. You will see the standard clock while Prime95 is off (should be 1.6ghz 100x16) when Prime 95 is on it will crank the voltage up to like 1.35-1.4v and multiplier to 38 or what ever you set it to. It's so easy to do in the bios you really do not need software.
I find Asus boards supply a reasonable automatic voltage so you should only have to change the multiplier to 46 and leave everything else as automatic (make sure you stress test though).
 
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sdavm

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The USB stick idea sounds like a great suggestion, I will definitely try it considering that so far nothing having to do with clearing the CMOS has worked.

Thanks also for the tip on the overclocking. At first I considered adjusting the settings in the bios myself rather than using the ASUS software but didn't feel comfortable enough to do that. I figured it would be safer to use the software they designed specifically for overclocking their own motherboards -- obviously, that was a bad assumption. I used only their software to do all of these maneuvers (i.e., overclocking, updating bios) and look at the predicament it got me in ... a totally unusable computer.

One additional question ... when you say that I can place a bios file on a USB stick, do you mean the ASUS ROM file that I downloaded from their website or is there some other format for the bios? I've never encountered that kind of file before outside of this specific instance.

Thanks again for all the advice, I will definitely post my results here if/when I get my machine working.
 

bleechy

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Any bios file, even the out of date one that came on the motherboard CD.
 

hammajamma

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I have the exact same problem..Did you figure it out?








 

sdavm

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I was so busy during this week that I haven't had a chance yet to try these suggestions but am planning to tackle it this weekend and will definitely post my success (or lack thereof) here afterwards.

In the meantime, if you find a fix that works for you, please post here as well.

 

eXistenZ

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Does this motherboard have the warning not to use AutoUpdate but to use bupdate instead? I forget which it is, and I can't find the reference. I thought ASUS actually gave a warning not to use it. Maybe that was with the older mobo (gen2) and they fixed it.
 

sdavm

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Okay, I have good news ... good news for me at least (sorry hammajamma that you ended up having to return the motherboard).

My computer is up and running again and I'm back in business! The less good news is I'm not exactly sure which action that I took was responsible for fixing it, however, I will go through everything that I did and hopefully this will help someone else who has encountered this problem.

Having read repeatedly that almost everyone who has had a similar problem solved it by clearing the CMOS (i.e., removing the battery, switching the jumper, etc) I decided I would give that one last try despite the fact that my computer doesn't have jumpers. This time, however, when I took the battery out, I left it out overnight, not just for a minute or so ... doubtful that was necessary, just saying that's what I did. I also had to make absolutely sure that I pressed the CLR CMOS switch that, though missing from the back panel as shown in illustrations, still seems to exist on the inside of the machine. Apparently, you are supposed to stick a paper clip or something through that little hole in the back in order to press it. This is complete conjecture on my part but I'm guessing they went to that design because it was probably too easy to accidentally press it while it was on the outside of the box. However, it would have been nice if they would have mentioned that anywhere in the manual or alluded to it at least someplace on their website. In any case, I did press that button through the hole and am sure that I got it.

My computer still didn't start after having done that though and, strangely, now it wouldn't even post though I kept getting the same error message (55) that I mentioned earlier.

So, at this point I did several things: First, I went to the ASUS website and downloaded the updated bios and put it on a USB flash drive. Then I disconnected all my other drives and anything else that was connected to my computer that it could conceivably try to boot from so that it had no choice other than to boot from the USB drive. Then I tried to start it with only one stick of memory in the slots. Still, it would not post ... it would just turn on and show a dark, blank, screen. Then, I thought maybe the specific memory stick was bad so I kept substituting different sticks, putting them in different slots. I essentially disconnected and reconnected just about every internal component other than the graphics card, liquid cooling, and fans until, suddenly --much to my amazement --when I had arrived at the combination of having just two of the 4 slots of memory occupied, my machine suddenly noticed that it had a bios update on the USB drive and began loading it. Then, this time, when it rebooted, it gave me the screen that I had been hoping to see, the one that gives you access to go in and make changes to the bios. Once I saw that screen (I was relieved, btw that it was the updated version of the bios that I had loaded onto the USB drive) I went in and selected the option to restore the optimized defaults, restarted it, and it booted right into windows!

One thing that I do want to mention is that when I was pulling my memory sticks in and out, I noticed how difficult it was on this board to get that satisfying "click" into place that lets you know that the memory is fully seated in the socket. I've inserted memory into a variety of other mobos that have not been as difficult as this one is in that respect. I had to exert much more force than I'm comfortable using on delicate components like these to get them in there securely. That being said, I have no doubt that loose memory was not the cause of my original problem when the bios wouldn't update properly and got hung up refusing to boot past the first screen. However, I do think it's possible that while trying to locate my non existent jumper/switch during which time I had to remove the liquid cooling unit to gain access, it's possible that I may have nudged a stick out of place and complicated the situation ... that could be why I was getting error 55 saying there was no memory although even if I had done that there were still 3 other sticks of memory firmly seated in their slots ... so I don't know, I'm just saying....

So, as I said, I did all of the things I've described above and eventually got it to work but I'm not sure which action that I did specifically caused that to happen.

What I suspect is that there was a combination of things wrong. Initially, Asus's horrible software caused the crash ... of that I have no doubt (and, by the way, I saw no warning of any kind not to use their software to update the bios ... if there was one, it's not easy to find; they need to put it in giant letters on the same damn page as the bios download on their website). So, I'll save them the trouble: DON'T USE ASUS SOFTWARE TO UPDATE YOUR BIOS! Of course, if you're reading this, it's probably already too late. Secondly, their user manual is outdated and incorrect even though it says on the front that it's specifically for the P8Z68 Deluxe/GEN3 motherboard, it's still showing jumpers that don't exist on this board, a back panel that's obviously been modified from the previous version, while still referencing other pages and sections of their manual that don't exist either. They also need to add an index to it but that's a discussion for another day. The info is just as outdated on their website -- quite irresponsible if you ask me. How hard is it to update a frickin' web page for one of your products? So, because this version of the mobo is so new, there isn't a wealth of information out there yet or even the experience of other users to help you if you have a problem like this.

Because of the lack of accurate documentation, I couldn't be absolutely sure that the steps I was taking were the right ones which, in turn, caused me to have to do a lot more messing around inside my case than should have been necessary. I think it's possible that when removing components while on the hunt for the missing/hidden CLR CMOS switch, and swapping out memory sticks, etc., that maybe something got nudged out of place or not seated back in properly in the process. So, it's possible that I succeeded in clearing the CMOS early on, but inadvertently caused a new, different, problem while trying to address that one.

By systematically detaching and reattaching practically everything inside my machine, I probably fixed -- by accident--whatever wasn't plugged in all the way (if that was, indeed, the problem). Then, when that was taken care of, I had the new bios loaded on the USB drive ready to go and the rest took care of itself.

Anyway, sorry to have written a book of my own here in this forum but I know how frustrating it is when I'm on a forum desperately searching for answers and people don't quite give me all the information I need to solve my problem. I think a lot of people will run into this issue if they use the Asus software so hopefully my experience will help someone else in the same predicament.

I also have to give major thanks to each of you who submitted your suggestions, especially Bleechy, whose sage advice, I think made it possible for me to solve this. Bleechy, you are my hero.

It's sad that we can't depend on the customer service departments of major companies like Asus to properly support their products.

But it's great that we have a forum like this to help each other, what a terrific resource.

 
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