ASUS X79-Deluxe will not boot past BIOS post - please help!

[deadward]

Hi,

I recently returned from vacation and found that my desktop will not boot past the American Megatrends BIOS post. Several attempts in a row it would not even display the post. But usually it gets to that screen and hangs until I either reset or enter the BIOS setup with F1. Occasionally it prints a line that says "Please enter setup to recover BIOS setting," but entering the BIOS and resetting to defaults has not solved the problem.

So far I have troubleshooted both RAM sticks, swapping them out and around independently. I have removed one of my GPUs to get access to the CLR_CMOS switch, but clearing CMOS had no effect, nor did changing my boot order in the BIOS settings. I also unplugged all USB devices and found no change. The LCD display on the board reads code A2 at this point pretty much always. In the manual this code is "IDE Detect," which sounds right to me for a BIOS post.

Here is my config:
Asus X79-Deluxe (Not PX79-Deluxe)
i7-4930k under a Corsair H100i
2x8GB G.Skill DDR3 1333 Mhz
2x Gigabyte GTX 780Ti
2x 250 GB Samsung 840Evo SSDs configured in RAID0
3 TB 7200RPM Seagate HDD

Any help that you can offer in troubleshooting this issue would be highly appreciated.

 

[Dee Kay]

Just moving sticks doesn't test them enough to know if they have any errors stopping them from initializing. test it to find a bad stick or rule out ram as being the culprit. Run memtest86 for at least 6 passes but if you start seeing errors then stop and check one stick at a time. You could also borrow a known good compatible stick long enough to see if you can boot.