Help please! Asus P8P67 LE weird problems booting

[Lulzes]

Sorry for long post, been troubleshooting this all afternoon.

Specs: Win 7 64-bit, Asus P8P67 LE mobo, i5-2500K, Arctic Pro 950W PSU.

Started off when I decided to follow a YouTube guide to overclocking this mobo. I have an i5-2500K and it was only to 4.5GHz so I don't think the values were too high, although I did get the memory voltage wrong (guide said 1.65V but RAM is rated for 1.5V). Re-booted and everything was fine... should have stopped there.

However I noticed my BIOS was out of date so decided to flash the new one (3801). Went into BIOS and used EZFlash utility, everything went fine until it asked to reset, then screen went black but PC didn't reboot. Waited a bit but after a while decided to hit power button. That's when things went pear-shaped.

When I next tried to restart, nothing happened - no fans moving, no lights, no screen. Thought I must have screwed up BIOS update, so I reset BIOS (took out battery for 10s) and thankfully I got POST. However I was getting errors, and although I've managed to boot into Windows (writing this from same PC) there is something really wrong.

I get the following problems when starting up:
- PC will boot but I get no POST. Usually solve this by resetting BIOS by removing battery.
- when I get POST, I get an error saying PSU had a power surge and the BIOS protection kicked in, press F1 to reset settings....
- ...or, I get "CPU Over Voltage" and "CPU Over Temperature" errors.
- was also getting "Keyboard not found" errors using my old Microsoft USB hub keyboard, which attaches via both PS/2 and USB ports. At one point I managed to get to Windows login screen but wasn't able to enter password. Entered Guest account instead and tested keyboard, it was behaving very strangely, either not responding to key press or responding by entering two characters instead of one. Decided to use daughter's USB keyboard instead to eliminate possible keyboard problems, however other errors still happening.
- once I get into BIOS (which shows as updated 1803 version), initial "EZ Mode" screen shows wildly fluctuating values in the monitor section for voltage, temperature and fan speeds, the values bounce between what look like normal values and maximum values (bar goes red). When I go into Advanced mode and try and access the Monitor section however, BIOS freezes and I have to hard reset.
- I have tried setting Default and XMP configs but errors still persist.
- a couple of times I've tried re-flashing the new BIOS, but instead of getting a progress bar it just says it's finished and prompts me to reset. Maybe it recognises it's already updated?

Also worth noting, CPUID HWMonitor program is showing a more limited set of values now than it was before I flashed BIOS (e.g. before it was showing voltages, fan speeds and temps for mobo, now it's only showing two temp values (TZ00 and TZ01)).

I'd appreciate any tips, as far as I can tell it's either a dead BIOS battery, a failing PSU or somehow the BIOS isn't properly flashed.

EDIT: a bit disappointed not to get any suggestions for a few days.

Since posting the problems have continued. After some searching I found there were many problems updating the BIOS on this mobo, so I followed some advice and re-flashed the ME region from a boot disk following this guide; however on re-boot I still noticed the wild sensor readings. As I had some important stuff to get on with I just booted into Windows and have keep the PC running since then - it's been a couple of days now so I don't think it's PSU issues, I'm betting on the BIOS battery at this point.

EDIT2: Installed Probe 2 and this is the result:

 

[nostall]

Don't know if I will be able to help much, but let's give it a try.
First thing, and not very important but something to change: CPUID monitoring is not always the best program to use. try uninstalling/deleting that program and either use the ASUS Probe monitoring program or HWInfo64. I have had good luck with the HWInfo program and find it is easier to use the the Probe one.
You didn't tell us how old your build is, but I am guessing 3 years or a little more: So yes, it could be the BIOS battery so try replacing that and see if it solves the problem.
But it sounds like you may have damaged the BIOS during the flash process, perhaps even the actual BIOS chip on the motherboard. Those chipsets are replaceable and can be purchased from ASUS, if it comes down to that.
Have you tried reverting to the old BIOS?
Have you tried going "old school" and flashing in DOS mode? I believe, according to my ASUS manual that is still an option and the manual give directions on doing it.
And of course, what you don't want to hear ( I certainly wouldn't) you may have damaged the CPU with the OC attempt; It may be a 'K' processor, but usually no two CPU's overclock the same ie. each one will have its own limits.
Again, I don't know if any of this helps but I hope it does.
OTHER forum members, Lulzes could use some help; jump right in if you would, please.

 

[Lulzes]

Don't know if I will be able to help much, but let's give it a try.
First thing, and not very important but something to change: CPUID monitoring is not always the best program to use. try uninstalling/deleting that program and either use the ASUS Probe monitoring program or HWInfo64. I have had good luck with the HWInfo program and find it is easier to use the the Probe one.
You didn't tell us how old your build is, but I am guessing 3 years or a little more: So yes, it could be the BIOS battery so try replacing that and see if it solves the problem.
But it sounds like you may have damaged the BIOS during the flash process, perhaps even the actual BIOS chip on the motherboard. Those chipsets are replaceable and can be purchased from ASUS, if it comes down to that.
Have you tried reverting to the old BIOS?
Have you tried going "old school" and flashing in DOS mode? I believe, according to my ASUS manual that is still an option and the manual give directions on doing it.
And of course, what you don't want to hear ( I certainly wouldn't) you may have damaged the CPU with the OC attempt; It may be a 'K' processor, but usually no two CPU's overclock the same ie. each one will have its own limits.
Again, I don't know if any of this helps but I hope it does.
OTHER forum members, Lulzes could use some help; jump right in if you would, please.

Thanks for the advice on CPUID, wasn't aware of that. I'll try what you suggested.

The PC was shop-bought, but yes it's about 3yrs old. I guess replacing the battery is a cheap way of troubleshooting this problem to remove that from the equation.

I don't think I am able to revert to a much older version of the BIOS - in my reading I found out that at some point Asus released a BIOS update that had to be flashed twice, and it's impossible to go back to a previous version after that. In my update I mentioned that I did re-flash the ME region of the BIOS in DOS mode, as in Setup the ME version was reading as "N/A". I haven't re-booted since I did that but when I do I will try and re-flash the whole BIOS again from DOS using Asus's tool as well, just to make sure.

Don't think the CPU is damaged, PC's been on for two days now and I've been playing games etc. with no problems. It's purely a boot-up/sensor readings problem.

Thanks for the reply, was beginning to think no-one could help!

 

[nostall]

Don't know if I will be able to help much, but let's give it a try.
First thing, and not very important but something to change: CPUID monitoring is not always the best program to use. try uninstalling/deleting that program and either use the ASUS Probe monitoring program or HWInfo64. I have had good luck with the HWInfo program and find it is easier to use the the Probe one.
You didn't tell us how old your build is, but I am guessing 3 years or a little more: So yes, it could be the BIOS battery so try replacing that and see if it solves the problem.
But it sounds like you may have damaged the BIOS during the flash process, perhaps even the actual BIOS chip on the motherboard. Those chipsets are replaceable and can be purchased from ASUS, if it comes down to that.
Have you tried reverting to the old BIOS?
Have you tried going "old school" and flashing in DOS mode? I believe, according to my ASUS manual that is still an option and the manual give directions on doing it.
And of course, what you don't want to hear ( I certainly wouldn't) you may have damaged the CPU with the OC attempt; It may be a 'K' processor, but usually no two CPU's overclock the same ie. each one will have its own limits.
Again, I don't know if any of this helps but I hope it does.
OTHER forum members, Lulzes could use some help; jump right in if you would, please.

Thanks for the advice on CPUID, wasn't aware of that. I'll try what you suggested.

The PC was shop-bought, but yes it's about 3yrs old. I guess replacing the battery is a cheap way of troubleshooting this problem to remove that from the equation.

I don't think I am able to revert to a much older version of the BIOS - in my reading I found out that at some point Asus released a BIOS update that had to be flashed twice, and it's impossible to go back to a previous version after that. In my update I mentioned that I did re-flash the ME region of the BIOS in DOS mode, as in Setup the ME version was reading as "N/A". I haven't re-booted since I did that but when I do I will try and re-flash the whole BIOS again from DOS using Asus's tool as well, just to make sure.

Don't think the CPU is damaged, PC's been on for two days now and I've been playing games etc. with no problems. It's purely a boot-up/sensor readings problem.

Thanks for the reply, was beginning to think no-one could help!

Here's the HW Info link:
http://www.hwinfo.com/download.php
Just another thought: if it has been running for two days, let it run. Telephone ASUS support and actually talk to one of their techies; though I have heard bad things about them, I have dealt with them off-and-on for 15 years and they have always been helpful (my first PC was an eMachines, the rest have been hand-built and all but one with ASUS boards).
Ultimately it might be easiest to just purchase a new BIOS chipset and install it.

 

[James Vo]

Hey man I have the same problem, did you ever find a fix?
As far as I can tell, this is likely caused by the BIOS update but you downgraded and it didn't fix the problem, I think the BIOS is faulty and killed the mobo but we seem to be the only two people on the internet with this problem.

 

[ln00]

Nope I also have this problem. Flashed the new BIOS and immediately had problems. CPU Over Temperature, etc. In Setup: http://imgur.com/nxTmj8N 267 degrees Celsius!

Yikes. I managed to boot and am typing from the same computer. Not sure what will happen when I restart.

 

[ln00]

So I hit the restart button. Power is on but nothing happens. PC won't boot. Screen stays black. I restart via power button. Turns on but screen stays black. I do it a third time and it finally boots.

I've done this process 3x already. First two boots don't work but third one works. Absolutely clueless. Help!