P9X79 WS does not boot. A2 Q-code.

[Harm Millaard]

Had a sudden problem with my Asus P9X79 WS motherboard, that always hanged on a 06 Q-code.

It was replaced and now when booting it consistently hangs on a A2 Q-code. The monitor shows the message to press DEL or F2 to enter BIOS. However, the keyboard appears to lock itself off. During POST the keyboard is recognized as shown by the functional LEDS for NumLock and CAPS Lock, but the keyboard stops working when you want to press DEL to enter BIOS. CAPS Lock and NumLock no longer work and not a single key press is recognized.

This system has worked for over a year without problems and now I can no longer get it to start.

The raid controller is properly recognized, and initializes correctly, the video card works OK as shown on the monitor, the keyboard starts OK, there are no other USB devices connected, not even a mouse. The disks show they are spinning up and have power, the PSU is oversized, the memory has never shown problems, nor has the CPU.

So what do I look for next? Already tried different keyboard, but that did not help. Disconnected the raid controller and all SATA devices, apart from the boot disk, still no go.

 

[alexoiu]

Try clearing the CMOS (unplug the power cord and remove the CMOS battery or use the jumper if available), leave only DVD drive connected, connect the keyboard to a USB 2.0 port and test again.

 

[Harm Millaard]

Same A2 Q-code and keyboard is still not responding.

 

[alexoiu]

OK, then try this: remove the DVD drive too, make a bootable USB (use an utility from the Internet), connect it to a USB 2.0 port and start again. See if working this way.