[Joshuashawharvey]

As some of you may know, I bought a new ASUS motherboard a few months ago after my old one completely screwed up whilst updating the BIOS.

I have recently found out that I have been having RAM timing and command rate troubles with this current motherboard due to the BIOS, so I was forced to update. I updated to the latest BIOS and everything seemed fine. Timings and command rate now worked as they should. Now I have a bigger problem

I turn my computer on, it turns on for about half a second, lights, fans etc all turn on, then they go off, and the computer turns on again and runs normal as it should. This is not the problem as it did this with my old board before it went dud after the BIOS update, and from what I read, other peoples' do the same thing.
The problem is now I've updated the BIOS I turn it on after the computer has been off overnight, it won't POST. I turn it off and back on a few times, and then when it eventually decides to POST, it gives me the message "Overclocking Failed" even though i'm not even overclocking. Even when all BIOS settings are set to default it still continues to do it. When I shut it down and then turn it back on again it will boot normal. It's only after the computer has been off for a long period of time.
I think part of the problem could be when the board turns on for that half a second and then goes off, the BIOS thinks there is an error with overclocking and reverts to defaults.
I've also read that when other peoples' motherboards are at a low temperature it also does it.

This is a very common problem with ASUS boards so I read, and it's really p*ssing me off!
There is no single solution to the problem. ASUS give absolutely no solution to the problem and won't even admit it exists. All they say is the usual crap like check voltages etc etc. I have tried a few methods which I know of and what i've read, but I will not find out if they have worked until morning
I've also read it could be the case shorting the board, but I doubt it could be that because it turned on fine for 6 months with the previous BIOS and I haven't messed with anything since, and it's only been doing it since the BIOS update.
If my current methods fail, I will downgrade the BIOS again and see if that works.
If none of my methods work i'm just going to buy a new motherboard altogether. I've had enough of ASUS!

I really do like ASUS boards, I like their BIOS (when it works) and I think they are very stable motherboards, but it's their incompetence when they release unreliable BIOS updates and utilities, and the software they release which gets more and more buggy with every new release, and the fact that they will NOT even admit to their wrongdoings that has forced me to the conclusion to NEVER buy another ASUS motherboard!

[Albert Lionheart]

you could try emailing the following bloke for support - he has been helpful in the past although I think I upset him the last time. Don't mention my name!

dongi_useng@asus.com

[Joshuashawharvey]

Thanks mate. Well if tomorrow morning the problem persists, I'll contact him

[samjohnson]

I to have heard that the asus bios updates can be annoying. I have a asus board also, and will definitely never do a bios update. I don't wanna go messing up a $130 board. lol
I hope your fix that you tried works out for you.

[Albert Lionheart]

And I have regularly updated ASUS boards and so far without a problem. My original beef on an earlier thread was that ASUS boards are shipped without the latest updates on them and I get hacked off trying to deal with it. Just a waste of time.

[alan2273]

I had to update the BIOS on my ASUS board when I went from a X2 6000 to a Phenom 9850BE, but thankfully everything went OK.

[Joshuashawharvey]

It wasn't the update per se, that was a success, it's just bugs in the actual BIOS.

It seems my methods actually worked so here's what I did....

I upped the RAM voltage from the recommended 2.10v to 2.15v just in case.

Switched the RAM around so that the DIMM that was in slot B1 is now in A1 and vice versa.

With my last motherboard, it wouldn't overclock at all using the BIOS, so what I figured was to use the ASUS AI Suite to overclock whilst in Windows and see if it made any difference to the BIOS, and to my surprise, it did. After I used AI Suite the BIOS worked as it should. So I used AI Suite to overclock slightly and then restarted my computer to put everything back to normal in the BIOS.

Turned my computer on this morning and it POSTed and booted no problems

I think it was my last method that made the most difference though. RAM was tested fine at recommended voltage using Memtest86 and Prime95.

Seems like AI Suite seems to magically unlock something in the BIOS because i've used it on 2 motherboards with overclocking problems now and both times it has been a success.

[Rik]

Being yet another Asus mobo owner that information may well come in handy.

My mobo had a buggy start too. A friend bought it brand new and had all kinds of problems with it including frequent bsod's. I told him that I suspected it was a driver problem and that he should wait for new drivers to be written. He couldn't wait, bought a new system and sold this one to me dirt cheap.
I decided to be patient and I left it sitting in it's box for almost 5 weeks while I waited for the new drivers. As soon as they were released I built it up, it has now been running flawlessly for over 4 years now with an 8% overclock.

I will just add, mine is a socket 754 and it has always had Infineon ram in it.

[Joshuashawharvey]

Just wanted to update. I forgot to mention this.

With further investigation I found that there was a difference in the rated RAM speed in the BIOS and the speed that AI Suite showed. I tried CPU-Z and it told me it was running at 800MHz (same as BIOS) but AI Suite showed it as 1066MHz.

So what I've done is changed it in the AI Suite to 800MHz, restarted my computer, and the BIOS still showed it as 800MHz on the POST screen, and also in CPU-Z. But in the BIOS menu it showed it as 667MHz
Now if I enter the BIOS and then save and exit without making any alterations, it will change my RAMs speed to 667MHz, but if I don't enter the BIOS or exit and don't save it will remain at 800MHz.

Anyway I think this might have been the problem after all. I've also read that someone has had exactly the same problem. ASUS really need to employ programmers who can actually program. I could do a better job than the junk they release!

[Joshuashawharvey]

Another update.

It seems the RAM speed conflict between AI suite and the BIOS is actually the problem. I set the speed last night in the BIOS to 800MHz so in AI Suite it would show as 1066MHz. Turned my computer on this morning, it wouldn't POST.

I'm almost certain I could fix the issue with a BIOS downgrade, but I don't think I will take the risk in completely bricking my motherboard (again).

As it is though, ASUS persist on remaining silent on the situation even though it very much exists. I've read the forums on the ASUS site and it seems literally hundreds of people are suffering similar problems. I'm not willing to pay £100+ again for a board with the worst support imagineable.

As soon as I have the money i'm getting rid of this piece of crap and getting another brand motherboard. Until the ASUS support improves dramatically, I won't purchase another.

I'm thinking either DFI Lan Party of MSI, as I hear Gigabytes support is just as bad as ASUS's, and my mate has an ABIT board which has major problems that have put me off ABIT. I used to have an MSI motherboard and it never let me down. The support was great too! And i'm keen to try DFI. What do you guys recommend?

[Albert Lionheart]

I measure components by the amount I see coming into the wksps - and very very rarely see ASUS or Gigabyte boards once they are set up and running. Despite the aggro, these are still the choice for me.

[Joshuashawharvey]

Don't get me wrong, I think the boards are great quality, it's just the support that comes with it is diabolical.

I'll always need to update my BIOS, if it's because i'm having RAM problems like now, or buying a new CPU and the BIOS not recognising it.
When you update your BIOS, it shouldn't be a massive risk, and i'm not talking about incase the BIOS upgrade goes wrong, but incase something is wrong with the updated BIOS itself. I thought updates were to improve the motherboards compatability and to fix bugs, not the opposite!

[Albert Lionheart]

I find ASUS updates necessary more often than not because the supposedly new board is not up to date and some things don't work properly like large drives and so on. I have never (and this is tempting fate!) had a problem with a patch. They may not have fixed the problem they were exected to fix, but never trashed a board.

[Joshuashawharvey]

I hope your luck with ASUS continues mate .

Well at least my motherboard isn't naffed. It still works fine when I set the RAM speed to 800MHz in AI Suite. It's just really annoying that everytime I want to make any modifications in the BIOS I have to reset it to 800MHz in AI Suite because the BIOS will set it to 667MHz. And overclocking is definitely out of the equasion now .

I might as well run it at 667MHz and lower the timings.

[Albert Lionheart]

I read an interesting article last week - in PCPro maybe - that says that it is very rare for a system to have to wait for the RAM to respond and because of this an increase in speed will only make a small difference to overall performance.

[Joshuashawharvey]

That's a fair point mate, but I believe in getting what I paid for, which was DDR2-800.

I was determined to get to the bottom of all of this, and I think I have now.

I had a feeling that it could have had something to do with the CPU's FSB. So to test my theory i've overclocked my CPU to 3GHZ so the processor has a 1333MHz FSB with a 333MHz Strap to Northbridge, from the default 1066MHz with a 266MHz Strap to Northbridge, so that my RAM remained at 800MHz.
It seems to have completely fixed the problem. The RAM speed in the BIOS and AI Suite is now exactly the same. It seems ASUS have lacked support where it comes to 1066MHz FSB CPU's in favour of 1333MHz in this BIOS revision.

Idiots considering the Q6600 is THE most popular CPU available!

Luckily I was going to buy a new CPU sometime next year anyway, so i'll just have to leave my CPU running at 3GHz in the meantime.