Just a quick post.
Hello and how are you?
I am a long term builder, Not often writing but reviewing and searching for others with the same issues - I've become somewhat hermitic.(Hermit-y?)
My first ASUS Build was just before A7V-266 - It was a K62 Platform. I can't remember the model. Followed by another model I can't remember. I was 13, 14 years old. I'm 28 now. How unfair time flies, especially with the amount of time one could be spending on things that never used to be variables such as having solid BIOS, having no issues getting your hardware and windows installed. Secure boot, is a bit of a farce, but UEFI Booting is great. Secure boot if you want to but I am sure most benefits are from just UEFI itself, Maybe its good that it isn't easy to get running because then every PC would be UEFI native, But anyway - I couldn't accomplish this with the Z87 and I have accomplished UEFI Native with Z97 Deluxe aside from issues that turned out to be the WIFI Go Module hardlocking the system both inside BIOS, and Outside. (And INSTANT, No recovery) and I hope some of this knowledge benefits anyone who has ever wondered HMM am I really better off with that fancy PLX chip for my rig? Or will I have better results using a cheaper board with switching. Or topics that debate the use of Crossfire in a PCIe 2.0 4x Slot when used on a z97 Platform with the main card in PCIe 3.0 - something I don't believe would work so well if it weren't for the fact they are totally native even the 4x slot, and even better, the 4x slot uses bandwidth that is not contentious to the native 16 lanes @ cpu, In some scenarios leading to better performance? I do not know. But I have numbers to back it up - I doubt this thread will go that far though. L:) Plus, its more personal.. more opinionated when you are concerned with things such as SYSTEM STABILITY and FRAME STUTTER/Variance. Thus you must read my novel. more to the point:
1) Looking for solutions to hardlock when installing Broadcom 802.11ac Driver in Windows or Linux or often bios. Unstable card, Bluetooth works though, Perfectly. I am writing this tethered to Bluetooth, WIFI Driver "Could Not Start" Device has problem.
Build a great rig z97 Deluxe with an i4770k,
Here are some interesting new things with it:
Can use the UEFI Firmware to control hardware level of a LSI Megaraid card is finally complete, Leads to much quicker system startup! Praised.
No PLX Chip - Some reviewers say this is not good - But there is no need for more than 2x GPU's at 8.0x - If you are only running 2 GPUs, or even 3 - You would not want PLX Latency impacting your Frame Variance - Although PLX is GREAT for things like USB/Wifi/Ethernet/etc - It adds latency, not much though. For video you are best with a board that has 2x PCIe 3.0 fed directly to the CPU at 8x each versus 16x and a PLX Chip.
This board is more stable. Compared to z87 Deluxe quad having many issues crashes and hard locks.
This board has serious firmware issues - Needs updates - More detail below.
Running 2x Triple Slot Cooler MSI Lightning, 1x Asus Xonar Essence STX, and 1x LSI Megaraid 9260-4i is no sweat. Save for the onboard components... apparently... Much more on this as it pertains to my thread/Questions/Info for all concerned.
Here is an example of a Firmware Issue you may encounter on z97 Deluxe currently: If you look in Network adapters within Windows 8/8/1/7 what do you see? There is a bug that displays driver/hardware as: Intel® Ethernet Connection (2) I218-V (This is the LAN1 Card - Meanwhile: Intel® I211 Gigabit Network Connection is listed fine.) This also enumerates in BIOS when using LAN Booting (It will show the same Device ID in the Bootable Option for IPV4 or IPV6)
Here are other issues I have had: Spent days trying to install Windows 8.1 to this in both UEFI Mode and CSM (Compatibility Mode) - It would HARDLOCK/DEADLOCK without even any overclocking at all, I had to Force defaults I know are proper that ASUS would slightly alter to make sure it is PURELY STOCK - and still HARDLOCK DURING INSTALLING DEVICES. It would hardlock in the UEFI Firmware too after changing CSM to Off or On before saving/exiting, so if you do change things to a huge degree, try to Save and Exit before making other changes to the motherboard.
I determined the ASUS WIFI Go Module is not working correctly. I have reseated it to no avail. I have tried several Broadcom Drivers,
To no avail.
Equally frustrating Is the fact the Bluetooth on it works 100% Perfect and I tethered to an iPhone with no issues - Yet as soon as I try to initialize or install driver to the Wifi aspect, BOOM DEADLOCK. Complete Deadlock. Need to pull plug or hold power button. I prefer holding power button - its less hard on the GPUs than switching off the PSU (422-TIPS)
So finally after trying every combo of settings I could think of being worth trying, I settled on the following: Onboard Wifi Disabled,
Intel NIC1 Enabled
Intel NIC2 Enabled
ASMEDIA/Everything Disabled
PCIE 3 slot Bandwidth 4x
USB Legacy Mode Disabled
Boot /w USB Win8.1 Updated - CSM Disabled (NOTE: For Windows 8.1 UEFI USB Media use Rufus utility, Select FAT32, and Load ISO, Go back make sure it doesn't change to NTFS!)
Windows Installed! It was funny cause I actually fell asleep, after spending 10 hours trying to get this crap installed. Fighting with it, Meanwhile VMWARE ESX would work fine, as would Knoppix Linux boot - And when I tried my last round of BIOS Settings and 10th attempt at installing to new partitions on my RAID0 SSD - Well I woke up to the "Configure your PC Screen" with nothing short of amazement.
Since wasting time stubborn, should have just gone back to store - Yet after I discovered that the culprit was the Wi-Fi go PCIe card as I have said, I submitted a case to ASUS as I believe this is Firmware, hardware or a situation where the hardware is not compatible with the amount of stuff in my machine. Which wouldn't make sense because I have reviewed EVERY REVIEW on this board and looked at all the notes, There is nowhere that says if you use 1x PCIe @ 4x, 2X @ 8x, and 1 @ 1x, would the Wi-Fi not work. Or something Else. If this is the case, I would love to know about it so I can reconsider what I am doing - yet, The fact is everything else works, so far.
(2x MSI R290x Lightning in SLOT1 & SLOT3, 1x Asus Xonar STX in miniSLOT3, 1x LSI Megaraid 9260-4i in SLOT2, D-Frame Case - PS OMG Looks great in with Asus Z97 Deluxe and Corsair h80i - Picture to come?)
Tips for ASUS:
ASUS Get rid of ASMEDIA Stuff. Please. At least put better quality components, I hate ASMEDIA. I have had so many issues because of ASMEDIA stuff that I have wasted time over, I don't even want to brag - It hurts to think about. They are buggy and you never correctly followup on maintaining because you often have a NEW PRODUCT Line out by the time ASMEDIA has a solution and often don't have enough people complaining to consider it something worth doing - Not good ASUS. For boards of this package and size, A great thing would be having PCIe 8x #2 as SLOT3 - This would give the spread many need to run 2x 3-SLOT GPUs. Although ideally those people would run at least one card on Water, their primary, thus allowing other slots to be used. This is a non issue for many people who do not need anything besides onboard Sound and Storage. I know this is a bit of a non-issue in the upcoming x99 Chipset which would obviously be the chipset for a guy like me, As would the z77 - Fortunately this package fits me just about right and if ever their were to be an improvement it would be these 2 things. More firmware focus, with more consideration for 3rd PARTY Oproms. IE: If you are buying cheap Chinese chips to make your board work for 12-24 months, In that period you MUST update them If there are updates, Please compile them into a release. I dislike extremely the fact that ASUS primarily updates BIOS later in the motherboard release only PERTAINING to Intel CPU's or compatibility with future Intel CPUS. What about compatibility with everything else - It is not a good business practice to allow instability to become a reason for someone to ditch a perfectly good motherboard - And build a new machine. This is consumerism at its ugliest and it DOES Happen. I may be a whistleblower in the sense, But honestly it happens. Asus z87 Deluxe quad is a great example. No OPRom updates lately to INTEL Sata, Many people in forums result to modifying the firmware themselves. (much more common with z77) With Russian GUI Tools within Windows, some with success and a fancy oprom package to share, Others with a bricked system. but the point is: It doesn't take much for you to support a board FULLY for Minimum 12 Months. At least. And this is all I ask. 12-18 Months of Updates for EVERYTHING on the board, including extras that may lead to: GASP. Less electronics recycling, Less angry consumers ditching computers cause of crashes and undocumented instabilities, or feeling like they've been robbed. The price of motherboards is high now, The quality of the components is getting harder and harder to find good and cost-effective, Its like we focus on the appearances which are great - But not the guts. I would love to have a rock solid fully compliant system but I don't see that happening with the refresh cycles. Its getting out of hand because at some point the complexities haven't caught up with time, IE: Not enough time to keep up with the newer designs on IC and integration across the board. Thus: Many people not being able to Install Win8 after years of experience in IT without a stubborn-deadlock on the process itself. Great job on allowing Hard Switching of Device ON/OFF versus the extremely different build of having a PLX Chip - For some of us we appreciate the simplicity and it shows in the Z97 Deluxe benchmarks concerning DPC Latency. Some may complain that you have to turn this or that off, But frankly anyone properly using this board will have many things shut off. In my case, Its ASMedia, 3rd Party USB3, Sound, (Sometimes) Bluetooth, (Currently) Wi-Fi due to Immediate hard lock as soon as driver is initialized during Boot/Or when enabled via Device Manager. PS: Fix the bloody issues with your Broadcom Chips. The Linux people have it worked out because you can load a Firmware file into the Broadcom and work around different issues with Chips due to being outdated OPRom or general Linux Kernel workarounds. We can't do this with windows. I am going to rip this thing out and throw it in the garbage and replace it with a Mini PCIe Intel soon enough but I thought I would give you the chance for me not to do that.
Pro Tips for Community:
If using MSI Afterburner or planning to run GPU-z all day long, or Intel Extreme Utility or any overclocking and monitoring - Just do yourself a favor and DONOT Install ASUS AISUITE3 - It will sit there and cause grief later. Simply install their ASUS PROBE Sensor driver and be done with it. If you really want, Install ASUS Update and individual components like the ASUS PC Diagnostics and ASUS Wifi Go. I personally only use ASUS PC Diagnostics, ASUS CPUz, and ASUS Update. I have learnt my lesson when it comes to AI Suite 3 and what it can do with sensor contention, Latencies, and weird system lockups. I repeat: This is for ultimate Win-Win on Win8.1. Disable USB Compatibility in BIOS, Turn off any not needed stuff - If you can turn off all ASMEDIA USB3 Ports, and the Non-Documented (At least in BIOS) USB35-6 which is also ASMEDIA. Unless of course you use them. I have Dell U2711 and Keyboard with USB, etc. Much better to use these IMHO. Save USB Slots for Flash Media and the occasional external HDD of super importance. CSM Off will give you fast booting, Fast boot is gravy on top of that if you want. I suggest only use fast boot with Partial Initialize USB, and boot after power cycle: Normal Boot. So in other words only for reboots will fast boot work, If your system crashes a few times you don't chance corrupting things. In asus BIOS: Many settings should be changed to default but are not. Most of you guys know about these things, I'm more concerned with Fringe use-case scenarios and deep knowledge. With Windows 8.1, You want this stupid misleading setting in ASUS titled: Allow OS Power Management control/VISTA NATIVE APM to be turned on. What this means is OS Controls UEFI and Power Savings, Meaning you don't have BIOS setting something only for windows to change it later and things to get changed back between sleep cycles, etc. And why it says Vista? Well OS level Power Management has been a great deal more complex since Vista, I think this is the best way the Engrishy-folk could describe it without a paragraph like this one. Save energy is good anyway, always try to keep Cstates and things that reduce PCIe Power when not in use. Unless extreme clocking. Even then, I only overclock with CPU/PCIe Spread Spectrums ENABLED. Because of the remarkable difference in radio frequencies and radiations exposed to you. especially if you consider an open-air/open-box machine - You should really have spread sprectrum on, Without it, You are getting dosed with NON-FCC approved levels of EMI. We get enough of that 24/7 but the amount that can come out of your rig can be just as much as sitting a few feet away from an LTE-Cell site. Spread Spectrum Enabled may help you with Wifi Reception/Wifi dropouts, performance issues. (If your WIFI Works) This goes back to rule number 1: Do not use the ASUS CD. I have not used ASUS CD Roms for the last 6 or 7 builds. Always get online, always get the versions there Unless there is some licensed product you require that is only on the CD. (VirtuaMVP Comes to mind with the Maximus V Series) Disable SATA Hot Plugging, Allow Aggressive APM but then turn it off if you don't want it within INTEL Rapid Storage Technology program (IE: Performance Gear: Manual - High Performance). Asus QFAN BIOS Settings And Corsair h80I or other Water pump things do not get along well - Turn that OFF on those FAN Headers for Corsair Link Control or Manual/Max if that's what you want to hardcode.)
Questions for the Community:
Board has some ASMEDIA components for PCIe Duplex/Switching - IE: Split the lanes from 16x to Dual 8x - Are these programmable? Do they fail, Can they be funky? Just how cheap are they. Do they cause impact of Latency, Or worse: Do they cause crashes or issues for anyone out there! I would rather have it POINT TO POINT wired to the CPU - Both slots hard coded at 8 - That just better suits me and eliminates such switching however. But if the ASMEDIA PCIe Lane Switching is bad, I would take Latency and a PLX bridge any day. Would I be better off with a PLX Board like as the MSI one, which also allows water cooling and would look nifty (But not as unique as ASUS Z97 with Lightnings') Can you check for the Intel (2) Driver ID Issue, and tell me if you've experienced hard locks within the Firmware BIOS Menus - Or have had any of the same difficulties or other difficulties? It is small compared to hard locking when trying to use WIFI Broadcom - but I would like to know if my board is an exception to this.
Anyone interested in testing Crossfire: I suggest trying the PCIe Slot #3 - I could be wrong but it seems like there is less impact and LESS frame stutter because it splits the IO to the Southbridge as opposed to both GPU Crushing the CPU's entire 16 lines. Yes you get less scores, But the stutter is better. Am I wrong here? If anything,
I think this is because there is NO PLX Latency overhead on the southbridge components as well as the CPU PCIe lanes. This is highly technical but I am sure anyone can appreciate it.
I have determined that you DO NOT NEED to have UEFI Vbios on both of your Cards as long as the one booting your Monitors, etc Is UEFI Compatible. For example: I use stock MSI Firmware on Card #2 but still boot in Windows UEFI Mode - And crossfire works when it calls for the second card. Am I doing something wrong in this thought - are there any advantages or disadvantages to having one card UEFI and one card not. (It seems to just work.) - This is concerning ONLY SITUATIONS where CSM is DISABLED. CSM Disabled should be: Boot your video Card in UEFI or No mode - With other details mentioned. Its so... undescriptive.
Unrelated: I have a Samsung "Blade" type of SATA SSD from a MacBook Pro Retina mid-2012 - Is there an adapter that would allow me to still mount this onboard the z97's M2 Slot or is it going to end up hanging off a goofy adapter/header? It would be nice to have this used, Since its a SAMSUNG 830-type of drive - But it uses a different arrangement of PINwork, although electronically compatible. It has newer than 830 firmware. highly reliable OS boot drive and would be nicer than having it sit in the electrostatic bag that has been its life since it was taken out of the MacBook 2 years ago. I doubt anyone knowing this offhand would by chance see this last thought here but I have decided to log it because nowhere else on the internet, And I've spent hours digging, could I find a solution. Modem of Samsung 'Blade' 256gb is MZ-DPC2560/0A2 - It has 6+1 Pins though on the one side of the thing. It looks like it should fit in the Onboard M2. Its extends slightly past the SCREW-point on the ASUS Z97 - Obviously not going to go in without spending money though. Best solution known?FYI: In the meantime I will try this HARDLOCKING POS Asus-Go Wifi Module's WIFI Portion within Win7 Install to somewhere else as a test. Just to see if it is related to Driver. I have pulled out cards, I'm about to pull out the Wifi Go card again this time for good but sadly the D-Frame case blocks the bottom screw slightly - Spent too much time getting all the cords attached to h80i 2x 290's and every little fan nicely tied in. Until I have my specialty tools I will have to live with it disabled. Although it is much healthier/faster/better/consistent to run Ethernet - Its not nice to run it through the hallway and up 2 Sets of Stairs to a 3rd Floor. Its also not nice to have a headless machine that just works when you need to bring it somewhere for a Server Backup or something -> VMware. I got used to the usability and reliable operation of the ASUS Wifi Go Module used on the ASUS z87 Deluxe Quad but not the inherent instability of that platform even as a C2 Rev. Z87 z97 are beta tests that help polish future intel products in Enterprise and the xX9 series I'm sure ;p So anyway.
All that aside; THE MODEL of the UNSTABLE ASUS WIFI GO is AW-CE123H - Since I do not have the z87DeluxeQuad anymore, Can someone with a z87 Look and tell me the Model on the side of your ASUS Wifi Go card I would like to know if the hardware differs. Obviously an intel component is the solution to this issue - I hate having things "bugged" and incomplete though, especially after so much effort across the 'board', ahaha LITERALLY.
Thanks for reading if you've made it this far.
I hope everyone is enjoying their technology,
PS: To -
Linus: Should you happen to see this thread - Props - I have always loved the Videos! You do an excellent job and Its great that you get it out there as you do; I would often like to do as you often do, What I lack is your Linusim. Someday though, Dude.
ProKon: You have the Most excellent work and I was shocked that when I looked at your Avatar - a Fellow Edmontonian - Such great documented research and the time you have spent I am sure is countless hours more than my own go-nowhere crashing/lockup experiences - and I would love to meet you, If I haven't already. I need your advice, Dude.
