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Hi guys! I am building a new PC for a friend. It includes these specs: Intel i5-7400 (Kaby Lake) Asus Z170-A (With an updated BIOS to v. 3007) Asus Geforce GTX 1060 6GB DUAL Corsair LPX 16GB DDR4 RAM Corsair VS550 PSU Kingston 120 GB SSD I have gotten a new updated BIOS chip, which supports the CPU. The 8-pin CPU power connector has been inserted. The CPU fan spins on boot. I have double checked that the CPU is positioned correctly, and no pins on the socket has been bent. I have reset the CMOS in multiple different ways. The RAM is also installed correctly I have also tried booting with all allowed configurations of RAM. Also the motherboard speaker is silent when trying to boot. Now to the issues I am having. The system does not post, even when I have taken out the graphics card. And the CPU error LED is continuously shining with a bright red light. Thank you in advance, - A very frustrated Dane

Hey guys, Sorry if I'm doing this all wrong, but I'm a bit desperate. I've just installed my new Asus Z170-A motherboard and a i5 6600K ind my Phanteks Eclipse P400S case. But for some reason, Windows won't boot on my SSD. It keeps booting to the Windows Boot Manager (I think it's called that). I've tried changing the boot priority in the BIOS, but it doesn't seem to do anything. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Hello community, Yesterday I noticed that when my pc is in sleep mode as well as completely shut down and even when the power cable is taken out of the back of the psu that the rear exhaust ring led fan is still getting power to it and running. Not only that but the water cooler fans are running as well, although i can not tell how much because of the way the radiator is setup, but i can feel air coming out from the top of the case. I have no idea how this can happen if there is absolutely no power going from an outlet to the psu. Any help on this problem would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Hi, i'm writing from Argentina, well, as the title says I'm about to build my first high end gaming pc, the idea is to build something capable of VR gaming so i'm going for an Asus GTX 1070 Strix and a 2TB hard drive for sure. I'm not sure about the motherboard, I'm thinking in getting a Gigabyte z170x gaming 5 and a SSD, or go with an Asus Maximus VIII Hero (does the better audio and LAN worths it?) and no SSD for now. With the CPU i'm sticking with an i5 6500, or maybe a 6600k? What do you think? around U$80 difference between them PSU, i found a XFX pro XXX 650W in good price so i'm going for it Ram, 2x8gb 2666mhz avexir, as far as I know, more than 2666 is worthless, right? Well, those are my doubts so i'm open for suggestions, thanks for reading and sorry for the english!

So my professor and I built my PC around May 2016 and I've been using it since. Didn't ran into any problems and assumed everything's okay until now. When I booted it up earlier this morning, instead of booting up Windows, it instead went into the POST screen which didn't happen before. The CPU LED on the motherboard is lit red. On the POST screen, there's an error saying "CPU Fan speed error detected." (images below). After a while, another error comes up, "CPU Over Temperature Error!" When I ran the BIOS setup, the CPU temps were at 88°C idle and the FAN Profile doesn't detect the CPU Fan (even though the cooler is connected to the CPU_FAN header). I've read some forums online and some were saying that ASUS mobos are faulty sometimes and may display really high temps and RealTemp says otherwise. I then set the CPU Temp and Fan Speed Monitoring to "Ignore" so I can reach the Windows boot screen. When Windows had booted up, I ran RealTemp and the temps are at 90°C to 100°C idle. I'm guessing the problem could be A) The CPU cooler is faulty, B) the cooler isn't mounted properly, C) Bad thermal compound, D) the CPU itself is faulty (which I hopefully not) Sys: Intel Core i7-6700K Corsair H100i V2 ASUS Z170-A Corsair RM850x Note: Never OC'ed the CPU and is running at stock speeds; the radiator fans are in a push configuration upwards; using the pre-applied thermal compound Images: http://imgur.com/a/AYjxa Any help/suggestions?

So i finally finished selling/recycling my old media pc and I decided to keep the case. The thing is what should i do for parts to get me going. I managed to pick up an Asus Z170-A mobo for 72 bucks. What would you guys think the parts should be for around 6-700 bucks?

Hey everyone. So I just built my first ever PC. Pretty happy with it overall, however there is one little hiccup. For whatever reason, my HDMI port on my motherboard is not functioning. Or at least I don't think it is. I plug it in and nothing comes up on my screen. When I plug it into my graphics card HDMI, works great. Does anyone know if it's just a simple fix? Or do I need to RMA my board? Thanks for any help in advance!

I am in the process of essentially rebuilding my computer. Keeping the 5 year old case, old PSU, and some other parts. Replacing the MB, CPU, memory, OS and adding in some front panel usb 3.0 ports and a boot SSD. My question is in regards to driver updates. The new MB is the Asus Z170-A. I went to the Asus website and there are 86 files related to this MB with Windows 10 64bit. Some are old updates, that is to say there appear to be several versions of some driver updates so presumably I just need the most recent one. But there are just lots and lots of things with names that are not especially descriptive and there's little explanation. How do I know which things I need? Is there a best order to do things in? Thanks

My part list is below. This was my first build ever after spending over a year contemplating and waiting to drop the money I finally did it. Thanks to Linus tech tips for all the knowledge I have gained from watching your videos along with countless others and this forum along with Toms. The build took only a few hours from beginning to software installation and downloading which I consider a great success as it posted right away and if anything it took longer due to my countless triple checking of things. I had a fantastic experience building in the Luxe and couldn't be happier with my purchase. I just finished overclocking today at 13% oc with a modest 4.5 oc which I feel nice and safe with after stress testing for 15 minutes max temps were 77 c pictures will be included. This build was influenced by one of my favorite films. Tron and legacy too but mostly the original as I went with white instead of black. PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($328.99 @ SuperBiiz) CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler ($85.88 @ OutletPC) Motherboard: Asus Z170-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($145.03 @ Amazon) Memory: Corsair Vengeance LED 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($99.99 @ Newegg) Storage: Samsung 850 EVO 500GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($167.88 @ OutletPC) Storage: Seagate Barracuda ES 750GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For $0.00) Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card ($0.00) Case: Phanteks Enthoo Luxe ATX Full Tower Case ($176.98 @ Newegg) Power Supply: Corsair CXM 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($79.89 @ Newegg) Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home Full - USB 32/64-bit ($106.99 @ SuperBiiz) Monitor: LG 25UM58-P 25.0" 2560x1080 75Hz Monitor ($179.00 @ B&H) Keyboard: Corsair Vengeance K70 Wired Gaming Keyboard ($129.99 @ Corsair) Mouse: Logitech G600 MMO Gaming Mouse Wired Laser Mouse ($47.07 @ Amazon) Total: $1547.69 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-01-04 23:34 EST-0500

I am planning on going with a Asus Z170-A but am looking at the Asus Z170 Pro Aura, z170 Pro gaming and the Gigabyte G1 gaming 7. These are all roughly in the same price range. I would like to know which of these motherboard is the best, I am also open to suggestions. I personally like Asus because of there 1 click 5 way optimisation and other bells and whistles. Are there other boards that are in the price range that offer better? Or are one of these boards the best? Thank you in advance.

Hello. So this morning i woke up and booted my PC all right. Then i switched it off for ~3 hours and when i tried to switch it back on i had no video input. I don't have a dedicated GPU, i run the on board graphics from an Intel Core I7-6700K. It happened to me once already so i thought powering off the PSU would do the trick. I did that but this time, it didn't even boot. The red LED light from the CPU is lighting up for a second then it goes off and the RAM LED is staying on for 5 seconds, then it goes off. I tried removing all the RAM sticks and booting up and the LED stays red to indicate a problem, so i figured it's not the RAM that's the issue. I removed the BIOS battery, tried to clear the CMOS but it still won't boot. I have noticed that one keyboard LED is always on, no matter if the PC is on or off. Is this an issue with my motherboard or am i doing something wrong?

I am looking to be buying a new motherboard quite soon and I debating between the Asrock z170 Extreme4 and the Asus z170-A motherboards. At my local store they are the same exact price. I like the looks of both of them too. I will be pairing them with an i5 6600k and a gtx 1070. Any recommendations?

Hi, I've seen some good and bad reviews for both boards from what I understand so far is that the EVGA is a solid and reliable board however misses some of the features in the Asus. Also some people seem to be having an issue fitting a video card into the primary PCI-E slot as the slot is very close the I/O plate. The Asus has a lot of positive reviews in terms of features and overclocking ease however there is more than a few reviews stating that there boards died after a short period of time and the Asus RMA procedure was hell. Some people even had DOA Ram slots which just by looking at the packaging of the two boards EVGA seems to put a lot more effort into protecting there boards. At this point in time I'm leaning towards the EVGA however I am curious to see what others have to say. Especially any first hand experiences! I'm (perhaps) planning on a I5 6600k build with a EVGA 1070 FTW. Thanks!

I need some help in simple layman's terms, this is my first serious build so everything up till now has been my first time setting things up. Pretty much my computer has run great for about 5 months now. My complete system specs are in my signature but I have: i5-6600k OC @ 4.4ghz Asus STRIX GTX 980ti OC @1405mhz & VRAM @7600mhz Asus Z170-A mobo Ripjaws V Series DDR4 3200 RAM 2 x 8GB Corsair GT100i Thermaltake 850W PSU Bronze Cert. OS Windows 10 on Samsung EVO 250GB SSD So yesterday I was having massive FPS drops playing Overwatch, in fact I couldn't even get my fps to go above 30 and usually I'm running at 125-165fps with ultra/epic settings. I was away for the past couple days and I know overwatch had a patch but I asked the people on my friends list and they didn't have fps issues at all. One of the things they added in the patch was a VRAM tracker in the top left hand side of your screen where they already had your gpu temps, ping, roundtrip ping, and fps. I noticed my VRAM said it was hitting 1500-2000mhz. Also when I windowed out while I was still in the menus to check my gpu monitoring software it said I was using 75% of my VRAM while just sitting in the menus. Since this was a new thing they just added to the screen I never really took notice to check it before so I wasn't sure if those numbers were normal but it sounded high to me. So I tried to look online to try to find some answers as to why this was happening and if it were patch or VRAM related but I couldn't find any definate answers, some people were saying their VRAM was too high after the patch, others were saying as long as its not above 2500-3000 that its normal. Since I couldn't find any definitive answers about if it was just my computer or the patch I decided to just start going through some troubleshooting steps, like checking my ping to blizzard servers, network adapters, drivers, gpu clock and temps (I thought maybe my GPU was throttling but it was running at 73C when the target temp is 83C), doing this I noticed my BIOS was out of date. So I went on the Asus website, downloaded the .CAP file and put it on a USB and used Asus's EZ Flash utility in the BIOS. Everything seemed to go fine, I watched the download slowly progress then my computer restarted and booted fine. When it was done I logged back on and tried to go back on Overwatch to see if updating the BIOS fixed the problem, unfortunately I still had 30fps even in the menus. So I figured I better try a different game just to make sure its me and not the servers as Battle.net was having DDOS problems as well (although I didn't think thats what caused it because it was primarily on the AUS servers and again none of my friends were having problems, also my ping and network connection to their servers seemed fine so I was just being thorough just in case). So I go onto Steam and start up Witcher 3, I start walking around and everything seems fine until all of a sudden my computer just crashes. No error or anything it just kind of lost power and the screen went black. There were still a few lights on on my mobo but the fans had stopped and my CPU pump as well stopped and all the case lights turned off. Pressing the power button did nothing, I flicked the switch in the back of the PSU off then on then hit power again and the fans and lights all turn on for 1-2 seconds before going dead again. I've tried uninstalling my RAM and putting it back in and taking out the CMOS battery. Any kind of suggestions can help guys, I'm scared shittless because this is like a brand new computer only a couple months old and I saved up for a super long time to be able to afford it. I might actually cry if something is seriously wrong lol. I really hope nothing is fried or unfixable, I wouldn't even know where to start for checking for that.. So anybody who has expertise in this I would greatly appreciate your help!! Please only post suggestions if you know what you're doing (no offense), I admit I'm totally over my head and that's why I need to ask for help from people who have experience with this sort of thing or have an idea of what has gone wrong. Also please remember that I'm not a pro with the technical hardware side of things, this was my first build having to plan and order everything by myself but even though I finished it it took me a long time and I had to ask a lot of super helpful people in the community for help along the way.. So if you can explain any solutions you may have for me in simpler terms it'd be greatly appreciated! Otherwise I'll be stuck trying to wrap my head what you're trying to tell me lol. Any help though is very very appreciated!!

So I decided to get 6600k as my processor, planning to overclock at ~4.5GHz if chip allows it, so what would be better motherboard of this 2? In my country their price is completely same comparing their features gigabyte one is better since it has more USB ports and more SATA-E but quality and durability wise which one is better? I plan this build to last me 3-4 years so would like good quality motherboard.

So I could get the MSI now for $173 CAD (including shipping) or wait for the Asus to be on sale. I'll be waiting to buy the other parts anyways (money for the build is a little tight, so I'm waiting for sales to buy). Can someone with more knowledge than me explain if there is a reason I should wait for the Asus? Or should I just get the MSI now? Specs of the boards if you want: Asus: https://www.asus.com/ca-en/Motherboards/Z170-A/specifications/ MSI: https://ca.msi.com/Motherboard/Z170A-SLI-PLUS.html#hero-specification

Dear LTT forum, This is my first post on the forum. I've lurked until now, and I'm looking for some experienced input on my i5-6600K overclock. **Specs** CPU: i5-6600K Cooler: Corsair H80i GT (120mm) Mobo: ASUS Z170-A RAM: 2x4GB Corsair Dominator Platinum 3000MHz C15 GPU: EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC PSU: EVGA 750B2 **Preface** I've overclockered a small bit before. Previously, I've only messed with multiplier OC'ing on an i5-2500K. Nothing too advanced, or over anyone's head. After the release of the Skylake CPUs, and hearing how much of a champ they OC like, I decided to upgrade my four year old platform. Out of the box, the 6600K was running at 4.4GHz at stock voltage. That's pretty darn impressive for a 3.5GHz i5 if you ask me. Naturally, as any other human, I decided to push the limits. 4.6GHz at stock voltage stressed fine, using both ASUS RealBench for 8 hours, and AIDA64; temps under 80°C. **The Dilemma** I had to start upping the Voltage as I approached 4.7GHz. This seemed like the point of discomfort for my 6600K, as simply raising the Multiplier in the BIOS did not get me any results. This is when I decided to read more into OC'ing, and found out that lowering the Multiplier while upping the BCLK created more stable conditions. It's worth mentioning that I'm not too sure what a good Multi:BCLK ratio would be for my chip. I finally got 4.7GHz to boot at a raised manual voltage of 1.42V, while the Multiplier was set to 35 and the BCLK was set to 135. Passed both stress tests fine, and temps under 80°C. In order to even boot at 4.8GHz, I had to go into the BIOS and raise the FCLK from default of 800MHz to 1GHz. Since I haven't done much manual overclocking before, is anyone able to explain what the FCLK is, and what raising it effects? I have discovered that the option for Load Line Calibration can also effect stability of an OC in positive ways, primarily to counteract what's referred to as "Vdroop". Is it suggested to raise the LLC level to gain more stability? 6600K running on 4.8GHz is interesting; AIDA64 tests stressing the CPU, FPU (also one more object I'm not too informed about), and RAM will run stable for hours without a crash or a Vdroop. It gets confusing when I use AIDA64 to also test CPU Cache; which results in a "Hardware Error" after no more of a minute of testing. This happens whether I test only CPU Cache, or test it along with the other, (working), tests. I have attempted to raise the VCore all the way up to the Intel specified degradation point of 1.52V, with no change. Is this because my CPU Cache is too high/low? If so, how should I go about adjusting it? **TL;DR** i5-6600K stable at 4.7GHz, 1.42V. AIDA64 returns Hardware Error while stressing CPU Cache @ 4.8GHz, any voltage up to 1.52V. Tips? I realize I just took a really huge info-dump on my first post, but I figured too much information is better than too little.

I'm struggling to find a good RAM for my Skylake build (click here). The problem is, I know nothing about the differences in MHz (speed) and CL (latency). I'd want a great reliable performance for gaming / multitasking / real world use. I wouldn't want to burn cash for 'nothing' (no real performance improvement). The ones I'm considering are found below. Looking to get 16GB (2x8GB) unless someone suggests I should do otherwise (not going lower than 16GB though!). Which one of them I should pick and why? ⦁ Kingston HyperX Savage 16GB (2x 8gb) DDR4 2666MHz Kit (CL 13) ~ 91 € (~101 $) ⦁ Kingston HyperX FURY 16GB (2x 8gb) DDR4 2666MHz Kit (CL 15) ~ 79 € (~88 $) ⦁ Kingston HyperX Savage 16GB (2x 8gb) DDR4 2800MHz Kit (CL 14) ~ 115 € (~127 $) ⦁ Kingston HyperX Savage 16GB (2x 8gb) DDR4 3000MHz Kit (CL 15) ~ 96 € (~106 $) ⦁ Kingston HyperX Predator 16GB (2x 8gb) DDR4 3200 MHz (CL 16) ~ 104 € (~115 $) ⦁ Kingston HyperX Predator 16GB (2x 8gb) DDR4 3333MHz (CL 16) ~ 118 € (~131 $) I've listed the cheapest price (w/ shipping) available. Thank you in advance!

I am using the Asus z170-a motherboard, i5 6600k cpu, and a single 8GB stick of ram. My samsung 950 pro ssd is running slow. I am only getting ~560 MB/s read and ~95 MB/s write. I used the samsung magician software to test speeds. I think that the m.2 is using SATA instead of PCI-E for some reason witch would explain the ~550 MB/s read speeds, but wouldn't I still be getting ~550 MB/s write speeds too? I installed the NVMe driver and my bios is up to date. Could it be the motherboard that is causing a problem? Faulty drive? I have also reinstalled windows and followed the correct procedure for installing windows on an m.2 drive. M.2 storage (EX. Samsung M.2 950 Pro) to install OS like Win 7, 8.1 or 10) For Windows 8.1, 10 only: a. BIOS->Boot->CSM (Compatibility Support Module)->Disable b. BIOS->Boot->Secure Boot->OS Type->Other OS c. BIOS->Boot->Secure Boot->Key Management->Clear Secure Key d. F10 (save and exit) e. Install OS only with bootable UEFI media. f. Re-enter BIOS after first restart during the OS installation, it will be shown within the BIOS g. BIOS->Boot->Secure Boot->OS Type->Windows UEFI mode h. BIOS->Boot->Secure Boot->Key Management->Install Default Secure Boot Keys i. F10 (save and exit) j. It should resume the installation, if not, completely power down the system and turn it back on after 10 seconds. k. Note: do not connect any external devices to the computer during the installation and best if only the M.2 SSD is installed on the system. l. Install Samsung NVMe drivers for performance

Hi, Asus Z170-a has only 6 sata III sockets and I found myself having a need for 4 HDDs & at least 3 SSDs + DVD/CD burner so that's 8 sata connections. I thought 'no biggie, I'll buy pci extension card with 2 more sata connections and I'm fine' but either I got some weird card and this mobo doesn't like it or I am too dumb to configure it correctly. This is card I bought: http://www.delock.com/produkte/G_89299/merkmale.html I plugged it into second pci-e x16 slot, connected sata cable to my dvd drive and powered up the machine. Card got detected and it even detected dvd drive correctly but then Asus logo showed up with usual "press Del or F2 to enter setup" message and it stayed there. After few minutes I realized it definitely doesn't do anything so I pressed reset button. This time card was also detected but it didn't show up dvd drive. In fact cursor just kept blinking and nothing happened so after few minutes I hit Power button and started system again. And same scenario repeated. I switched card to 3rd pci-e x16 slot thinking that maybe 2nd one got some issues or sth. But same thing were happening. I found setting in Bios that allowed setting speed of 3rd pci slot from Auto to x4 (my card is x4 so that seemed ok) but side effect of this is that 2 onboard sata sockets are getting disabled by this which is kind of pointless. So now my questions are: - is it my extension card that is weird and I should maybe try another one? - is there any setting in bios of my mobo that would make this work? I would be grateful for any hints you could throw my way.

Buying ASUS Z170-A for my pc build containing GTX 980 and i5-6600k. I cant afford a more expensive one. I plan to overclock and use my pc for gaming. Is the motherboard worth it ?

I'm planning to do a clean install of Windows tonight, and I remember reading that my motherboard (Asus Z170-A) has the ability to secure erase an SSD from the BIOS. I understand that this can improve an SSD's performance in some situations, and this is a good opportunity to do it. However, my motherboard's manual suggests that I should read the compatibility list allegedly on Asus's website to ensure I'm not going to murder my 128 GB Crucial M4. The only such compatibility list I can find is dated 2013 and presumably does not pertain to my motherboard. Weirdly, it lists the 64 GB and 256 GB M4's as compatible, and omits my 128 GB version. So is this worth doing? And does anyone know a way to ensure that my Crucial CT128M4SSD2 is compatible with this feature of the Asus Z170-A? Thanks!

I'm using the Asus Z170-A. I have a single GTX 770 installed in the top-most PCIe x16 slot (the one the manual recommends) and a PCI sound card. Problem is, Asus placed the legacy PCI slot so close to the top PCIe x16 slot that the two cards have only a few millimeters of clearance between them. When the case is turned upright, the video card sags enough that it makes contact with the sound card and bends it slightly. At the moment, I've placed some tiny felt pads on the sound card to make sure there is a non-conductive contact point between the back of the sound card and the GTX 770's cooler, but I fear for the sound card when it's being pushed against like this. Additionally, the sound card is blocking half of one of the 770's fans, which can't be doing the air flow any favors. If I were to install the GTX 770 in the second PCIe x16 slot instead, would it have the full 16 lanes of bandwidth? If not, would there be a setting in the BIOS to force x16 bandwidth to that slot? I've looked, and if such a setting exists, it's buried somewhere.