Asus Motherboard Problem

[MerrickD]

I'm looking for any suggestions on this.  I have an Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Formula.  Put it together last December.  Have not opened the case since.  Absolutely zero problems.

 

Asus has been sending out monthly BIOS updates pretty much this whole time (this motherboard was release last November).  Over the weekend I updated to the latest BIOS.  Since then, after shutting the computer down via OS the computer will not reboot.  Pressing the case power button gives an audible "click" and the fans are given a slight kick, but nothing after that.  Push the button again, same thing.  But here's the part I don't get.  If I now shut the power off at the power supply, let the case stand for a few seconds, then turn the power supply back on - then pressing the power button on the case and the computer starts right up.  I have absolutely no evidence the motherboard isn't otherwise working exactly perfectly.

 

At Asus' suggestion I flashed again (and again and again).  No fix.

 

The fact that shutting the power supply off and on again fixes the problem makes me assume that it has to somehow be related to something that is being saved in volatile memory that is only cleared when the power supply is shut off that the new boot firmware is reading and halting on.

 

Of course, after flashing the BIOS didn't fix it Asus wants me to RMA the board.  They're not sending me a replacement in the meantime.  They just want me to tear my computer down for weeks and hope they return my board quickly.  I work from home on this computer.  I have other options, but this computer has licenses I need for work, etc.

 

I was just wondering if, based on the information, anyone had any suggestions for something to try.  I should add that the Intel Management Engine was updated at the same time, so it is not clear which of the two (or if it's the combination) that is causing the problem, but I am just looking for any ideas.

 

Thanks!

[Somerandomtechyboi]

Bios rollback would be the most obvious thing to do, have you tried bios rollback already?

 

Also may wanna try taking out the cmos battery and pressing the clear cmos button on the rear i/o for 15 seconds then putting the cmos battery back in and see if that fixes your problem

[CommanderAlex]

I know this may sound stupid, but when you flashed the BIOS onto the motherboard, did you have XMP enabled??? At least for my ASUS board (albeit AMD X570), they recommended to disable XMP while flashing for whatever reason. 

[An0maly_76]

The way the fans kick and stop a time or two before going kinda suggests a PSU issue. Weak capacitors maybe.

[191x7]

Had a similar issue. The PSU was faulty. 

[MerrickD]

Actually, the fans never start going after a time or two.  Please check the video again. I can click until the cows come home and it's never going to boot.  That's the behavior after shutting the PC down via OS and then trying to reboot.  The only thing that works is shutting the power supply off, waiting a few seconds, then turning the power supply back on.  Then the case button works as expected - starts on first click every time.  Shut it down again, same thing.

 

For the XMP question - I have the board running completely stock.  I am doing absolutely no overclocking, no tweaking, no nothing.  This is a 100% work-from-home PC that I do no gaming on or anything like that.  The CPU and RAM run at advertised frequency, etc.  I closed the box up last December and it hasn't been opened since.  Worked perfectly until I flashed it this last weekend and updated Intel ME.  Then it did this.

 

That makes me think it's not CMOS battery related (not to mention age) or PSU, but I will definitely try taking the CMOS battery out and clearing CMOS.

 

Any suggestions, short of replacing the PSU, on how to test?  It's an 850W PSU with an i9 12900K and 64GB Corsair memory.  No video card or lan card - using the onboard Intel  video and Marvell ethernet - I even have onboard wifi turned off.  So no lack of power.  It would have to be an actual PSU failure that was perfectly timed.

[MerrickD]

Actually, I checked and it's a ROG Thor 850W.  I have a side question for anyone who might know.  This is all in a MasterBox N600 and the only way I could mount the power supply means that the LED display on the side of the power supply is actually displays power, etc., upside down.  If I flip it right side up then the power connectors are pressed up against a wall in the case.  Is there any way to flip that display in software?

 

Like I said - this is a work-from-home PC - and I'm in the middle of the work day.  I'll try clearing the CMOS when I get a chance in the afternoon.  Thanks again for all of your suggestions.

[MerrickD]

Sorry for the tiny updates - but I had a few minute break so I shut it down and cleared the CMOS.  I haven't done anything with the battery yet.

I was a little hopeful because pressing the CMOS button temporarily shut the power down - so the case button worked that first time after I cleared CMOS.  But after running and resaving BIOS and shutting down normally it still have the same problem.

 

Just thinking out loud, if it were PSU capacitors starting to fail, wouldn't I expect that the case button would "sometimes" work correctly and sometimes not?  And wouldn't turning the power supply off by its switch "sometimes" fix the problem and sometimes not?  I think I've ended up recycling it 50 times now with everything I've tried and it ALWAYS fails to boot from case power button after normal shutdown and ALWAYS boots from case power button after cycling the power supply.  That seems like it's not due to failing capacitors.

 

Nonetheless - after checking the CMOS battery, if it's still doing this I guess replacing the PSU is the next logical step.

[MerrickD]

Oh - also - if it were the CMOS battery would I expect the computer to sometimes boot into BIOS because it lost CMOS settings?  Haven't had that.  But I will definitely check it to see if it fixes it or at least rule it out.  And if it fixes it - woo hoo!

[freeagent]

Have you rolled back to the previous bios yet?

[MerrickD]

New battery did not fix it.

 

I have not rolled back the BIOS.  Still a little more left in the work day.  I'll roll back the BIOs later.  Thanks for the suggestion.

[MerrickD]

It's not perfectly clear I can roll back my BIOS.  Asus technical support certainly didn't suggest it.  There are people who are having problems with this BIOS and have complained about 2004 being coded to not allow rollback - for instance here: https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?130496-OFFICIAL-Bios-ver-2004-will-not-allow-bios-flashback-THREAD

 

I did put the previous BIOS (1720) in the flashback port and flashed it.  Within a few seconds the OLED on the motherboard said, "UPDATE DID NOT COMPLETE" and the BIOs did not rollback.  I'll try it again later, but this path appears to be closed.

[MerrickD]

This is in the notes for the 2004 BIOS:

3. Many ME updates and optimizations for the next-gen CPU are included. This version does NOT allow rolling back to the previous versions, not even via USB BIOS FlashBack™, to ensure better compatibility.

[freeagent]

Boooo

[Maticks]

I have a ROG MAXIMUS X FORMULA, i like to flash everything to the latest all the time, ran into this issue once a few years ago flashed my bios and it wouldn't turn on.

Also had the discussion about RMA removing all the water cooling is a nightmare and i wasn't sure if water would still be in it when i shipped it back.

 

I did also find that clearing the CMOS made the system work and when you restore your BIOS profile it killed it, the only thing i could think of was something changed in the saved profile that the new BIOS didn't like.

Clear the CMOS and then go through and configure your settings manually again and save it, don't restore it from your Saved.

 

The practice i do now is get out my phone before i do a BIOS update, take photos of each page. Then i can go back and set it up again.

That being said i have about 3 BIOS revisions behind, if it isn't broken why flash it.

 

[MerrickD]

So, sorry I haven't made this clearer - I do not have "settings".  I am running default BIOS settings.  This is a work PC - I have no video card, I am using onboard video,, onboard LAN, etc.  I play no games and tweak absolutely nothing.  I have cleared the CMOS - then when it loads BIOS after clearing CMOS I select "save and exit" where it then warns me, "you've made no changes," before I click "OK" and it reboots.

 

This does not fix the problem.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, though.

 

I've had people at the ROG site make the same suggestion.  Sadly, this doesn't work for me.

[MerrickD]

So, for the record - I've reflashed the BIOS per suggestions here, elsewhere, and from Asus.  Sadly, I cannot rollback BIOS, Asus coded the new BIOS to prevent that.

 

I have cleared the CMOS and I have also changed the CMOS battery.  I am almost certain it's not the power supply because the power supply (capacitors) is less than one year old and is a ROG Thor that Asus trumpets as, "the first commercial power supply with 100% Japanese capacitors."  But I am ordering a new PSU to swap it out because I have to eliminate that as a possibility.

 

Thanks again for everyone's suggestions.

[SavageNeo]

does not hurt to test an other psu with it. also the org thor is not that great psu even.

[MerrickD]

I haven't heard any complaints about the Thor, but noted.  I have had no problems with it.  I am definitely swapping it out to rule out the possibility.  It's an 850W PSU that probably never sees more than about 400W load and rarely that high.  And while it may not be the best PSU, I wouldn't know, unless Asus is lying it would seem that at a minimum capacitor sag, which is what is being blamed for this behavior, shouldn't be the problem.

[MerrickD]

Looked around a little.  Tom's Hardware gave (the 1200W) an 80.  Pretty much everyone else rated the ROG Thor in the 90s with a couple 100s.  It may not be the #1 supply out there, but it sure seems like the vast majority give it high ratings.  I'll let you know what happens when I swap it out.

[MerrickD]

Tom's Hardware was about the most critical review I found - their pros and cons:

 

Pros
+Full power at 47°C
+Good ripple suppression & load regulation
+Quality components
+Dual-ball bearing fan
+Lots of modular cables and connectors
+Aura compatible RGB lighting
+10-year warranty
+Accurate AC Watt readings
+Good looks

Cons
-Expensive
-Not as efficient as competition
-OPP is set sky-high
-OLED screen provides limited info
-Bulky

 

I don't see any of those cons as in any possible way related to my problem.  Efficiency and overpower protection aren't going to prevent boot.  The "80" was an aggregator site translation of Tom's Hardware's rating of 4 out of 5 stars.  Not trying to be an Asus fanboy - in fact I'm pretty annoyed at them right now - but really not seeing the PSU as a likely problem.

[MerrickD]

Very happy to report I was wrong.  I would have paid the extra $20 and taken the hour trip to get it locally if I wasn't as convinced as I was that it wasn't the power supply.  I guess I am not 100% convinced it was the power supply - but certainly way more than 50% convinced.

 

The power supply came in late enough last night from Amazon (after a Friday night football game - my daughter is in the marching band) that I waited until this morning to swap it.  I looked back through the earlier suggestions and realized that though I had cleared the CMOS and had changed the battery as suggested, the fine point I had missed above was  to take the battery out and press the clear CMOS button for 15 seconds before putting the battery back in.  So while I had it open and was changing the power supply I did that, too.

 

It now boots perfectly (well - three times in a row with no hiccups so far).  I changed two variables at the same time so it's impossible to know which did it, so I guess I'm giving credit to both suggestions.

 

I still think the timing coincidence was too crazy for the caps in the power supply to make sense as the problem and if it was caps I still think that of the 60 or so reboots I did trying all the suggestions, many times more than once, a flaky cap would have *sometimes* allowed to boot ok and also the opposite - that cycling the power supply wouldn't *always* have fixed the problem first try, but since I did the 15-second CMOS trick at the same time I can never separate the causes. (I also worked with the computer for about 24 hours total over three days - just doing my work - and never a hiccup while actually working.)

 

So thanks everyone for all of your suggestions and I am very happy to report that I appear to be 100% functional again.

 

And I definitely have been suitably scarred by this that I am no longer an early adopter of BIOS and low-level driver updates.  I'll wait to see what people are reporting about their behavior before I jump.

 

Thanks again, everyone.