Dead, or fixable? (bios)

[Cutless009]

So I went to flash my Rampage Extreme (henceforth referred to as the turd), to the most recent bios. I used their EZ Flash utility in the bios to do so from a USB stick. Everything went well, until the end when the screen came up saying "the system will reboot in 5 seconds". well three hours later it hadnt restarted, so I said my prayers, and held down the power button to shut her off. After that whenever I turn her on, I get nada, black screen, LCD post says "CMOS ERR"....

asked asus, they said contact RMA department for a new BIOS chip. what do you guys think? dead?

[Xilikon]

Flashing a :turd: with a windows :turd: updater is a recipe for a messy mountain of shit...

I'm sure the bios chip is fucked...

[Cutless009]

it wasnt a windows :turd: it was a bios :turd:

[Xilikon]

it wasnt a windows :turd: it was a bios :turd:

Ez Flash is a piece of :turd: which killed lots and lots of motherboards. Always use a bootable usb drive to flash directly with afudos.

[rubidium]

I don't own this board, but I worked with a friend's board recently after he start facing a similar issue. First off, presumably you did the standard preliminaries like resetting CMOS, removing battery, etc. A few questions then:

1. Does LCD Poster first display Welcome, time, LOCKED, DET DRAM, CHECKCPU, VGA BIOS, USBFINAL, INIT ROM, and then hang there with CMOS ERR displaying?
2. If you press DEL when it says CMOS ERR, then does LCD Poster display EN SETUP?

If the answer to 1 is yes and answer to 2 is no, and you are using a USB keyboard/mouse, try using a PS2 keyboard and mouse and repeat.

If the answer to both of these questions is yes, then try a DVI-to-VGA converter to determine if you can then see the BIOS screen. If you can, then try to flash the BIOS to the latest version the old-fashioned way.

If all this fails, it's probably time to look into getting a new BIOS chip.

Edit: Also check that there aren't any red LED's lit on your 4870's.

rubidium

[Baleful]

I don't own this board, but I worked with a friend's board recently after he start facing a similar issue. First off, presumably you did the standard preliminaries like resetting CMOS, removing battery, etc. A few questions then:

1. Does LCD Poster first display Welcome, time, LOCKED, DET DRAM, CHECKCPU, VGA BIOS, USBFINAL, INIT ROM, and then hang there with CMOS ERR displaying?
2. If you press DEL when it says CMOS ERR, then does LCD Poster display EN SETUP?

If the answer to 1 is yes and answer to 2 is no, and you are using a USB keyboard/mouse, try using a PS2 keyboard and mouse and repeat.

If the answer to both of these questions is yes, then try a DVI-to-VGA converter to determine if you can then see the BIOS screen. If you can, then try to flash the BIOS to the latest version the old-fashioned way.

If all this fails, it's probably time to look into getting a new BIOS chip.

Edit: Also check that there aren't any red LED's lit on your 4870's.

rubidium


I second this. Hope this works out for you, if it doesn't, then it's RMA time.

[Cutless009]

when I hit F1 it says En Setup, however, I dont have a PCI card with a VGA port on it, my only graphics cards have DVI only :(

[rubidium]

when I hit F1 it says En Setup, however, I dont have a PCI card with a VGA port on it, my only graphics cards have DVI only :(

Sure. But there is a ~$5-ish "DVI to VGA/D-sub Adapter" that's usually included among the graphics card package contents. That's what I was referring to. It's male DVI on one side and female VGA on the other. See if you still have it. If not, I have a few kicking around in a drawer someplace.

Given that you've gotten the EN SETUP response, here's a possible reason for what you are experiencing: The BIOS is probably not hosed, but somewhere along the way during flashing your BIOS settings got buggered. It is possible, and in fact likely, that PCIe transactions can get corrupted due to this, such that your graphics card gets initialized improperly. There are many accounts where 4870's get initialized with an internal overheating flag set, even though there's no real overheating condition. If it thinks it's overheating, the high-powered stuff that drives the digital video gets shut down and the more primitive VGA mode remains. Both signals are available at the card's DVI port, but connecting up your monitor with a DVI cable will not make use of the VGA signal subset. Use of the adapter will allow you to drive a VGA input on a monitor and see the BIOS setup screen if it's really there - which the EN SETUP response implies is the case.

rubidium

[Cutless009]

ah right, I have that around somewhere, lemme go find it, hopefully I can post up with good news.

[Cutless009]

well that didnt work, but I put the driver disk in the drive because I read somewhere that it will auto restore the bios and it didnt go to cmos err, it just stayed at init rom, so I was told to leave it for 10-15 minutes and see if it fixed anything, so maybe that will work.

[rubidium]

One more thing, just to be sure. How did you clear your CMOS?

[Cutless009]

every way possible? Tried the clear cmos button, the clear cmos switch, and popping the battery out with no power connected to the board and leaving it for a few minutes.

[rubidium]

Sounds like you covered it all. Again, not owning the board, I seem to recall that there's not only a CMOS clear button, but also a jumper? or switch? that enables/disables that button. My question was essentially directed at the latter.

In any event, pulling the battery should have been more than enough.

[zlojack]

Doesn't that board have two bios chips?

You should just be able to swap one with the other then flash the bad one again from the good one.

[Cutless009]

lol it doesnt, I wish it did. But I have good news! I got the picture back! I swapped in a new graphics card I had lying around and VOILA, picture! reset the bios, and now it works, but for some reason it posts, and then where the cursor blinks on the screen right before the windows loading screen comes up, it just locks there :(

[zlojack]

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews.php?/cpu_mainboard/asus_rampage_extreme_motherboard/3
According to that review there's a jumper pin that allows you to switch to the backup bios.

[Cutless009]

hmmm, if there is I have no idea where :hmm: D: Im such a noob.... that and percocet makes me really unfocused xD

[zlojack]

A blue jumper at the bottom that says "Bios flashback" might have given you a hint :D

Check the pic here of the bottom part of the board.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/9832-asus-rampage-extreme-x48-motherboard-review-5.html

[Cutless009]

yah Ive tried that, it doesnt do anything, probably because I never backed up my bios because I didnt realize it was there.

[trfnj74]

Heres the page from the manual
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h201/tffz74/RE.jpg


hmmm, if there is I have no idea where :hmm: D: Im such a noob.... that and percocet makes me really unfocused xD

[Cutless009]

well, i flashed the bios back to the original with the boot disk, and it booted into windows, yay, put back all the old stuff, now I get "DET DRAM > LOCKED > REPEAT IN LOOP" wtf >>

[Big_Daddy]

go back into bios, make sure that your voltage is correct for your memory. remember, you cleared bios.

[coolmiester]

My buddy Tom has just had something similar happen on this board...........something ain't right with this board me thinks as i Googled it and it threw back a whole bunch of stuff but difficult to pinpoint any certain problem though the end result seems to be the same.

He just got another board and just about to flick the switch but this isn't a good thing to be going through especially when he's only got a couple of weeks before it ships to Germany for CeBIT and much more important things to be doing :rolleyes:

What a fuck on - Post #14 here (http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=163659)

[Cutless009]

well Im not sure if its a stick of ram thats bad or the motherboard toasting something, but I did get this back up using the other stick of ram, but had to remove the graphics cards again and swap them for the 8800gt to be able to see anything. This bios just does NOT want to run these cards, PERIOD. Its really upsetting.

[rubidium]

I would go back to the BIOS version that you started with and flash it to 1 of the 2 chips and leave it there. Do the jumper thing that trfnj74 indicated. Then you can at least regain confidence and peace of mind that your ram and gpu's didn't get hosed. After that, you can explore the upgraded BIOS using the second chip. Always good to have a baseline state that you consider reliable to revert to, rather than facing the frenzy of dealing with multiple unknowns.

rubidium

[Cutless009]

Yah at this point Im kinda fucked, they dont even have 0404 available on their website for download, and none of the other ones work, Ive tried them all, its so effing LAME. this is more than enough to put me off asus for a long time to come.

[rubidium]

Yah at this point Im kinda fucked, they dont even have 0404 available on their website for download, and none of the other ones work, Ive tried them all, its so effing LAME. this is more than enough to put me off asus for a long time to come.

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?board_id=1&model=Rampage+Extreme&id=20080813104712640&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

[Cutless009]

<3 flashing back to it now, thanks rubidium.

[Cutless009]

lol new bios clocked to 4.475ghz @ 36c idle xD Now if only my graphics cards worked :P

[Cutless009]

WOOO, they work, now if only vista recognized them >> which is what cuased this in the FIRST PLACE. Anyone know why vista 64 would not recognize the cards once the official drivers are installed? Windows default drivers work just fine, but the actual catalyst drivers dont

[Septim]

Cutless, its just probably some mis-communication between vista and catalyst...
you know some Windows OS are kind of snobbish with drivers and even with each other in a Network...

[Cutless009]

yah but whats the fix? Thats what has me baffled. I simply cannot get any version of catalyst drivers to work :(

[Cutless009]

LOL I tried the disk from the box again, and this time it kicked me OUT of windows and THEN black screened xD WTF, this mobo blows, and crossfire is a joke, never touching either one again :up:

[Kayin]

Sounds like you simply have a bad board. End of story.

The cards work fine in what seems like everyone else's machines, and you've already had to do the hotflash shuffle once, I'd say sources point to the board.

[Cutless009]

wow really? but the cards work, just not when I get into windows, it seems more like a Vista 64 compatability issue than a bad motherboard o.0

[Kayin]

I know personally that crossfireX works in Vista 64, I ran 4x3850s for quite a while with no issues. I have zero faith in ASUS, no matter what they say.

[Cutless009]

this board has given me nothing but shit, but I dont think newegg will RMA it if it works, plus its been 2 months since I ordered it.

[Kayin]

Man, I hurt for ya there. My board "works", but it won't support the number of sticks in the config I need. I'm going back to CrossFireX with an old standby. I'm tired of this shit being "I work part of the time, for some of the people..."

Those cards would be golden in another setup, though. I bet it's how the board is addressing them, though without it in my hands it's hard to tell.

[zlojack]

My Rampage Extreme was sold very soon after I bought it.

If you can get it going, it's a monster board, but it would have taken way more patience than I had!

Anyway, I hope you can get it fixed, dude.

[rubidium]

I don't think it's your mobo or cards. Just google "vista 4870 black screen on startup" and you'll see that this problem is widespread. Digging a little deeper, it appears that the ATi Catalyst Update that microsoft installed at some point in the past as a vista auto-update may be to blame.

Before abandoning ship, try getting rid of *all traces* of catalyst drivers from your OS with Driver Cleaner or Driver Sweeper, then do a fresh install of the driver (8.12?). Also, if you havent loaded the latest mobo chipset drivers for vista64, do this and reboot first.

stiff upper lip ...
rubidium

[Cutless009]

gonna try that out rubidium, I dont think Ive tried those drivers yet, Im gonna boot into safe mode and make sure all that crap is gone then install these and see what happens/