Asrock P67 Extreme4 UEFI & Drivers thread [Extreme6 & Pro3 owners welcome]

[swampy]

My SATA 2 ports are buggered though.

[radier]

Don't be ridiculous.

[swampy]

Don't be ridiculous.

What do you mean, they have failed to the point of my system being unbootable? Not a good scenario for a firmware update. I can only use the SATA 3 ports.

[RealTelstar]

He has a B2 chipset.
I would try the addon card you mentioned. If the linux live distro that comes with the firmware upgrade iso recognizes it, it should be ok. It's not needed that the crucial be bootable to upgrade the FW.

[Ket]

Alternatively if the board is still under warrenty you can return it stating the SATA ports no longer work

[swampy]

Thanks guys, I managed to update the firmware from SATA III

[Ket]

I've only just found out about this, but by golly does it look good and its FREE to AsRock customers! The Suite includes;

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You can download this software HERE

[venkman781]

I have a weird issue that I'm trying to diagnose. I have two 6950s in crossfire in PCIE2 and PCIE4 to take advantage of the x8/x8 PCIE bus width. In GPUZ, one is showing at x8 and one is showing at x4. I have confirmed they are in the correct PCIE slots. Everything is running stock for now.

I tried reseating the cards, removing them and swapping which slot they were in with no change.
I was able to replicate this using UEFI 1.60 (which the board shipped with) and the latest 2.10.
The issue persists after updating all the drivers in the first post in this thread.
I've done a complete wipe of all ATI drivers (11.9) and reinstalled.

I was able to test them individually in PCIE2 and both cards registered at x16. I can't seem to find any settings in either UEFI 1.60 or 2.10 that relate to PCIE bus width.

Other symptoms I am seeing - frequently, the machine will boot and the display will remain in power saving mode - indicating no signal is coming from the GPU. I have been able to replicate this with both single cards in PCIE2, as well as in crossfire. I can resolve this issue by powering off the system completely, rebooting and clearing CMOS.

Also, the mouse movement in UEFI went screwy with 2.10. It was fine with 1.60. I've been using the keyboard without issue.

[radier]

UEFI 2.10 is buggy in terms of USB devices. I recommend 2.00.
In CF/SLi try to plug additional molex to SLI/XFIRE Power Connector onboard.

[bat4]

UEFI 2.10 is buggy in terms of USB devices. I recommend 2.00.
In CF/SLi try to plug additional molex to SLI/XFIRE Power Connector onboard.

What about UEFI 2.10B ?

[swampy]

What about UEFI 2.10B ?

Where is 2.10B, what does it update?

[pythonse]

yesterday my system shut itself off and now it wont turn on unless i unplug the 8 pin connector by the cpu. got another power unit, same thing,disconected everything but 1 graphics card and still no power on and no led lights on the code screen either...bad board? it was running fine before it shut itself off and i wasnt gaming or made any changes to the system

[radier]

Where is 2.10B, what does it update?

http://www.pctreiber.net/forum/intel...b_15132.0.html

[Ket]

yesterday my system shut itself off and now it wont turn on unless i unplug the 8 pin connector by the cpu. got another power unit, same thing,disconected everything but 1 graphics card and still no power on and no led lights on the code screen either...bad board? it was running fine before it shut itself off and i wasnt gaming or made any changes to the system

Check to make sure no connections have come loose and if possible try another kit of memory in case a stick is going bad.

[pythonse]

wouldnt bad memory at least power on and then have a beep or code on the led screen?...thanks for the reply btw ket

[pythonse]

anyone have any god/bad experiences rma'ing from asrock?

[venkman781]

UEFI 2.10 is buggy in terms of USB devices. I recommend 2.00.
In CF/SLi try to plug additional molex to SLI/XFIRE Power Connector onboard.

I've been testing all day, and have managed to resolve the boot issues I was having - it took a fresh install of win7 and several hours of tinkering.

I am running UEFI 2.0 now (defaults loaded), fresh install of win7. Installed the drivers provided on ASRock CD for INF, Intel ME, Lan, Marvell Sata3, Etron USB 3.0. Also installed Catalyst 11.9.

I can't for the life of me figure out why the card in PCIE2 is running at only 4x. It does this regardless of which one of the 6950s I use in PCIE2. I've tested them individually and both run at 16x. When run individually in PCIE4, they run at 8x. 4pin molex is connected.

Is there anything in the UEFI that could be limiting the bandwidth available to the PCIE slots?

Edit - scratch that. Just did a soft reboot and the display blanked out again on me. After two reboots, I was able to get the display back and boot into win7. Given the sporadic nature of this problem, I'm starting to think I've got a bad board.

[bat4]

I had boot issues with UEFI 2.10B using an USB keyboard.
I had to go back to UEFI 2.00.

[bat4]

I have found an interesting review about the EtronTech USB 3.0 Host Controller:

http://www.hardcoreware.net/gigabyte...oard-review/9/

Quote:
"This board is the first time I have seen the Etron EJ168A controller, and I have to say, it sucks. All throughout testing, I would have problems transferring files to and from the test system, and completing benchmarks. It would transfer fine for a while, but would randomly get “stuck” running at 1 MB/s or so. It wasn’t actually crashing, it was just lagging really bad. This happened across various USB 3.0 devices (although never came up when I tried a USB 2.0 device in the port). I have tried the latest drivers from the website, but to no avail.

So it could be that I have a bum board here, or it could be that the Etron controller just isn’t ready for real world use just yet. Things may improve with drivers in a while, but for now, it is not usable."

"Not only is it less reliable than the Renesas solution found on most boards, it is slower as well."

[pythonse]

so if the rma doesnt go well im going to switch to the fatal1ty board

[GregoryDonner]

So it could be that I have a bum board here, or it could be that the Etron controller just isn’t ready for real world use just yet. Things may improve with drivers in a while, but for now, it is not usable.

Etron better hope updated drivers fix it, or the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 certification they received earlier this year won't do them a lick of good:

http://gigabytedaily.blogspot.com/20...speed-usb.html

[radier]

USB 3.0 Speed Tests: 7-Way Host Controllers Roundup

Does The USB 3.0 Controller On Your Motherboard Matter?

[Ket]

wouldnt bad memory at least power on and then have a beep or code on the led screen?...thanks for the reply btw ket

Not necissarily. Years ago I had a bad stick but the system would power up most times and shut itself off under certain load conditions. Took me about a day to figure out it was a bad stick as I thought something was overheating or the PSU was going bad.

I have found an interesting review about the EtronTech USB 3.0 Host Controller:

http://www.hardcoreware.net/gigabyte...oard-review/9/

Quote:
"This board is the first time I have seen the Etron EJ168A controller, and I have to say, it sucks. All throughout testing, I would have problems transferring files to and from the test system, and completing benchmarks. It would transfer fine for a while, but would randomly get “stuck” running at 1 MB/s or so. It wasn’t actually crashing, it was just lagging really bad. This happened across various USB 3.0 devices (although never came up when I tried a USB 2.0 device in the port). I have tried the latest drivers from the website, but to no avail.

So it could be that I have a bum board here, or it could be that the Etron controller just isn’t ready for real world use just yet. Things may improve with drivers in a while, but for now, it is not usable."

"Not only is it less reliable than the Renesas solution found on most boards, it is slower as well."

It says the latest drivers were used, but does not specify which driver version. If claims like that are going to be made it makes sence to actually say which driver version was used. As it doesn't, I can only assume old drivers were used as the drivers on the asrock site are quite a way behind the newest Etron drivers available.

[mach82]

Why are the drivers on Asrock's website not up to date then?
Which is the latest WHQL USB3 driver?

[GregoryDonner]

As far as the Etron USB 3 drivers go, the "latest" drivers are still in beta, and reportedly still buggy (at least according to one user who tried them).

As far as updates to all the other drivers, ASRock may be waiting until stability has been proven, and/or there are may just be too many mobo models to keep up with, and the lack of time/personnel to stay on top of them = old drivers. If the latter is true, you have their marketing department to thank. That being said, there is always the danger of the latest drivers being buggy... Nvidia's gfx drivers are a good example of that.