**Official** Asrock Z68 Gen3 Extreme7 & Extreme4 thread

[Undermoose]

Looks like I'm not getting CrossfireX performance because it's not working. It's enabled, but I tested performance with a single card and then CrossfireX and it's the same.

So I removed all the AMD drivers, pulled one card out, installed AMD Catalyst drivers again, and on a single EAH 6970 my system is flying! Never seen it faster, 7.9 on everything but CPU (i7-2600K at 7.6) and Disk (3gb sata at 5.9) in Windows experience. 7.9 on memory too, I'm doing 19,000 MB/s on AIDA memory read/write benchmarks without tweaking my system at all.

So why is CrossfireX so broken on this Extreme7 Gen3 motherboard? 6.0 on Windows experience and laggy gaming, time to stick to one GPU perhaps. I'm not sure where to look.

[Ket]

Either driver bug, or did you enable CF in the CP?

[tipes]

Thanks for that Ket - you may have just convinced me - not that I really needed much of a push Lol.

Mark

Well guys and girls I have taken the plunge and ordered my extreme7 gen 3 - not sure when it will be delivered,as other parts are not available.will be using with:-
Corsair 650d
2600K cpu
16Gb gskill memory
Corsair 850w Prof psu
Saphire 5870(for now)
crucial real SSD M4 128GB
With custom EK watercooling

Will post back once arrived/built - looking forward to it.

Mark

[Milamber]

When I updated my Extreme 4 Gen 3 to latest BIOS, my mouse longer works properly in the BIOS, it just moves up and down in a straight line. Has anyone else seen or heard of this?

[RealTelstar]

nevermind, i read extreme7 for some reason.

[Ket]

Well guys and girls I have taken the plunge and ordered my extreme7 gen 3 - not sure when it will be delivered,as other parts are not available.will be using with:-
Corsair 650d
2600K cpu
16Gb gskill memory
Corsair 850w Prof psu
Saphire 5870(for now)
crucial real SSD M4 128GB
With custom EK watercooling

Will post back once arrived/built - looking forward to it.

Mark

Looking forward to your results

When I updated my Extreme 4 Gen 3 to latest BIOS, my mouse longer works properly in the BIOS, it just moves up and down in a straight line. Has anyone else seen or heard of this?

Try a full CMOS reset;

Remove power cord
Set CMOS jumper to "clear"
Remove CMOS battery
Press power button 2-3 times
Leave for 1-5 min

[Milamber]

Unfortunately that didn't work. I have lodged a ticket with asrock and we will see what they have to say....

Does this look alright to you guys? The CPU PLL looks high to me...

[bigmac11]

I asked about the PLL voltage in post 205 and RealTelstar kindly replied that it can safely be lowered to 1.709. I lowered mine and have seen no issues from it. Aside from the mouse issue in the bios and scratchy onboard sound I really like this board. Hopefully a new bios will arrive to correct any issues and make the board even better

[davefran]

When I updated my Extreme 4 Gen 3 to latest BIOS, my mouse longer works properly in the BIOS, it just moves up and down in a straight line. Has anyone else seen or heard of this?

What problems were you having before you updated the Bios ?

[Milamber]

I thought I would take some photo's of how SLI looks with this board, the gap is reasonable... since my cards are not exhaust the distance was important factor.

What problems were you having before you updated the Bios ?

None and the mouse drama doesn't phase me either, I can use keyboard which is faster anyway.

[GeekPimp]

So I removed all the AMD drivers, pulled one card out, installed AMD Catalyst drivers again, and on a single EAH 6970 my system is flying! Never seen it faster, 7.9 on everything but CPU (i7-2600K at 7.6) and Disk (3gb sata at 5.9) in Windows experience. 7.9 on memory too, I'm doing 19,000 MB/s on AIDA memory read/write benchmarks without tweaking my system at all.

So why is CrossfireX so broken on this Extreme7 Gen3 motherboard? 6.0 on Windows experience and laggy gaming, time to stick to one GPU perhaps. I'm not sure where to look.

Undermoose,

Don't give up on crossfire. I am currently running 2 way crossfire using a couple HIS 6950's with no issues. I am currently running the Battlefield 3 beta drivers (Catalyst Version 11.10 - Win7 64 bit) and I am getting excellent performance all the way around.

I did run into trouble on my "test install" of the OS using the driver disk that came with the motherboard and with my 6950's. Both cards were visible to the OS but the second always showed as "disabled" instead of "linked". I then did a complete re-install using all the latest and greatest drivers I could find. Problem solved.

My current rig configuration is:

CPU: 2600K - O/C to 4.4 GHz
Cooling: Noctua NH-D14
Motherboard: Asrock Z68 Extreme7 Gen3 (BIOS v1.20)
RAM: 16GB GSKILL Ripjaws @ 1866
Video: 2 x HIS IceQ X Turbo 6950 2GB @ 900/1325 MHz
SSD: OCZ Agility 3 240GB (system drive)
HDDs: 4 x 1 TB WD RE4 (RAID5), 1 x 3 TB Seagate Baracuda XT
Audio: Onboard audio w/ THX TruStudio Pro
Case: CoolerMaster HAFX
PSU: Corsair Pro Series Gold AX1200
Displays: 3 x Asus VE258Q (25")
OS: Windows7 Ultimate x64 SP1 (WEI = 7.8 [cpu], 7.9 [everything else])

[Milamber]

I had to ditch the Nvidia BF3 drivers, my other games were crashing with blank screens and driver not responding

I thought I would bench with same o/c since we have similar systems, you have more memory than me though. You have a good result with those cards

[davefran]

None and the mouse drama doesn't phase me either, I can use keyboard which is faster anyway.

Please read below information before download or update BIOS
We don't recommend users to update BIOS while the system is running well. For any damages caused by improper operation of downloading or updating BIOS, ASRock® assumes no responsibility. Before you download or update the BIOS, please read below " (How to Update)" carefully.

Then why flash it

[Milamber]

Please read below information before download or update BIOS
We don't recommend users to update BIOS while the system is running well. For any damages caused by improper operation of downloading or updating BIOS, ASRock® assumes no responsibility. Before you download or update the BIOS, please read below " (How to Update)" carefully.

Then why flash it

I flashed it because the mobo is so new and anything that was an update I considered a good thing. On the above notion, does that mean in 12 mths time when the bios version is leaps and bounds ahead we should stick on v1.00 if all is good?

[tipes]

I flashed it because the mobo is so new and anything that was an update I considered a good thing. On the above notion, does that mean in 12 mths time when the bios version is leaps and bounds ahead we should stick on v1.00 if all is good?

It would seem so - I can understand both sides of the argument here as a qualified technician. I always believe in " If it aint broken don't fix it" this being especially true
as far as bios updates/flashing goes, because despite whatever method you use to flash the bios - there is always a risk that it can obviously go wrong, and I would say
that bios flashing is potentially one of the most dangerous things you can do with a board. I can also understand that under normal circumstances it is considered by many
to use the most up to date bios/drivers,which can increase both stability and performance in some instances.Overall I would not flash a bios unless absolutely necessary to fix
an issue or issues that are definitively attributed to the bios - otherwise leave well alone. I am sure some will take issue with my oppinion, but please remember that it is only
indeed my oppinion - rightly or wrongly and as always ymmv. Take care out there.

Mark

[radier]

ASrock Z68 Extreme7 Gen3 UEFI Version 1.30

1. Patch Creative PCI audio card.
2. Patch Logitech MX518.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/download.as...%20Gen3&o=BIOS

[Ket]

Evening gentlemen, news on the issues I told my contacts about are as follows;

Floppy drive issue: We can't find a problem here testing with UEFI 1.0.

Other issues: Currently being looked into, I think the X-Fi issue has been addressed in a new UEFI though.

[tipes]

Seems to have gone very quiet in here - hope this means everybody is clocking like mad with there new found stability,
and less issues now, or is it just the case there is nothing interesting happening?

As for me - I have my parts for my build, but my case still has not arrived so.........

Mark

[Ket]

ATM it would just seem nobody is having any issues. Feel free to post up your OC results and stuff though when you get time to mess about a bit

[RealTelstar]

FYI, Emily on TT asrock forum posted a bios that should fix the mouse issue for mx518 and others (it DID for one person with the mx).
I dont have my new mouse yet (sic), so cant try.

Download:
http://download.asrock.com/bios/1155...en3(1.11B).zip

[tipes]

ATM it would just seem nobody is having any issues. Feel free to post up your OC results and stuff though when you get time to mess about a bit

Lets hope you are right Lol. Yes I hope to post some results when I have actually got it built etc - not going for anything extreme though !!!!

Mark

[Ket]

We are all into high res. hardware :banana::banana::banana::banana: here, so even lots of pretty pictures will get people talking

[bigmac11]

FYI, Emily on TT asrock forum posted a bios that should fix the mouse issue for mx518 and others (it DID for one person with the mx).
I dont have my new mouse yet (sic), so cant try.

Download:
http://download.asrock.com/bios/1155...en3(1.11B).zip

This bios is for the P67 not the Z68. BEWARE!

[Milamber]

This bios is for the P67 not the Z68. BEWARE!

Jeeez thanks!!! I wonder why he posted it in Z68 thread?

[RealTelstar]

Jeeez thanks!!! I wonder why he posted it in Z68 thread?

Before as asked before to Ket, this thread is for all gen3 boards.