Two weeks ago I purchased the Asus Maximus IV Extreme board with a 2600K processor. Since last week my system was up and running, with the emphases on was.... While checking some EFI settings, suddenly the mouse froze. As a result, I did a reboot but without any luck. CPU fan did turn and the LED's did light up but that was all. No boot, no screen (except for a black one) and no possibility to enter the EFI. The only thing shown by the Debug LED's was a code"00".

I switched back to the other EFI but again no luck, again code "00". The only thing I could conclude was a dead motherboard. For your information, except for the memory settings, I did NOT OC'ed the motherboard nor did I try anything to OC the board. The only thing I did was using the XMP profile of the Corsair CMT4GX3M2A2133CG memory modules at 2133MHz. All other EFI settings were default.

The supplier where I purchased the board agreed to return the board, unfortunately he is not able to provide the same board due to the Sandy Bridge issue. While searching for a supplier who could provide the Maximus IV Extreme, I spoke with a supplier who informed me that ASUS started a recall over here in The Netherlands. This recall was NOT related to the Sandy Bridge issue but due to a hardware issue of the Maximus IV Extreme. As a result, I started some googeling and found this posting on Xtreme Systems. The initial topic refers to the German website on which a user (Stefan 008) mentioned what he experienced "Bei mir lief das Board ja am Montag morgen nicht mehr nach dem ersten einschalten , bootete nicht , Postcode 00 und CPU-LED leuchtete dauerhaft rot". In my case, I had exactly the same experience, Post Code 00 and the CPU Led constantly red.

I have the impression, especially because I did not OC'ed the motherboard, that something is wrong with this first release (rev. 1.02)....