**Official** Asrock Z68 Extreme4 thread. Share your experiences, OCs & tech issues!

[EzyRyder]

New beta bios out

http://www.asrock.com/mb/beta.asp?Model=Z68%20Extreme4
L1.52B 8/1/2011 Instant Flash 3.20MB Improve USB ODD compatibility.

[grimpy]

Just got the Z68 Extreme4 Gen 3 today and have disabled all the power saving features to oc it to 4.5GHz but when under load running LinX it's actually dropping to 3.3GHz anyone any idea why this is happening?

[@rne]

You need to increase the various power limits (i don't know the specific bios, but increase the maximum allowed ampere and watt..)

[grimpy]

Heres some bios settings which would i change?

[MacClipper]

Heres some bios settings which would i change?

1st, you can use the F12 key within the UEFI to dump the screen to a USB flashdrive (FAT/FAT16 format) and capture the screenshot as shown below. No need to get your digicam, transfer to PC... and all that jazz.

And you can also try the settings as shown too to avoid power throttling on load.



HTH

[Ket]

Keep the Gen3 talk in the Gen3 thread guys clicky ta

[Lestat]

This may have been said i dont know but no bios love for us Pro-M owners
I am pretty much stuck at 4.6ghz.
Any attempt to go higher results in a bsod that says 'machine check acception'
it says that everytime.

[anzial]

Ket, please answer my questions in following posts

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...=1#post4917788

And

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...=1#post4920001

[radier]

Ad.1 Visit ASRock website and figure it out by yourself.
Ad.2 No

[jpm]

Ket, please answer my questions in following posts
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...=1#post4917788

see my post a few pages back.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...=1#post4904892

[anzial]

see my post a few pages back.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...=1#post4904892

Well I want ket to answer it because he's implying there are SIGNIFICANT changes between the two, and I just don't see it, and I'm sure you would agree with that too. I'm just not seeing such significant changes that gen3 deserves a separate thread For all intents and purposes, it'll behave like the gen 2, and splitting the users between the two types of boards is counterproductive, as it will decrease useful info for both groups of users, they'll be jumping between two threads, wasting time.

Basically, I think only one thread is necessary on Asrock Z68 boards to avoid fragmentation of the user base to improve information flow between them. If anyone agrees, I think Ket should see that.

[Ket]

No, I'm not implying there are significant changes and have never said as such. The Gen3 boards get their own thread so I don't have to keep clarifying to people which board I'm talking about when they ask a question. Keeps confusion to a minimum. Z68 owners have their thread, P67 owners have their thread, and Gen3 owners have their thread.

So, for the last time because its getting rather irritating people posting Gen3 related material in this Z68 thread and the P67 thread, ASK ANY GEN3 QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE ABOUT THE GEN3 BOARDS IN THE GEN3 THREAD! ITS RIGHT HERE!

[EzyRyder]

Ket any chances you could get an update from Asrock regarding the eSATA problem? I am about to give up and buy a USB 3.0 enclosure.

Got to say I am disappointed with Asrock here, they have been sitting on this issue for a while now.

[Ket]

I've chased about the issue persistently. Still the last I knew they were waiting for some devices to test with and after chasing up quite a few times after that nobody seemed to have a answer for me, so I think we are just going to have to underline it and chalk the problem up to a issue with the Marvell controller itself. I even asked repeatedly for the option ROM Marvell BIOS to be updated, but unless theres a beta UEFI sneaking around somewhere, it never got updated

[pphx459]

Anyone hit 4.8 - 5.0 yet? Curious to see what your settings are.

[glorp]

I've chased about the issue persistently. Still the last I knew they were waiting for some devices to test with and after chasing up quite a few times after that nobody seemed to have a answer for me, so I think we are just going to have to underline it and chalk the problem up to a issue with the Marvell controller itself. I even asked repeatedly for the option ROM Marvell BIOS to be updated, but unless theres a beta UEFI sneaking around somewhere, it never got updated

I'm having this same eSATA problem with the board too and I have a question which might point to the answer:

If the eSATA port at the back of the board is driven off the Marvell controller then why does the BIOS have options to enable/disable External SATA Port for each of the ports on the *Intel* chipset ports (under Advanced/Storage) and why are there no options to select which Marvell port should be used for eSATA instead? Is it possible someone at AsRock has switched up the chips for eSATA support when they developed the BIOS or am I missing the point of those options for the 6 Intel ports?

[EzyRyder]

I know its not your fault mate

By the way, any chance that Asrock follow Gigabyte's PCI Express 3.0 news?

http://www.techpowerup.com/150333/GI...Ie-Gen.-3.html

Thanks,
Gabriel

[Ket]

I'm having this same eSATA problem with the board too and I have a question which might point to the answer:

If the eSATA port at the back of the board is driven off the Marvell controller then why does the BIOS have options to enable/disable External SATA Port for each of the ports on the *Intel* chipset ports (under Advanced/Storage) and why are there no options to select which Marvell port should be used for eSATA instead? Is it possible someone at AsRock has switched up the chips for eSATA support when they developed the BIOS or am I missing the point of those options for the 6 Intel ports?

I don't know wht Asrock would do that aside from the option for users to turn off ports their not using to save power.

I know its not your fault mate

By the way, any chance that Asrock follow Gigabyte's PCI Express 3.0 news?

http://www.techpowerup.com/150333/GI...Ie-Gen.-3.html

Thanks,
Gabriel

Thats something to ask, but I don't see why Asrock wouldn't release a UEFI update for all of the P67 / Z68 boards to support IvyBridge CPUs.

[EzyRyder]

I don't know wht Asrock would do that aside from the option for users to turn off ports their not using to save power.



Thats something to ask, but I don't see why Asrock wouldn't release a UEFI update for all of the P67 / Z68 boards to support IvyBridge CPUs.

Please do it seems to me that we don't really need new mainboards for PCI Express 3.0 but I can appreciate that Asrock might be against this as they have just released the Gen 3 boards with PCI Express 3.0 support.

[glorp]

I don't know wht Asrock would do that aside from the option for users to turn off ports their not using to save power.

But the options are all labelled "*External* SATA Port" [Enable/Disable]
and they don't actually disable the Intel ports anyway since all mine in use are disabled and they all still work fine.

My theory is that that option was intended to be made available for the 2 Marvell ports to select which one would be set to provide the eSATA functionality but some AsRock BIOS engineer screwed the pooch and set the options up for the Intel ports instead. So the Marvell chip is not told that one of its ports is being used for eSATA and it's not ready to handle the flood of interrupts that it gets when you plug in an external device and that what causes it to lock up the PCI bus.

[jpm]

But the options are all labelled "*External* SATA Port" [Enable/Disable]
and they don't actually disable the Intel ports anyway since all mine in use are disabled and they all still work fine.

My theory is that that option was intended to be made available for the 2 Marvell ports to select which one would be set to provide the eSATA functionality but some AsRock BIOS engineer screwed the pooch and set the options up for the Intel ports instead. So the Marvell chip is not told that one of its ports is being used for eSATA and it's not ready to handle the flood of interrupts that it gets when you plug in an external device and that what causes it to lock up the PCI bus.

my assumption is that this UEFI setting should be enabled if the corresponding motherboard SATA port is connected to an eSATA connector, with the most common use being an eSATA connector built into your case. my case happens to have one of these eSATA headers on the top and it attaches to the motherboard internally via a standard SATA cable. so i connected it to one of the intel ports and enabled the corresponding UEFI setting. i'm not sure what the setting does exactly but it may be relevant for the UEFI to be aware of this connection with respect to hotswapping or perhaps slight variances in the electrical characteristics.

[Ket]

Without asking one of the UEFI engineers I can't comment further than I already have. When it comes to the Marvell eSATA issue as nobody had a answer for me I think its one of thos things we have to underline and aknowledge the problem is likely with the Marvell controller itself.

[darckhart]

Anyone hit 4.8 - 5.0 yet? Curious to see what your settings are.

i am partially there (runs linx 4096MB, 10 runs), but upon reboot, it throws up every so often. it's not a temp problem because I barely break 68C. I'm not quite sure what's causing it tho. Been tweaking lots of the other voltages to see if that makes any difference. (i have 4 dimms so maybe the others do need tweaking?)

2600K 3104C319
bios 1.6
46x100, vcore 1.27, LLC level 1, auto the rest. fully stable.
48x100, vcore 1.38, LLC level 1, auto the rest. strangely enough, i have to set "turbo auto voltage" to "auto" otherwise it won't even let me get into win7. i also think it rather likes bclk at 100.1 and "cpu pll overvolt enabled" for some reason.

[Ket]

Try setting LLC level 2, you might need to nudge up vcore a bit.

[Hondacity]

i am partially there (runs linx 4096MB, 10 runs), but upon reboot, it throws up every so often. it's not a temp problem because I barely break 68C. I'm not quite sure what's causing it tho. Been tweaking lots of the other voltages to see if that makes any difference. (i have 4 dimms so maybe the others do need tweaking?)

2600K 3104C319
bios 1.6
46x100, vcore 1.27, LLC level 1, auto the rest. fully stable.
48x100, vcore 1.38, LLC level 1, auto the rest. strangely enough, i have to set "turbo auto voltage" to "auto" otherwise it won't even let me get into win7. i also think it rather likes bclk at 100.1 and "cpu pll overvolt enabled" for some reason.

cpu pll overvolt enable is needed from 4.8ghz and above
vcore is also need ie 1.4v+