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

[Anusha]

Are you getting them? I haven't actually tried myself but if that is the case that would be really poor show, again!

The support for this mobo is dead. No more BIOSes or any further driver updates. The whole IvyBridge thing reinforces this feeling - where as with Asus, Gigabyte and other manufacturers this is a possibility with Asrock it isn't.

Next time I would go with Gigabyte or MSI, they give their products the support they need, and their RMA service is one of the best.

yes i got them, about one or two a day for a week. it started as soon as i removed the graphics card. a fresh installation of windows with hardly anything installed as well. but after increasing the iGPU voltage, i could survive a day till my new cards arrived. now i don't have a problem. but i hope it doesn't affect the quicksync encodes if i ever wanna do one. i got an Z68 for that purpose. none of the other features matter.

[Ket]

Hi Ket,

Thanks for answering! Asrock should hire you mate, at least I can get an answer from you.

Regarding the eSATA issue, I have now given up and I am selling the caddy and putting the HD in my PC so can't really check it anymore. But you say you tried it... did you reproduce the issue? It would be interesting to hear your results.

Thanks

I did indeed get the same problem, and my educated response on the issue is the issue is with the chip itself, either on the caddy or on the board. One of them just doesn't want to play nice with the other. Sadly, such issues are impossible to avoid entirely because theres so many different bits of hardware out there. Could this issue be resolved? I'm unsure. The UEFI wizzards at R&D would need to look at the problem but they can't get your particular caddy to test the problem and I do know they have tried hard to get your caddy but just can't get one.

sorry to disrupt the flow, but is there news about ivybridge support on this mobo?

AFAIK, Ivy will be supported with a UEFI update as intel have already said Z68 (possibly P67 too, can't remember for that chipset) will get support. I will check to be certain with my contacts.

Ket are you aware of the BSODs you get on this board when running off the iGPU?
The BSOD says something like, "Failed to receive the clock interrupt from the second processor."
Apparently, a lot of people are getting this with this motherboard. Same people say it is not there with the Asus's Z68.
I am getting the same thing because I sold my graphics card so that I could upgrade, and am currently running off the iGPU. The more I use this board, I feel like I've made a mistake by not going with Asus

I am aware the issue DID exist, but I haven't encountered it for many months with the new UEFIs. If you can get me a list of hardware 3-4 people have in their system when getting this error I can try to look into the issue further.

[Anusha]

I
I am aware the issue DID exist, but I haven't encountered it for many months with the new UEFIs. If you can get me a list of hardware 3-4 people have in their system when getting this error I can try to look into the issue further.

Specs in the link in my sig Ket.

[EzyRyder]

Hi Ket,

Thanks for answering.

Do you know why there are new beta bioses of previous versions?

I can see:

L1.60B 9/23/2011 Instant Flash 3.20MB Improve system stability.
L1.60H 9/13/2011 Instant Flash 3.20MB Improve memory compatibility.

And there is also a new Etron USB 3 driver in there...

[Ket]

The beta UEFI section isn't updated as often, so while I can't say for certain It is more than likely as those UEFIs are just beta they were further down on the to-do list than more important things. As for the Etron driver, that driver would of come about because I notified my contacts Etron broke some USB support with their 104 and 105 drivers and that info got passed onto Etron to address

[Ket]

Specs in the link in my sig Ket.

Noted. Your BSOD issues might be a result of the Corsair memory you have, particularly if the kit revision is 8.16. I've had all kinds of trouble with a Vengeance 8GB 1866C9 kit on both the P67 and Z68 boards. Myself, Asrock, and Corsair are trying to get to the bottom of the issue as I type. We are waiting on the kits to arrive from Corsair and I will probably be sending my kit to Asrock as well. In the meantime if you can replace the Vengeance sticks with some memory from G.Skill and see if the problem persists it would be most helpful. There is also a new UEFI for the Z68 Extreme4 you could try, UEFI 1.7. It supports newer XMP profiles so might help.

[Anusha]

Noted. Your BSOD issues might be a result of the Corsair memory you have, particularly if the kit revision is 8.16. I've had all kinds of trouble with a Vengeance 8GB 1866C9 kit on both the P67 and Z68 boards. Myself, Asrock, and Corsair are trying to get to the bottom of the issue as I type. We are waiting on the kits to arrive from Corsair and I will probably be sending my kit to Asrock as well. In the meantime if you can replace the Vengeance sticks with some memory from G.Skill and see if the problem persists it would be most helpful.

it maybe true in your case, but in my case it all started when i removed my VGA and started using the iGPU and it went away after i got the new VGAs. it's been 4 days now without the error. i was getting it at least once or twice every day for a whole week. i cannot say for sure if this fixed it, but when i upped the iGPU voltage by 0.1V, it didn't happen. but i only had 1 day before the VGAs arrived.

are you sure it was the same STOP ERROR?

[Ket]

If you could test the IGP with the slightly bumped voltage it would be interesting to see the results. It might be there is a problem with the on-die IGP itself, which would seem to be the case if you can run 2-3 days without a issue with increased IGP voltage.

[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;

- Mufin Player (mm... muffins! ) (58MB)

The next generation music player plays all standard audio formats, manages large music collections, helps you discover music, offers a free online hard drive and more.

- Music Maker Silver (160MB)

The easiest way to arrange, remix, record and create your own music. Develop your musical style now - without any prior skills.

- Video Easy SE (102MB)

With this program you can easily edit your movies, add transitions, text and background music, and even quickly enhance image and sound quality.

- Photo Manager 10 (68MB)

Put an end to your digital photo chaos and organize your photo collection with ease. The program is fully equipped for fast import, photo and video clip management, photo editing and presentation.

You can download this software HERE

[TEDY]

what's the difference between

ASRock Z68 Extreme4, Z68 (dual PC3-10667U DDR3) and ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3, Z68 (dual PC3-10667U DDR3)

only PCI-E 3.0?

[radier]

ASRock Z68 Extreme 4 UEFI 1.60K
Changelog:

Fixes problems with some USB devices in the UEFI

http://www.pctreiber.net/forum/intel...k_15228.0.html

ASRock Z68 Pro3 UEFI 1.63

Changelog:

unknown

http://www.pctreiber.net/forum/intel...3_15229.0.html

[Anusha]

ASRock Z68 Extreme 4 UEFI 1.60K
Changelog:

http://www.pctreiber.net/forum/intel...k_15228.0.html

is that a beta bios? current stable version is 1.70. it is not up on the asrock site's betazone. hmm

[Ket]

what's the difference between

ASRock Z68 Extreme4, Z68 (dual PC3-10667U DDR3) and ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3, Z68 (dual PC3-10667U DDR3)

only PCI-E 3.0?

Thats the only major difference yeah.

[kenograndmaster]

The TIM might have had a chance to settle in that time tho, leading to a bit cooler temps?



I have 2600K not a 2500K, been folding for almost a month straight now at 4.8Ghz at 1.43v on water, original UEFI, temps in 60's on a water loop of Iwaki MD-20, Dtek Fusion v1, and thermochill PA120.3 that hasn't been cleaned out in 4 years(can't even imagine what the block looks like on inside). Board easily benched at 5100Mhz and that's all I have done... But its been solid, without a single crash at 100% CPU, and a 460GTX at 100% for about 4 weeks, it's just an opinion but I think the board could do 5Ghz 24/7 without issue. I experimented with 5Ghz and I just needed too much voltage for folding stability, but I think I don't have a great clocker of a CPU either.

Now one could argue that the board is what is requiring the higher Vcore to achieve stabilty, in my experience over the years the better the Vreg circuit the lower Vcore you need for stabilty. Maybe this board doesn't have that, maybe it does, but I can say it's been stable.

I see that youre using the Dtek fuzion v1 for your motherboard. I have one too that i use for socket 775 mobo. I was wondering how did u get it to mount for the lga1155 and did you have to buy any extra accessories to mount it? thx

[Ket]

The Extreme4/7 boards have two sets of mounting holes, one for 1155, the other for 775 so fitting 775 coolers & blocks shouldn't be a issue.

[aoch88]

Thats the only major difference yeah.

Another major difference is the color theme and layout which is much better on the Gen3, lol

[Ket]

Colour isn't a major difference, and the layout of the E4 G3 is the same as the E4 I would upload a few images, but it keeps telling me "upload failed".

[theDUD3]

@Ket

A new BETA BIOS has just been released but it has a lower version L1.61 than the official 1.70 released last August. My question is, does the new BETA BIOS include the fixes from 1.70?


Thanks a lot for your continuous support.

[GregoryDonner]

Since no-one has replied... it's a very good question--ASRock's beta UEFI numbering system is confusing at best. They have newer dates and newer, unlisted features compared to the last official releases, but older version numbers. Virtually everyone else in the industry uses newer/higher numbers to reflect consistency with newer content, even with betas. I'm not a fan of Dell by any means, but they are at least logical enough to bump their beta BIOS/UEFIs to higher numbers.

So to answer your question, yes--the betas should include the fixes in 1.70, but why ASRock insists on stamping old version numbers on new content (even if it is beta content) is beyond me.

[Ket]

Beta UEFIs, AFAIK, are older than the official releases. Example;

Latest BETA UEFI I know of:

UEFI 1.6E - Adds Intel 11.0.0.1124 Raid Rom

Official UEFI

1.6 - Update RAID ROM

Latest official UEFI:

1.7 - Support XMP 1.3

In other words, UEFI 1.7 has both the updated RAID ROM and XMP 1.3 support, but 1.6E only has the updated RAID ROM.

[SabreWulf69]

Hellooo there... Mr. Ket , if you would be so kind as to give me some help here --> http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...Extreme4-2600K it would be so ever greatly appreciated :-)

[Ket]

Don't panic people I'm aware of the megaupload issue. Links will be up again when I've finished rebuilding all my archives >.<

[Ket]

All links are now live again.

[SabreWulf69]

Sweet, DL'ing now

[Ket]

Let me know how your OC adventures go