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

[Church]

videogamer323: yes, if you can, please do. No need to remove everything from plate of course. I'm guessing that it should be enough if heatsink mount holes/coolable mosfets/nearby elements can be clearly seen and to take pic at straight angle from side for Eddy or Niko to further deal with compatibility check. After all, heatsinkless pic part then can probably be easily photoshopped onto pic from vendor with heatsinks on.

[jadeskye]

Hey guys! i recently bought my extreme 4 and it's truely excellent, one of the best boards i've ever had.

However i have a small problem, i'm unable to create a RAID 0 array with my two ssds.

I've tried setting SATA to RAID and pressing ctrl + i on post but the system just boots as per normal.

Anyone have any advice?

[reaver_shado]

Hey guys! i recently bought my extreme 4 and it's truely excellent, one of the best boards i've ever had.

However i have a small problem, i'm unable to create a RAID 0 array with my two ssds.

I've tried setting SATA to RAID and pressing ctrl + i on post but the system just boots as per normal.

Anyone have any advice?

What is your Bios Version? if there's a newer one i would update and try again. Also please provides so Computer Specs, so we can better help

[reaver_shado]

Plz tell me what the exact message is so that I may help you if I can.
A long shot: Tried to disable intel internal gfx from the bios?

I've pulled the second 6970 and two of my problems are gone. No freezes during boot, and NO crashes after resume from sleep. SO it feels like a problem with BIOS-NF200

Any ideas on how i could fix is? or do i have to wait for a BIOS update from ASROCK with crossfire

[vulture_g7]

I don't think there's something you can do about it since it seems like an issue which can only be resolved by BIOS.

EDIT: just a thought, are you absolutely certain your PSU can handle all the load? I suppose you are, just checking.

I've pulled the second 6970 and two of my problems are gone. No freezes during boot, and NO crashes after resume from sleep. SO it feels like a problem with BIOS-NF200

Any ideas on how i could fix is? or do i have to wait for a BIOS update from ASROCK with crossfire

[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]

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 live again.

[Ket]

Has anybody tried the L1.15A UEFI for the E4G3? What about L1.34 for the E7G3? What have your experiences been with those UEFIs?

[apatch]

I'm using L1.15A with E4G3 for 2 weeks without any problems but I made myself a modified version, let's called it L A1.15 with added newest Intel OROM 11.0.0.1339 .
You can find instruction here how to do it , translated from Italian (fourth post). I tried also to add newest Intel MEI firmware 7.1.20.1119 and latest Marvell OROM but so far it's impossible with this mainboard.

You can find a lot of usefull things in this topic, but keep in mind that links in translated version will not work.

[Ket]

While I can't hoast anything (well, I could but it wouldn't look too good on my part) along the lines of a modified UEFI, feel free to upload and post links in this thread to any modified UEFI you do I'm sure a lot of people would appreciated a UEFI with updated Intel O-ROM, MEI and Marvell O-ROM.

[apatch]

Ok here's my modified UEFI for Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 L A1.15 , it's just L1.15A with Intel OROM 11.0.0.1339, use it on your own risk or just make it yourself if you know what you're doing
Like I said before you can try to update Intel MEI firmware, it even will work to some point




but after first hardware restart and upgrade UEFI, some internal mechanism takes place which reverts Intel MEI to old version. I assume that it somehow reverts changes in case something goes wrong with UEFI/firmware, not a bad solution but in this case it's pain in the ass. It works with some Intel and Asus boards.

In fact this recovery mechanism sometimes seems to work when you do something wrong like not settling PCI/PCI-E cards right in the slots.



Marvell OROM is another story, this firmware is made for stand alone PCI-E Marvell Raid controllers and seems to work with few mainboards with onboard Marvell controllers :
-Gigabyte X58A-UD3R (88SE9128)
-Asus P8Z68 Deluxe (88SE9130)
-Gigabyte Z68XP-UD4

There's also some new UEFI (with driver) for Broadcom NetLink Gigabit Ethernet Lan card but it's beyond my point of understanding how to flash it or include to Asrock UEFI.
And here is always some new beta software for this boards.

[Ket]

I would be skeptical about some of that software on station-drivers. If its not on the official website of that manufacturer theres a good chance its just a modded driver from the manufacturer and theres a good chance the modded driver is older than the driver available from the OEM site. As for the MEI issue, I'm pretty sure there is a backup version in the UEFI. You will need to update the backup MEI as well as the "primary" MEI.

[zoomee]

Has anybody tried the L1.15A UEFI for the E4G3? What about L1.34 for the E7G3? What have your experiences been with those UEFIs?

Been using 1.15A for a couple of weeks until last week when i got a major bsod running @4.8. Machine_check_exception which severly corrupted the program running at the time. Dropped my oc back down to 4.6 and its been fine since a bios reset

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

[Gilvin]

Greetings from Taiwan, and apologize first for my poor english.

Recently I've bought an Asrock Z68 E4G3, nice design.

In fact the last platform I've been dealing with is Intel 775, so still don't have any clue how to build a stable OCed 1155 platform.

As below is my HW spec:

i7 2600K (100 x 47)
GSkill F3-12800CL9Q-16GBXL (4GB x 4 @ 1600MHz 1.50v w/ XMP1.2 profile)
MSI 560Ti

Board config under 4.7G:
EIST enabled (250/250/160), CPU PLL overVoltage enabled, Spread-Spectrum disabled.
C1E enabled, C3/C6 disabled, C-State enabled, Thermal Throttle disabled
VCore Offset +0.15, LLC level3, DRAM 1.500v, CPU PLL 1.709v

I've done some research about the features of SNB, and some OC how-tos.

The major issue is, with Linx, IBT, HyperPi 32M, CPU under load voltage is about 1.360v, temp. is fine, and no prob after 20 loops.

But when i tried to do something low loading, such as watching youtube or just surveying material with web browsers, the system will freeze randomly, i don't know how to describe it, it just like someone kicks in and out and sucks all my CPU resources.

but it is not like BSOD 0x124 or 0x101, the system could still works, but the mouse and everything will be laggy as hell, i've recorded the symptoms as the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwQ3FhmzQ7A

And also it could happens when i tried to do a memory test under Ubuntu LiveCD or pure DOS memtest86 v4.20, when 20~25% a "unexpected interrupt halt" error msg will be shown and the whole program will crash. (But in 4.6GHz it will be no problem)

From my point of view, the voltage i gave to the CPU is enough for it to do stress test under load and to prevent low loading BSOD, but something is still needed to be fine-tuned.
I am dying right now and dunno what to do next...

[Ket]

Increase your limits all to 250, set LLC to level 1 (level 1 is less aggressive than it was on the P67), set BCLK to 100.1, leave IGPU voltage at auto, increase CPU PLL to 1.857v, increase VTT to 1.155v, increasing VCCSA to 1v might help as well. You should now be good to go. If that fails, CPU might need more voltage or your CPU simply just isn't fully stable @ 4.7GHz, so back off the OC a bit.

[Gilvin]

thanks, i'll give it a try.

Does LLC level1 result a higher CPU temperature?

[Ket]

It might result in slightly higher temps, but it provides the most stable voltage (least vdrop).

[Gilvin]

after using your config, worked smooth and nice, but now i got a 0x0000001E BSOD when low loading (youtube or just browsing), it happens about 2 times a week.

now i'm using 1.400v @ 4.7G; 1.018v @ 1.6G, i don't think there is a margin for me to increase anymore..

[Ket]

You are probably just pushing the CPU too far. Only magic can fix that. I don't own any pixie dust

[Gilvin]

I still got the freezing problem @ 4.5GHz, and every time it lags the mouse & keyboard (mouse freeze , kb freeze, num lock / caps lock no response)

so it is not a OC problem anymore.

i'm wondering.... what if its root cause is the Etron USB3 driver?

i'll keep tracing it and will feed back as soon as i've got the result

[anzial]

I would be skeptical about some of that software on station-drivers. If its not on the official website of that manufacturer theres a good chance its just a modded driver from the manufacturer and theres a good chance the modded driver is older than the driver available from the OEM site.

Funny. You advise not to use stationdrivers and yet you yourself post links to that very site

Just be sure to download the latest Etron driver (clicky) and you should be good to go.

BTW, do you mind switching to mediafire to host the files? Rapidshare is utter crap for free downloaders now, only 30k/s AND no resume So it would take about an hour to download your driver package from the first post - and if it get's interrupted for any reason, you have to start all over again... Basically, Rapidshare is pretty much as dead as megaupload as far as I'm concerned

[OfficerDibble]

Flashed to 1.15a and now my mouse won't work in the UEFI at all, it was 'inverted' before the flash ie up= left, down=right, vice versa

any ideas what is or I might be doing wrong?

[vulture_g7]

I don't think there's anything you can do until ASrock fixes this. Could you contact them with info of your mouse model so that they may fix it on a later bios?

Flashed to 1.15a and now my mouse won't work in the UEFI at all, it was 'inverted' before the flash ie up= left, down=right, vice versa

any ideas what is or I might be doing wrong?

[OfficerDibble]

Hopefully Ket knows something about this issue and can suggest a fix (unless I'm the first) but FYI I'm using a Razer Lachesis 4000 DPI

I have a Mionix Naos too, I'll give that a try and report back