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

[ckoons1]

so do you recomend the 2.10 bios or another one you prefer?
thx
went from 1.3 to 1.34 seems good
my mouse seems slow to respond. anyone else experience this?

[MoInSTL]

I got to the SB party late but I got some great deals like the i7-2600k for $199 and an incredible deal on the Gen3, Extreme 4 as well. But this thread seems pretty much dead now that folks have moved on to IB.

[vulture_g7]

Late or not , I personally have the 2600k/E4Gen3 Combo and wouldn't trade it for anything else currently on the market (at consumer price levels that is). I say go for it.

[MoInSTL]

Late or not , I personally have the 2600k/E4Gen3 Combo and wouldn't trade it for anything else currently on the market (at consumer price levels that is). I say go for it.

I went for it back in April and quite happy with it.

[tipes]

Ext 7 here, but again very happy - see no reason to change.

[ckoons1]

i have the asrock z68 extreme 7 and am wondering if i need to install all of the drivers listed @ ASROCK.COM for my motherboard?
thx

[vulture_g7]

@ckoons1

I see no reason why not, unless you want something disabled on purpose without a driver installed then yes, I think that's the best thing to do.

[Ket]

so these new bios is for the 3rd gen CPUs?
If I have a i5 2500k I wouldn't have any advantages would I?

I tried a beta UEFI adding Ivy support with a 2500k, OCing improved and the system was much more responsive. Well worth updating the UEFI.

Hi,

For those who have flashed their Z68E4G3 with P2.10, can you tell me if it added support for DDR3-2400?

Thx.

Higher dividers will be available when using a Ivy CPU, Sandy CPUs will have the limits they have always had, up to 2133.

[Ket]

I sincerely apologizes if I've ruffled any feathers in the past.

I'm stuck in a serious corner and i crying out for help!!!

Was having issue with my crossfire, after system resume from sleep, I would get BSOD within an hour (bios 1.3). Landed up removing second card for 3 months just for a stable system. Updated to beta L1.34 and it didn't fix issue. Decided to swap my AMD 6970 crossfire to an Nvidia 580 and 460 (for physx), then system wouldn't POST. system would POST fine with either one nvidia card but not both. This was about 3 weeks ago, with IB coming out i checked and here was a new beta bios L2.04. Put in second GFX and voila POST no problem, went straight into BIOS to reset OC. Unfortunately the bios wouldn't recognize my ram's XMP and even manually wouldn't POST. After some trial and error with timing and voltages i found a stable ram setting, with no CPU OC.

Unfortunately, when i then proceeded to windows I got a windows boot error ( something like 0xc00000e), figured the MBR got screwed up with all the failed posts. Tried to repair MBR but not go. I wipe the drives and tried to reinstall but windows refused, and gave an error, " make sure this drive is bootable in bios" something along those lines.
After some time , i risked downgrading BIOS all the way to 1.0, however even there i had an issue installing windows. I reloaded L2.04 and still same problem. I found that if i disabled or ran intel sata at anything but with a RAID array setup (i.e RAID mode with no array), I was fine. installed windows and tried to setup my array again, but after reboot, same problem. I also get a message after post stating "insert boot media .... press enter" if i just press enter it goes.

I have a feeling that the ME firmware flash the first time i updated to IB L2.04 was a bad flash, but system still runs (just without my Intel RAID). I've only seen my system update ME once even though i've flashed {L2.04 over L2.04, 1.3, 1.1, L2.04} Not sure if this is a general beta issue or my system specific, is there a way to re-flash the ME firmware?

Any other suggestions?

I use Revodrive3 for OS & 4x WD6400AKS RAID 10 vertex 2 50Gb SRT accelerated for programs/storage (the former is currently disabled)

Downgrade to UEFI 1.0 through pure DOS (you'll need a bootable USB stick or similar), restart, then update to the latest UEFI, preferaby through pure DOS but if a pure DOS file isn't available, update via instant update.

[Ket]

Hi All, first post. I called tech support yesterday about the P2.10 BIOS and since I am using SB i7-2600K on Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 they told me to not use it. The new UEFI looks great. They said it was for IB only.

But based on the above, I am willing to do it. Has anyone else using SB tried it?

I don't know why you were told that.. clearly that person didn't know what they were saying. Its perfectly safe to use the latest UEFI with SB CPUs.

[Ket]

Guys after flashing UEFI/BIOS to the new 2.10 i cannot enable my SLI in Nvidia control panel. Already tried a clean instal of windows7 same thing..The cards are OK tested each one of a time,the two cards appear on Windows Device manager.Things were very well before i flash BIOS/UEFI to newer version.
My current hardware:
-intel core i7 2600k
-ASRock Z68 Extreme7 Gen3
-G.Skill kit extreme 3 2 PC12800 Ripjaws X CA X 2 GOS6
-2 EVGA Geforce 680 GTXs SLI
-Coolermaster Real Power Pro 1000w


Any suggestions?

Uninstall NV drivers (running driver sweeper wouldn't hurt either)
Power down
Disconnect the SLi bridge
Boot up, install NV drivers
Power down, reconnect SLi bridge

See if that works.

I am having a problem with my Ex4 Gen3!
Every time I copy something big with a USB device, my PC has a BSOD after about 5 minutes!
I am thinking something to do with the USB drivers? I have tried both USB 2.0 and 3.0 but still the same!

This sounds like a corrupt Windows install and/or corrupt drivers. Run driversweeper to remove intel chipset drivers, go to device manager to remove USB related drivers remembering to check the box that says "delete this driver", restart your PC (you might have to hit the reset button on this occasion as if you are using a USB mouse it'll stop working when you remove the USB drivers), upon restart let Windows reinstall the drivers it can, then download the latest intel chipset drivers and the latest Etron USB driver (1.00.0000.0112).

[MoInSTL]

I don't know why you were told that.. clearly that person didn't know what they were saying. Its perfectly safe to use the latest UEFI with SB CPUs.

I don't know why either. For example, let's say I bought this board last week and went to get the latest BIOS and drivers. Where else is there but http://www.asrock.com/mb/download.as...%20Gen3&o=BIOS

I installed 2.10 a week or so ago. So far, so good. I did notice a couple of changes like VM was on by default.

Edit: Have a link to Etron USB driver (1.00.0000.0112)?

[vulture_g7]

http://www.station-drivers.com/telec...ivers.com).exe

I don't know why either. For example, let's say I bought this board last week and went to get the latest BIOS and drivers. Where else is there but http://www.asrock.com/mb/download.as...%20Gen3&o=BIOS

I installed 2.10 a week or so ago. So far, so good. I did notice a couple of changes like VM was on by default.

Edit: Have a link to Etron USB driver (1.00.0000.0112)?

[MoInSTL]

^Awesome. Thanks.

[anzial]

I'm curious, does the PCIe 3.0 kick in with an Ivy Bridge CPU or not really?

[vulture_g7]

that's a good question, I'd like to know the answer to that as well.

I'm curious, does the PCIe 3.0 kick in with an Ivy Bridge CPU or not really?

[Ket]

PCI-E 3.0 is only available when you install a IB CPU, likewise theres no cause for concern if you have a PCI-E 2.0 graphics card and a IB CPU. For the record, from what I've seen PCI-E 3.0 is only really of any help with a GTX680 or better. Differences aren't significant otherwise, we are talking literally 2-3FPS in most cases.

[anzial]

PCI-E 3.0 is only available when you install a IB CPU, likewise theres no cause for concern if you have a PCI-E 2.0 graphics card and a IB CPU. For the record, from what I've seen PCI-E 3.0 is only really of any help with a GTX680 or better. Differences aren't significant otherwise, we are talking literally 2-3FPS in most cases.

That doesn't really answer my question. What exactly does "available" mean? Does installing Ivy Bridge cpu enable PCIe 3 or not? And for the record, I do have gtx 680s

[Ket]

Umm.. actually it does answer your question. Let me rephrase it; Only IB CPUs have PCI-E 3.0 and are backward compatible with PCI-E 2.0.

[ckoons1]

2.10 bios rock solid

[radier]

Fatal1ty Z68 Professional Gen3 2.20 6/27/2012

1. Add Dehumidifier Function.
2. Modify for Windows8 shut down behavior.
3. Update CPU code.
4. Modify i-Rock PS2 keyboard issue.

Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 2.20 6/27/2012

1. Add Dehumidifier Function.
2. Modify for Windows8 shut down behavior.
3. Update CPU code.
4. Modify i-Rock PS2 keyboard issue.
5. Improve discrete VGA card vBIOS compatibility.

Z68 Extreme7 Gen3 2.30 6/27/2012

1. Add Dehumidifier Function.
2. Modify for Windows8 shut down behavior.
3. Update CPU code.
4. Improve discrete VGA card vBIOS compatibility.

Z68 Pro3 Gen3 2.20 6/27/2012

1. Add Dehumidifier Function.
2. Modify for Windows8 shut down behavior.
3. Update CPU code.
4. Improve discrete VGA card vBIOS compatibility.

http://www.asrock.com/support/download.asp?cat=BIOS

[Avathar77]

what is "Dehumidifier Function" ?

[radier]

It was explained many times. Use google.

http://bit.ly/MTVixf

Taptap - SGS2

[rombat]

Tried the new bios 2.30 for my Extreme 7 gen3 and wow it totally messed up my board, caused my second GTX 680 on pci-e 4 slot to stop working in sli, seems to mess up pci-e 4 slot ... I could not go back to 1.30 so I did everything I could to get the card working I mean everything I know as a computer tech. I was lucky enough to find another user who had the same problem and he asked Asrock for help. They sent him a bios to try out which is ver. 2.22A and guess what this version fixed all my issue with the pci-e 4 slot. Now I got my system up and going again. So Ket I think they might have left out some settings that the 2.22A have that allow sli support on the pci-e 4 slot. So if your system is working fine do not update unless you have to!

[Ket]

Thats where the old saying don't fix what ain't broke comes into play That is... unless you have a "get out plan". Not sure why you couldn't flash back to your older UEFI though, theres always a way to do that.