Wrong chipset fitted to ASUS P8Z77-V LX? - Page 2

bankster55 · 01-01-2013, 10:21 PM

If CPUID 1.62 says H67, then thats what the SB is. (v 1.61 had a few bugs)
I have 5 dif ASUS Z77 on my desk at the moment and they all say Z77 Southbridge - of course.

Easy to find out - 2 phillips screws, or just push pins on backside of mobo to remove SouthBridge heatsink

BTW the Z77 is not a chipset, its a southbridge only with no northbridge

Pegatron has completely severed its relationship with ASUS as of Sept. 2012 for both OEM products and motherboards, and I have been wondering if we would be running into situations like this. There have been some reports already about mobo out of the box with bent socket pins from very experienced builders. I hope this isnt a trend.

ASUS doesnt manufacture its own mobo.
Has been with Pegatron for 9 years
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/sh...hlight=Asustek

As of Sept. 2012 ASUS mobo are no longer made in Pegatron factory.

http://www.techpowerup.com/164412/AS...-Pegatron.html
(see comments about ECS QC)

ASUS to buy ASRock???
http://semiaccurate.com/2012/09/28/a...s-an-offer-to-
http://www.overclock.net/t/1310750/s...-to-buy-asrock

Ultimatum by Apple to Pegatron:
http://www.macworld.co.uk/apple-business/news/?newsid=3336950

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/23694/end_of_times_asus_to_completely_end_odm_production _of_motherboards_by_pegatron/index.html

With the intro of Haswell, when all mobo "features" can be placed on die, mobo brands will mean little any more - if not at first, then rather quickly after.

Haswell effect (registered only for article)
"Intel Haswell processor design may cause motherboard players to exit market" (Sep 27)
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120926PD228.html

512atx · 01-01-2013, 11:28 PM

wow. thanks, bankster55. I'm hesitant to pop off the heatsink until i hear back from iBuyPower and get the RMA going. let them confirm it, i suppose. hopefully they understand the situation and stand by their sale with good customer service! amazing situation. lucky me

Bman123 · 01-02-2013, 03:13 AM

Wow this is crazy, never would I of thought about this happening

Pneumothorax · 01-02-2013, 09:13 AM

Wow. This is nasty. I really doubt OP's mobo is a one-off mistake. There's potential for hundreds if not thousands with this issue and just don't know it, yet.

dave_the_nerd · 01-02-2013, 09:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pneumothorax

Wow. This is nasty. I really doubt OP's mobo is a one-off mistake. There's potential for hundreds if not thousands with this issue and just don't know it, yet.

And 99.9% of them will never notice, either. *emo*

ShintaiDK · 01-02-2013, 09:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pneumothorax

Wow. This is nasty. I really doubt OP's mobo is a one-off mistake. There's potential for hundreds if not thousands with this issue and just don't know it, yet.

Lacked drama?

512atx · 01-02-2013, 12:00 PM

Well, no real fuss from iBuyPower this morning when I called about this issue. They didn't seem too surprised by my claim of the wrong chip on the board, but the tech wasn't sure how prevalent the problem was.
They'll swap out the board and check the new one prior to returning it. Even paying for return shipping. Stinks I'll be without a rig for a couple weeks, though.

Thanks again for your help folks. Top notch!

VirtualLarry · 01-02-2013, 06:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pneumothorax

Wow. This is nasty. I really doubt OP's mobo is a one-off mistake. There's potential for hundreds if not thousands with this issue and just don't know it, yet.

It made me wonder if this was a special, "low-cost" production run, using a cheaper chipset for a newer (but still budget) motherboard, for specific customers to build OEM systems with (therefore they could control the component selection).

512atx · 01-02-2013, 07:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VirtualLarry

It made me wonder if this was a special, "low-cost" production run

One would hope they'd advertise that fact if it's the case. Not sure if there's any legal obligation to do so. Obviously it's disappointing when the specs list one chip, but then you get another!

bankster55 · 01-02-2013, 08:05 PM

I called ibuypower - they have an 888 number
But after 30 min I gave up

I initially suspected hanky panky - but they have a very good resellerrating. (However the first comment currently listed said "dont deal with them, they are poison" and said all the 5 star ratings are fake posts! Dunno anything bout that).

It also makes no sense to go to all that trouble for a few bucks.

For ASUS the bios has 3 mobo I.D's and one unique MAC address for the Intel GBe. Realtek MAC are on the LAN chip.
The mobo ID's are locked and stick during flashing, unless you do an erase and program (GBe has own section, but are also lost during all sector flash)

The Intel chipset utility is the DETECTOR utility that tells Win 7 all the system devices relevent to your mobo for device manager enumeration. If as you say you used the 9.3 X utility (latest) and it said C200 devices then you indeed had an H67 (or related) Southbridge. I see no way to get around that.

Spoofing the mobo model is easy by inputting other mobo ID's into bios for subsequent flash. CodeRush's Intel FD44 Editor is perfect for that. He created it to add back lost mobo IDs and MAC addresses after a (total) reflash previous attempt. In other words you can program or wipe and program.
http://forums.overclockers.ru/viewto...76728#p9776728

Once again, this all makes no sense whatsoever.
Welcome to the Twilight Zone.
Just hope they didnt load wrong chipset stack for feed bin for mobo machine
**sigh**

Zap · 01-02-2013, 08:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 512atx

I'm hesitant to pop off the heatsink

You shouldn't pop it off. Don't give them any reason to deny warranty.

The motherboard should have the model information printed on it. Take the side panel off the computer and see what the motherboard says. It will probably be just below the top PCIe x16 slot, so you may have to remove your graphics card. See the image below, where it clearly states P8Z77-V LX below the blue PCIe x16 slot.

source of image

Windows can report wrong information if older (or stock Microsoft) drivers are installed. Some software that claims to "read" that information just parrots what the drivers tell it. Also, if the somehow the wrong BIOS was flashed to it...

512atx · 01-02-2013, 10:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zap

You shouldn't pop it off. Don't give them any reason to deny warranty.

The motherboard should have the model information printed on it.

Yeah, i'm not going to mess with the heatsink on the southbridge. I did have a look behind the video card, though (pics below). Definitely a P8Z77 board.

http://imgur.com/j3sAA
http://imgur.com/2NCWM (sorry, couldn't keep username and mobo both focused)

512atx · 01-02-2013, 10:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bankster55

I called ibuypower - they have an 888 number
But after 30 min I gave up

took me about that long to get from fourth in the queue and speak to a rep (i called just before 9 a.m. (PST)). The conversation was fairly painless from there. While i did get an RMA number, I'm still awaiting the shipping label they promised as of this posting.

bankster55 · 01-03-2013, 04:39 AM

Since you are not going to remove the heatsink to see exactly what Southbridge is soldered to the obviously Z77 motherboard, further comment on my part about this situation is now pointless.

CPU-Z 1.62 says you have an H67 Southbridge, as does the Intel chipset utility (C200), so if I had to bet, I would say it was indeed a mistake of some sort. Obviously you dont want to ruin your RMA and i can appreciate that. If you had a pic of the wrong Southbridge on an ASUS mobo, as I am a mod on the ASUS VIP site, I would bring it up to Admin. HHC for input from ASUS themselves.

Hope things work out better in 2013 - heh.

Block diagram

Edit:
Cougar Point
P67 SLJ4C (B3)
H67 SLJ49 (B3)
Z68 SLJ4F (B3)

Panther Point
Z75 SLJ87 (C1)
Z77 SLJC7 (C1)

ViRGE · 01-03-2013, 07:01 AM

You sir may just be the unluckiest person here for the year so far. I'm flabbergasted that Asus could screw up like this, but I'm glad to hear that iBuypower isn't giving you any grief about taking care of it. And good catch; I don't think I would have ever thought to verify the chipset.

cantholdanymore · 01-03-2013, 08:02 AM

Did you pack the PC yet? You can give the TurboV a go as see if it actually overclocks the CPU :-)
Since your RMA is approved you could also try to flash to the latest bios from ASUS and see what happens.

512atx · 01-03-2013, 07:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cantholdanymore

Did you pack the PC yet?

Haven't packed it yet. Also haven't received shipping label/email from iBuyPower, yet.

bankster55 · 01-03-2013, 08:55 PM

Bit curious -
What are first 3 ser #'s letters at top of box label?
For example -
CAM = 2012/Oct/Motherboard
B6M = 2011/Jun/Motherboard
C = 2012 B = 2011 A=2010
C=Dec B=Nov A=Oct

512atx · 01-03-2013, 10:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bankster55

What are first 3 ser #'s letters at top of box label?

I don't have the box as iBuyPower put the pieces together. According to SiSoftware Sandra, the first 3 characters of the Mainboard Serial # are MT7.

bankster55 · 01-04-2013, 01:22 AM

No thats not it
If you dont have box, it will be on top SIDE of PCI (or PCIe) slot as a sticker (at bottom)

dawp · 01-04-2013, 07:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bankster55

No thats not it
If you dont have box, it will be on top SIDE of PCI (or PCIe) slot as a sticker (at bottom)

asus puts the SN label on the power jack, it may be easier to see than the bottom slot depending on case. at least that's where it was on several boards when I looked a pics on newegg.

512atx · 01-04-2013, 07:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bankster55

top SIDE of PCI (or PCIe) slot as a sticker (at bottom)

bankster55, please have a look at this pic http://imgur.com/j3sAA and you can see the sticker over on the edge of the board by the southbridge heatsink. The SN itself starts with 0240**** but you can see a place for three characters prior to the 0240**** There are only three "O" characters where it looks like the designation you mentioned should be. This is the only sticker on the board. Cross reference this with the Sandra output, Sandra lists the SN as MT70240*****

over by the battery, there's also an alphanumeric string of sorts, but that's printed on the board and it looks like an extended model number or something.

bankster55 · 01-04-2013, 11:35 AM

My last attempt here:
There is a white sticker on the SIDE WALL of the (usually) uppermost PCI light blue slot. You will have to pull vidcard to see it. I assumed your mobo was already out of case waiting to be packed for ship. You cant see it from looking down like your camera angle.

512atx · 01-04-2013, 05:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bankster55

There is a white sticker on the SIDE WALL of the (usually) uppermost PCI light blue slot. You will have to pull vidcard to see it.

Got it. First three characters are C4M.

bankster55 · 01-04-2013, 06:12 PM

Good. Thats all i wanted to know
April 2012
Which means Pegatron still made your mobo
So that leaves out that issue
I am stumped - how can this happen?
Factory rejects?
iBuyer crossflashed bios somehow?

If you are still hooked up maybe you can make a screenshot of the device manager/system devices exactly like this: