Asrock Z77 Extreme4 Issues

[Snaketank]

Hi!

I've built 3 computers in the last year and the first 2 went quite smoothly. Both used very similar parts with only the odd change (e.g., motherboard).

The third computer also had very similar parts. More specifically:
CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws 2X4GB DDR3-1600
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 EXTREME4
Power Supply: Corsair Professional HX750W
Cooler: COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus
Graphics Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 570 HD (Fermi) 1280MB
Optical Drive: ASUS 24X DVD Burner
Case: Zalman Z9 Plus
And a hard drive from a couple years ago.

However, this third computer runs a lot slower than the first two computers, even though they all had the same CPU, RAM, cooler, and nearly identical power supply.

Not only does it run slower, but when playing games, it's slow at times and stutters (as it's not fully fluid at times). However, it has a better graphics card than my computer (I have a EVGA GTX 560 Ti).

I feel bad as I made this computer for my brother and it's not performing at the level it should be!

I have even swapped out his graphics card into my computer, and it ran smoothly. And I put my graphics card into his computer, and it ran laggy just as before. So I would rule out the graphics card.

I have a feeling it may be some problem with the motherboard.

Any ideas? Thanks for any help!

 

[Gryz]

Download CPU-Z, GPU-Z and HWMonitor.
Those 3 utilities will allow you to see actual clockspeeds of your CPU and GPU. And temperatures. If stuff gets too hot, the hardware automatically downclocks and performance will drop. You can see if you get 16xPCIE in stead of 1x PCIE, etc. BIOS version, fanspeed. Lots of things to look at.

I am sure others have other utilities they prefer. But I like these 3.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

 

[SilthDraeth]

Basically the same system I have, as in, same motherboard, processor, and RAM, though I have the 1866 rpisaws, but using a 560ti. I have only been playing World of Tanks on it, and even though my temps are fine, occasionaly, in Tanks, when I log into a clan war battle, the game will stutter really bad.

Running Windows 7.

I am not trying to thread hijack, but I will be keeping a close eye on this forum. As the z77 extreme4 also has USB issues that may end up causing me to replace the motherboard sometime soon.

 

[john3850]

Op said { And a hard drive from a couple years ago}.
Did you do a clean install of win 7-64 or check that drive speed.
Check windows properties or taskmgr to see if what your memory amount is.
Nobody can help you without some feed back.

Had a virsa on a early win 7 setup which caused the vaildation to come up bad.
Now windows in turn reset the memory in msconfig to 512 or 1024 which made the pc barely usable.
I reset the memory and reactivated windows.

 

[tweakboy]

Basically the same system I have, as in, same motherboard, processor, and RAM, though I have the 1866 rpisaws, but using a 560ti. I have only been playing World of Tanks on it, and even though my temps are fine, occasionaly, in Tanks, when I log into a clan war battle, the game will stutter really bad.

Running Windows 7.

I am not trying to thread hijack, but I will be keeping a close eye on this forum. As the z77 extreme4 also has USB issues that may end up causing me to replace the motherboard sometime soon.

I would think a BIOS flash would fix things for you possibly.

 

[BrightCandle]

I had a similar problem with my Asus P9X79. I don't know what caused it, I was never sure for a long time if the board was faulty or if it was by design. What I found was in the final days the motherboard finally showed severe problems and the DPC latency was reported as > 10000 most of the time. It should be around 70. So check that, it might show you have a problem and then you can go about asking the question which driver is the problem.

Its a concern for me however that your ASrock has the issue as I have an extreme9 as a replacement for my X79 Pro and I was kind of swapped to avoid problems, not good news to hear the same problem exists on Asrock as well.

 

[manko]

As the z77 extreme4 also has USB issues that may end up causing me to replace the motherboard sometime soon.

What kind of issues? I've had problems with this board and Windows 7 locking up (freezing with no error message requiring a hard power down) when USB devices (ipad and external USB HD) are connected.

EDIT: I found a suggestion to disable the "USB 3.0 Legacy support" option in the BIOS. I'm going to give that a try.

 

[SilthDraeth]

What kind of issues? I've had problems with this board and Windows 7 locking up (freezing with no error message requiring a hard power down) when USB devices (ipad and external USB HD) are connected.

EDIT: I found a suggestion to disable the "USB 3.0 Legacy support" option in the BIOS. I'm going to give that a try.

Well, the USB 3.0 wouldn't activate when rebooting my pc, or turning it on, so I would have to unplug my external drive from power, and from the pc, and return it back on, then replug it in.

Sometimes I would have to move it from the intel to the asmedia, or back again.

Sometimes they just won't work at all, and I have to reboot.

Basically at the point that I pulled the hard drive out of the enclosure and put it in the PC, but now I have a corrupted boot sector and I have to fix it again.

Started driving me batty.

But back on topic, I think my issues with Tanks stuttering has to do with network lag, as the game is trying to load player stats into the window, and nothing to do with the system itself.

 

[manko]

Well, the USB 3.0 wouldn't activate when rebooting my pc, or turning it on, so I would have to unplug my external drive from power, and from the pc, and return it back on, then replug it in.

Ah, I see. I guess the USB on this board has all sorts of issues.