Asrock Z87 Pro4 Is it dying ??

[Owen K]

I have an Asrock Z87 pro4 board with an i5 4670 cpu , 2x4gb corsair DDR3 and a Geforce GTX 1060 3gb running Win10 64bit on a Kingston 120gb SSD with storage on 2 x WDC 500gb drives.
For the first year or so the system worked perfectly . For the last two years I have been unable to use 2 of the sata slots. Devices plugged into these slots do not work or even show up in the system. For the last 6 months or so the computer often gives the 3 beep signal at startup indicating bad ram . I have swapped in other ram from a known good computer. I have used one ram stick at a time in each of the different slots and still get the same 3 beeps randomly at startup. It goes on to load perfectly and run faultlessly after it does the beeps with no delay or restart.
In the last month I have had problems with the bios appearing to change itself. The boot disk changes to the storage WDC and will not start. If I go into bios and change it to the SSD with the OS on it , it will load properly. After a day or two it changes back again. It has now lost another sata slot so I'm down to 3 and I'm using all of them and have no spare for the DVD burner. At the same time as the latest sata slot stopped working I started getting the 3 beep signal repeated twice before it would start.
I have run the system with the PCIE card out and using the onboard video with exactly the same results.
I suspect the motherboard is dying but I cannot get a new socket 1150 board to replace the one I have and it is running beautifully apart from these issues.
I have tried to flash the bios but have not been able to get the Instant Flash program to work and the windows procedure tells me it can not work with my system. Is it possible to get a preprogrammed bios chip and install it myself .,They are advertised on Ebay, are they any good ?? Do you think bios could be the problem or is the board just dying ??
Many thanks Owen
I have also changed the onboard battery with no effect.

 

[VirtualLarry]

First, I would say, do a CMOS clear, and replace the onboard CMOS battery (little round black socket for coin-cell batteries, CR2032), but you say you did that.

It could just be the board dying, then.

Edit: PM me if you have HeatWare, I might have a solution for you, for a fee.

 

[Owen K]

First, I would say, do a CMOS clear, and replace the onboard CMOS battery (little round black socket for coin-cell batteries, CR2032), but you say you did that.

It could just be the board dying, then.

Edit: PM me if you have HeatWare, I might have a solution for you, for a fee.

Thanks for the reply
Last week I replaced the CMOS battery and also reset to factory defaults in bios, no change in the problem.
No HeatWare but I'm sure I can sort that out if it gives me a solution.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm just saying, I've got a couple of BNIB MSI PC Mate Z97 boards kicking around that I'd like to liquidate.

 

[Owen K]

I'm just saying, I've got a couple of BNIB MSI PC Mate Z97 boards kicking around that I'd like to liquidate.

At the moment I'm trying to keep the setup I've got because apart from the issues it is perfect.
If I can't sort it out then one of your boards sounds like the next best thing.

 

[Owen K]

At the moment I'm trying to keep the setup I've got because apart from the issues it is perfect.
If I can't sort it out then one of your boards sounds like the next best thing.

By the way I'm in Australia. Would postage be too expensive??

 

[DAPUNISHER]

One of my systems has a MSI G45 GAMING with 2 dead ram slots, dead LAN, and a restart bug that flashing the bios did not resolve. In order to flash the bios make certain the flash drive is plugged in to a primary USB port on the board itself, the expansion USB on the case will not work. At least that was my experience with it.

On that note: PM sent on one of those boards Larry

 

[VirtualLarry]

By the way I'm in Australia. Would postage be too expensive??

I'm afraid it would be too expensive to ship to .au . Sorry about that.

 

[Owen K]

One of my systems has a MSI G45 GAMING with 2 dead ram slots, dead LAN, and a restart bug that flashing the bios did not resolve. In order to flash the bios make certain the flash drive is plugged in to a primary USB port on the board itself, the expansion USB on the case will not work. At least that was my experience with it.

On that note: PM sent on one of those boards Larry

Hi thanks for the reply. I take it you did try to resolve your issues by flashing the bios ?? No joy though?? I have been using a front panel usb to try to flash it so I'll give it a go using one of the rear usb outlets directly on the board and see if that makes any difference. Has your dodgy system died or is it still working. About the only thing I'm worried about on mine is FSX . I've got all sorts of addons and scenery and it runs brilliantly and I'm not keen to set it up all over again. I just want to keep my system alive as long as I can.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Hi thanks for the reply. I take it you did try to resolve your issues by flashing the bios ?? No joy though?? I have been using a front panel usb to try to flash it so I'll give it a go using one of the rear usb outlets directly on the board and see if that makes any difference. Has your dodgy system died or is it still working. About the only thing I'm worried about on mine is FSX . I've got all sorts of addons and scenery and it runs brilliantly and I'm not keen to set it up all over again. I just want to keep my system alive as long as I can.

I had the same problem, using the front usb and bios flash would not work. Put it in one of the USB 3.0 on the back and it went off smoothly.

And yes. the system still runs great, even overclocked, which I only do when I need the extra oomph for a CPU heavy game. Killer NIC died right when Hurricane Irma hit us last year, it has always went black screen on restart, and can only use 2 ram slots, the other 2 are toast. I went ahead and bought one of Larry's boards, since DDR4 is stupid expensive now, and I have another 16GB of DDR3 laying around I can add when I have working ram slots for them. It has a 4690K, 16GB, M.SATA 128GB boot, 2TB WD Black game folder, and GTX970 in it at the moment, which is plenty for living room gaming and htpc duties. Larry's board will see to it that this system lives on. No M.SATA on that model, but I have several 2.5 SSDs I can use as boot drives.

 

[Owen K]

I had the same problem, using the front usb and bios flash would not work. Put it in one of the USB 3.0 on the back and it went off smoothly.

And yes. the system still runs great, even overclocked, which I only do when I need the extra oomph for a CPU heavy game. Killer NIC died right when Hurricane Irma hit us last year, it has always went black screen on restart, and can only use 2 ram slots, the other 2 are toast. I went ahead and bought one of Larry's boards, since DDR4 is stupid expensive now, and I have another 16GB of DDR3 laying around I can add when I have working ram slots for them. It has a 4690K, 16GB, M.SATA 128GB boot, 2TB WD Black game folder, and GTX970 in it at the moment, which is plenty for living room gaming and htpc duties. Larry's board will see to it that this system lives on. No M.SATA on that model, but I have several 2.5 SSDs I can use as boot drives.

It's good to hear that your system is still going strong. It gives me hope that mine will live on. When my system is running it runs perfectly , it only plays up on startup and the fact that the sata slots are dying. Ive ordered a new bios chip and I'm wondering if I should swap it in or wait for further failures before I try it.

 

[Owen K]

It's good to hear that your system is still going strong. It gives me hope that mine will live on. When my system is running it runs perfectly , it only plays up on startup and the fact that the sata slots are dying. Ive ordered a new bios chip and I'm wondering if I should swap it in or wait for further failures before I try it.

As a matter of interest , my system finally stopped working today. It would not start and would simply keep beeping .
I replaced the bios chip with one I bought months ago and now the system is like new.
It no longer beeps on startup and everything is running as it should.
Owen

 

[LTC8K6]

Thanks for the update, glad to hear you got it fixed.

 

[vailr]

As a matter of interest , my system finally stopped working today. It would not start and would simply keep beeping .
I replaced the bios chip with one I bought months ago and now the system is like new.
It no longer beeps on startup and everything is running as it should.
Owen

Sounds like there could be an electric supply problem.
Might want to consider using a UPS: one that produces "pure sine wave".
Do you often get surges, brown outs or momentary power losses?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Sounds like there could be an electric supply problem.
Might want to consider using a UPS: one that produces "pure sine wave".
Do you often get surges, brown outs or momentary power losses?

Something he should look into.

But I'm glad to see he fixed it.