Legacy PCI-e Devices Won't Boot in Asus Sabertooth Z77

[Wardrop]

I got this motherboard a few months ago, and remember having to set something in the UEFI interface for legacy non-uefi PCI-e devices to work (something like "force BIOS" or "UEFI + BIOS"). Anyway, I decided to update the BIOS as it's meant to come with improved support for Windows 8.

After literally hours tearing apart my computer trying to get at the CMOS battery in to clear the CMOS (which is of course behind the stupid thermal armor which I've now tossed in the bin), I determined that my PC wouldn't boot after the BIOS update because of these legacy PCI-e devices I have; the TV Tuner would prevent the motherboard POSTing, while my SATA Controller just wouldn't show up. Taking them out, it works. But now I want to know how I can get these devices to work. What option or combination of options should I be looking for. I assume there'd be a few ASUS users on here who may be able to help.

Forget trying to get support from ASUS's website. The contact form wants the serial number of every device in my computer, and the forum is so old and buggy I can't even register. I'll roll back the BIOS if Anandtech can't help me.

Thanks

 

[Dkcode]

Can you return the board? The P8Z77 WS would be more suited to your needs.

 

[GotNoRice]

Do you have the 3rd long PCIe slot configured for 4x?

On some boards, bringing the 3rd slot bandwidth up turns off other PCIe slots and even integrated devices that are on the PCIe bus. Probably a long shot, but you might try setting that 3rd slot to 1x and see if that helps at all.

 

[bankster55]

any tv tuner card wrecks Z77 mobo with later bios
they know about it and next bios will (should) fix it
Apparently they couldnt test many TV cards because they are generally not avail in Taiwan

The bios options to enable legacy bios only, UEFI GPT boot only or both allows you to have the bios ignore GPT or MSDOS MBR devices during boot, or allow both

 

[Wardrop]

After many more hours of troubleshooting which includes taking everything out of the case and putting it on the bench, and flashing the BIOS to about every new and old version:

* TV Tuner won't boot no matter which slot it's in (bankster might be right on this one)
* PCIEX16_2 seems to be completely dead, even though it worked that morning before the BIOS update.
* I can no longer set my CPU multiplier above 35. I've got a 3770K which I was running with a multiplier of 42, but now since all this BIOS chopping and changing, it won't let me set it over it's default multiplier of 35.

I'm going to borrow an i7-2600 from work today to confirm that all these issues are of the motherboard (at least the dead PCI-e slot).

 

[bl00tdi]

I have nothing to add to the discussion directly since my tuner card works fine on my Z77ST but I will suggest just using the jumper to clear CMOS next time.