New motherboard keeps crashing & weird things, CPU bad? (Solved, kind of. Moved on)

[mxnerd]

I really like this ASRock H97M-ITX/ac motherboard and was considering buying it, but it does not have a speaker connector or on-board speaker.

How do I diagnose motherboard problems if anything goes wrong? And how do I hear "beep" sound if some program was designed to signal users with on-board speaker?

like this VB program?

Dim I As Integer
For I = 1 To 100 ' Loop 100 times.
Beep ' Sound a tone.
Next I

will the motherboard or VB program smart enough to use the speaker connected to the audio output, not the speaker on the motherboard? But I really doubt it.

Any guess or personal experience?

 

[svenge]

That is odd that it doesn't have a header for a "beep" speaker, but only for a power light, HDD light, power button, and reset button.

Just to see if ASRock had completely deprecated that header, I took a look at their "H97 Pro 4", and that one does have a speaker header separate from the other traditional front panel headers. My guess is that the lack of space inherent to the ITX form factor along with the low usage rate of said header is behind it not being on that model.

My guess is that there isn't going to be any kind of viable workaround for that missing functionality, sadly.

 

[mxnerd]

The H97 Pro 4 MicroATX motherboard does have speaker connector, but this ITX motherboard is cheaper, has WIFI & bluetooth.

If I can make sure it still will beep after logged into Windows with external speaker on, I can put up with no beep if everything is assembled and working properly while booting.

Found that the audio chip ALC892 has BEEP connector, guess ASROCK will wire this to front/rear speaker jack?

 

[PhIlLy ChEeSe]

Welcome to the new millennium, they save money by not using beeps speaker. Last one i saw was socket 775 boards.

 

[Auric]

The ITX is $6 less after rebate than the mATX -which is about the cost of Wi-Fi/BT yet it has less features and connectivity otherwise, and Qualcomm rather than Intel LAN. So as always, unless really willing to pay more for less, then just go with mATX... or email ASRock for a definitive answer.

 

[mxnerd]

I didn't notice that the LAN chip on ASRock H97M-ITX/ac motherboard is a Qualcomm Atheros chip, which I really don't like.

I'll go with H97M Pro4 then. Thanks.

 

[mxnerd]

WTF? ASROCK H97M Pro4 was still $69 last night, then raised to $79 this morning. Do Newegg employees keep lurking on this anand subforum? Should have placed the order last night.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

On ASUS boards, the position of the speaker "+" and ground wires has been the same for the last ten years, but I would only know for ATX boards. I might feel more comfortable buying an mATX board (and done that, too . . .) than building a system around an ITX.

Of course, now that you call this to my attention, I'll have to think about it some more. Do some investigations. Absorb more info. Take input. Number 5 is A-LI-VVE!

I think the device may no longer be a bundled accessory in a motherboard box: it's called a "piezo" speaker. [Piezo . . . somethin' . . ]

 

[mxnerd]

Just placed the order. Hope to get it in 2 days. This one will replace an ASUS E35M1-M PRO motherboard that's super slow and dying. Not happy with ASUS quality & their service.

Asrock is close by, I can drive in 15 minutes to get there.

Have been used to buy ASROCK motherboard in recent years. One time got a motherboard (don't remember the model) that malfunctioned twice and they gave me new motherboard right away each time.

 

[mxnerd]

Finally got the little H97M Pro4 mothrboard. Thought it will arrive in just 2 days, however Newegg shipped it from New Jersey instead of California.

Anyway, paired the board with $49 Pentium G3258 bought at Micro Center and attached the old drive, etc. and it's up and running, it took a while to re-recognize motherboard components though.

Installed Intel drivers & ASROCK utilities, OC the processor to 4GHz, a 25% jump from 3.2GHz, stock fan and voltage, not a hicuup. The system was silent & super cool.

Tested several 1080P 60fps videos and all ran super smooth. Very happy.

 

[mxnerd]

Spoke too soon, I thought I bought a great board, now it looks like a disaster.

Turned on sleep after 15 minutes and all kind of crashes started.

It blue screened. It beeps 6 times at booting and won't start, several times. Remove OC setting and go back to 3.2Ghz and it's back on. Then it damaged the Windows 7 and even Windows repair doesn't work.

I tried to reinstall Windows 7 and it stuck at setup screen. No keyboard, no mouse. However both works in the BIOS. What the hell is going on?

I don't have any PCI/PCIE adapter in the system.

 

[mxnerd]

I managed to find that the BIOS setting where let you set PS/2 keyboard power on, USB Kyeboard/mouse power on and turn off everything like this

and the motherboard finally recognized keyboard and mouse during WIndows 7 setup and let me complete the installation process. Then I installed drivers from the DVD, etc.

Looks fine and changed power options in control panel to High Performance and let the system stay up overnight, no OC, running nothing.

Woke up this morning and the system again totally crashed and stay at Windows Recovery screen. Tried starting system normally and Windows repair and neither worked.

Never encounter anything like this before. What should I do? Ask an even exchange or return the board and buy another brand/model?

P.S. I already updated BIOS to newest version 1.90 the day I got the board.

 

[mxnerd]

Found a message like this at end of Windows Repair Log

A patch is preventing the system from starting
Repair action:System files integrity check and repair
Result: Failed. Error code = 0xa

What is this? I did do a complete Windows update after Windows 7 & drivers installation. Could it be any new update from Microsoft causing the problem?

 

[mxnerd]

Found that probably the 2:00AM Windows Update destroy the system. See the picture. The update applied some old drivers files back in 2006, 2009, 2013, all Microsoft's.

I finally was able to restore the system back to the state 10:42:56PM last night and logged into WIndows 7 desktop. But I have had it enough.

I'm returning the board, whether it's Microsoft or ASROCK's fault.

 

[Auric]

A quick duckduckgo of beep codes shows 6 times is keyboard controller failure. Is there another keyboard to test with? Or is that part totally solved by the BIOS ACPI config?

To minimize sleep issues, in BIOS try disabling these options: Advanced Chipset > Deep Sleep, Intel Rapid Start, and C7 State if PSU is incompatible, and in Windows disable Hybrid Sleep.

It is generally best to exclude drivers from Windows Update and those on the motherboard DVD could be a year old and better downloaded from ASRock but preferably from each device manufacturer -also avoid all the extra crap and OC at least until sure of stability.

It seems unlikely that current Microsoft HID drivers would be the cause without being more widespread and so rolling those back is probably counter productive.

 

[mxnerd]

The six beeps things happened only twice in a consecutive sequence, I then removed the OC and it never come back. I'm sure Deep Sleep and Intel Rapid Start is off, and I don't know where the C7 State setting is in the BIOS, I'll check later.

The same keyboard could be detected after I turn off all those Power On by keyboard/mouse settings like I said.

I haven't checked whether the motherboard has newer drivers since I'm already exhausted dealing with the startup failure and the reinstallaion.

The first time I used my 2.5" HDD to attach to the new motherboard and let system detect components and install drivers. It went through and I did a Windows update, let it run overnight, the 2nd day morning it destroy the Windows system.

2nd time I then created another partition and reinstall Windows 7, overnight, same thing.

3rd time I use a SSD, same thing yet again! All 3 times the startup went into a endless loop and destroyed the system and stay at WIndows Recovery screen.

I would like to keep the board, but either Microsoft screwed up, or ASROCK screwed up.

Don't know if it's caused by this Microsoft KB3033929 update or other stuff, but I don't want to take chances.

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/03/ms-update-3033929-causing-reboot-loop/

 

[mxnerd]

I'll do it one more time. Different RAM and different PSU. Hope it works. If not, this board is going back.

 

[Auric]

Any new build (or new RAM) should run memtest86 before bothering with an OS. Also, try clearing CMOS and carefully setting up BIOS again. If starting with at least SP1 and required chipset driver then see how it goes before running Windows Update. I have KB3033929 installed on at least two systems without issue. If any crashes then check Event Viewer and diagnose dumps with BlueScreenView.

 

[mxnerd]

There was no blue screen this time so NirSoft's BlueScreenView couldn't find any blue screen events.

But I finally found the culprit!

It's not RAM ( I ran free PassMark MemTest86 V6.01 for six hours and no error at all)
it's not power supply, it's not Intel drivers and it's not ASROCK , it's not BIOS setting,
and it's not 99% of Windows Update and not KB3033929 update.

It's optional Windows Update "KB3064209 - June 2015 microcode update for Intel processors in Windows" that caused problem.

which claimed

"This update improves the reliability of systems that use certain Intel processors. This update also fixes some issues that could cause the operating system to function incorrectly."

This update was just released a few days ago, however it actually makes the system unable to boot and I had to use System Restore.

And I found that several users had same experience as me.

Recent Windows Update KB3064209 causes Windows 7 to not boot
http://www.sevenforums.com/windows-...date-kb3064209-causes-windows-7-not-boot.html


I hope I found this post earlier, because I tried to install drivers one by one and Windows Update patches block by block (10 patches at one time, about 200 of them!) at one time until I almost finished all optional updates, about 12 left. Then I saw this Windows Update entry and it's related info.

Googled and found above post. I immediately applied this update and restarted the system. Bang! System wouldn't boot into Windows. Used System Recovery and it's back to business.

So, do not apply KB3064209 unless absolutely necessary!

By the way, the keyboard thing probably was caused by USB compability, I adjusted BIOS setting and it's fine now, not those keyboard/mouse power on things.

This board stays.

Thanks!

 

[Auric]

Glad you got it sorted. Now image it so Windows System Restore is not the only option.

I have been avoiding most optional updates recently but did apply KB3064209. It would be interesting/useful to find out which CPU are affected by the boot issue and indeed more specific info on the issues the update fixes.

 

[mxnerd]

Ran Prime95 for 10 hours and no issue, will avoid most optional updates in the future.

I'll do a system backup/image later.

Best,

 

[mxnerd]

Well, thought I finally solved the issue.

This morning the mouse & keyboard starts to act funky. When I looked at the event viewer, there were a lot of Kernel-Event Tracing error related to USB and some Kernel PnP errors whenever I restarted the system.

So I think maybe removing USB 3.0 driver (not 2.0) and let the system re-detect USB devices, but after I restart the system, neither BIOS or Windows can detect keyboard/mouse anymore!

I replaced with another set of keyboard/mouse and the same thing! There are absolutely no power/current came from any USB ports, since I didn't see any LED light from both mouse/keyboard sets. I even tried a logitech bluetooth mouse. (so 3 mouses in total, and 2 keyboards) The only way I was able to let system to recognize USB keyboard/mouse was resetting the CMOS, but the keyboard/mouse only works in BIOS, not even at Windows login screen!

I have had enough. The BIOS looks very fancy, but seems has a lot of flaws

I'm returning the board.

 

[Auric]

Pity. Did you check the Advanced USB Configuration (especially compatibility options)? Current Intel USB driver 4.0.0.27? Another possible solution to USB issues is using 2.0 ports where not requiring 3.0 -which for many current mainboards means utilizing internal header brackets.

 

[mxnerd]

Yes, I did turn on advanced USB compatibility in BIOS. And I did use usb 2.0 ports - black ones, in the front (routed from motherboard USB connectors) and in the back. None worked.

I don't have a chance to install Intel USB driver 4.0 (I just downloaded 3.0.5.69 here https://downloadcenter.intel.com/do...Intel-8-9-Series-and-C220-C610-Chipset-Family, I guess this is the one I should use?) since I can't login into Windows right now.

It seems USB PnP doesn't work at all. I now remember that when I plugged in an USB card reader last night, system would not detect it until I rebooted the system.

 

[Auric]

Yeah, 3.0.5.69 seems the current release from Intel for whatever reason but I tend to get drivers from station-drivers.com as long as WHQL. 4.0.0.27 is only a few weeks newer and unlikely to be critical since ASRock themselves provide 3.0.1.41 from last August.

Any problems shown in Device Manager?

Checked support forums?
http://forum.asrock.com/
http://forums.tweaktown.com/asrock/