Asrock z77 extreme9 Post issues

[triangleman]

Greetings world :)


This is my first post on these forums, What has lead me here is years of following the site for tweaks, reviews , tech support, etc.

What my problems is however is a, unique one. I am actually on my 2nd asrock z77 extreme 9 motherboard. This is also a brand new system i7 ivy bridge 32 gigs of ram, evga 550 ti's intel ssd sea sonic gold power supply. The system was built, posted installed Linux on the ssd all is fine, go to reboot and the system wont post past A2/A6 anymore. After trouble shooting the system for 2 days we discovered that one of the processor pins on the motherboard was slightly bent, we carefully moved it back into position, no dice system will not post past A2/A6, no video what so ever. Tried different video cards, different pcie slots, no dice. removed memory just 1 stick no dice.

We removed the motherboard ordered the same one from newegg, build system again, no dice. no video, no post video. nothing. keyboard responds to toggling caps / scroll lock fine however motherboard still hangs on A2/A6. I know this is ide initialization but this motherboard does not even have IDE on it, which is really a non issue so it should pass that check fairly easily.

I am not sure what would hold up the ide int. ive tried different sata ports on the motherboard, different cable even removed it all together to try and get the machine to post, but nothing will happen. I was thinking maybe its the processor that has gone bad now / shorted out? However the motherboard led diagnostic numbers do not mention anything of a bad processor / memory / fans / chipset. nothing throws an error i watch the led on board go through its post process and nothing hangs except for when it gets to A2/A6.

I've tried almost everything i can think of short of ordering yet a new processor. Would really appreciate any insight on this issue as to what you guys might think the cause could be. Maybe its something very simple I am over looking it, which I would fully welcome.

I feel I need to make it apparent that yes I know that I can hit f2 on on the keyboard to clear the A2 code, which then puts it to A9 (ready for setup) then to A6 (scsi int) Still, throughout all of this trying multiple video cards I get NO VIDEO at all. Any ideas wont be turned down at this point, in fact I challenge you to make me look foolish! :)

[parsec]

The A2 error code called IDE initialization is just old terminology, and just refers to a SATA chipset having an error, regardless of the mode. If your CPU is Ok, my guess is you have a drive connected to the ASMedia chipset. Those ports on at the top of the stack of SATA ports, as you look at the board mounted in a case. You can't use those ports on a new build until a driver is installed. Use the Intel SATA ports only when first starting the board and installing the OS.

You'll need to clear the BIOS/CMOS after that error and removing drives from the ASMedia ports.

[triangleman]

So I took that advice and moved the drive off the asmedia ports, even tried the sata 2 port. Heck, I even removed the drive and cables all together and I still can not get post video (or any video for that matter) I can hit f2 to continue or even del to enter setup and watch the codes goto A9 / A6 (scsi int) but still will not get it to produce any video from 3 different video cards, two of which are brand new 550 ti's (evga)

Thoughts?

[ASRock TSD - Emily]

Dear triangleman,

Please kindly refer to below suggestions for testing.
1. Clear CMOS to try.
2. Re-install your CPU and memory to try.
3. Only install a stick memory to each slots by turns to check whether system boot up.
4. If possible, please change another memory for testing.

Thanks!

Have a nice day
ASRock TSD
Emily

[parsec]

Sorry that didn't work, just going by the POST code. I sure hope your CPU is not bad. You should be able to see the startup screens and enter the UEFI/BIOS with no drives connected.

Is your memory in the supported memory list? If not that may be your issue. As was suggested above, use only one DIMM or one DIMM per channel, which should be in slot(s) A2 and/or B2.

You could also try the onboard video of your CPU (gasp!), but you must clear the UEFI/BIOS first, since it likely set itself to use PCIe rather than integrated graphics, since you installed video cards. At least you can see if you get any video at all, the IGP is not bad until you start gaming. I have seen posts about graphics card issues with some ASRock boards. Did you try the one PCIe 2.0 x 16 slot...

Do you have a mother board speaker installed for the BIOS beep codes? A POST code of A6 or A9 is displayed when using the UEFI/BIOS.

[triangleman]

We did try all of these things. Switching out memory re-seating the processor using memory channels a1 only or b1. cmos resets even swapped memory for different sticks also.


We eventually did get the system to display video, but this was only done so by using a different video card with VGA on it. Why would the motherboard only allow VGA to display? that is not a setting anywhere in the bios that i could see after the fact, and I've never had this problem with any asrock motherboard either. updated bios to current and still no dvi display..

Thoughts?

[parsec]

Well, on my ASR Z77 board, I got video on the first startup with the IGP using HDMI, and with a video card over HDMI. Never tried VGA.

Thoughts: It's a X79 thing, no other Intel chipset is like it. It needs the chipset files (inf) and maybe the IME software to get video right, because of its PCIe 3.0 support. I don't own this board, so just going by what I've read about it.