970 Extreme 3, no post, no beep, no video, no lan light, only CPU FAN and mouse

[vgtech2011]

I got this board a few weeks ago. First I should have not bought this outdated board. I bought this because Newegg has lots of comments 970!. I thought this board is new and became very popular in the market, but later I searched online, it showed it's 2 years old board. lol.
Anyway, the problem started right after I built, but not often. When I pressed power button, it boots, but no post, no beep, no video. So pulled out the board out of case and sat on mobo box and pulled out everything except CPU and, tested. No beep. Well, then I just tried with one RAM, still no beep. I didnt see any of the little round speaker I used to see o old motherboard, so I thought 'maybe they took out, then how do I check CPU+Mobo test'. Anyway, I came back after lunch and tried several times, then it booted. As soon as It booted, I installed everything, drivers, updated BIOS to 1.70, Windows 7 64 bit, office, etc. Then I restarted PC, it was fine. OK. I was so happy, my first SSD 8 core PC. Then, I shut down the pc and pressed start-up button, no boot.


I did the same test, pulled out from case, tested with only CPU and video, no video, no beep. same symptom I had when I first built a week ago. I started searching online, found several posts about this particular subjects (no post, no power to PCIE/PCI slot, no beep, no lan light, only mouse light, no keyboard light). It seemed like BIOS problem which doesn't recognize new FX 8150 CPU, but my BIOS is most up to date. Then, I thought, maybe BIOS is TOO RECENT. So, I flashed to 1.50, still same symptom.


The point is, when I almost gave up powering up, when I just press one for last try, it boots up. Restart is fine, only it doesn't boot up when it completely shut down. Please note, it happens only when I shut down and then try to turn on. I didn't experince any single case of this problem when I restart it. That's why it caught me to stay with this faulty board for 2 weeks. I didn't have to shut it down.
I disabled Cool and Quiet thing, didn't believe what new technology ASROCK claims, still the same problem. This was another try after I stopped buying ASROCK 4 years ago, thought they now make good boards after checking newegg's crazy comment hits 970!, it turned out, this board is two year old, being sold like telling newly out on Newegg, so it piled out so many F***ng comments. Now my last trial with ASROCK almost is getting to lifetime hatred. Almost. I can return this and get refund with 15% restocking fee, but I like to see why I have too much problems with ASROCK more than other motherboard makers. Why can ASROCK and Taiwan based motherboard makers just make pc setup job like the so-called 'Ultra Fast boot' they claimed. Ultra Fast Boot doesn't help any when pc has this too much of booting problem.

One thing changed I noticed. They use high quality capacitors from Japan now. Hope it doesnt' blow out caps like it used to do. Boom Boom, one after another after 6 months. ASROCK rocked me out years ago.
One thing I also found funny, this board TweakTown Forum is not run by ASROCK. Go to ASROCK website, and they proudly put this public forum like their 1st line of Tech support help. They caught me on every trial of me whenever I think 'maybe they changed and better'. After 4 years, returning to Japanese Capacitors seems to be big F**** improvement. Of course, they had to unless they want to get piled up with returns with blowed out caps.

[parsec]

You really need to fill out you system information in your profile, which has all your other PC components. Saves a lot of time and questions.

Built in POST beep speakers are rare now, and new PC cases usually include this little speaker, which plugs right into the board.

[vgtech2011]

Here is the spec, but the problem happens with only cpu and single memory. I tested with no video, no ram, different video/ram, same problem. The problem also happens even inside the case with speaker, no beep. I rather think it's the motherboard doesn't support the CPU quiet well in serving power to CPU cores due to whatever reason BIOS/circuit or the motherboard is defective. Maybe Bios update can resolve, but I tested 1.5, 1.6 1.7, all same. Changed power supply from 500W to 600W, nothing, changed 8 pin to 4 pin CPU power cord, nothing, Tried with different DDR3 memory, 2GB, 4GB, nothing. I don't feel heat on CPU FAN and the CPU FAN spins slow when this boot problem happens. When it's gonna boot well, then the CPU FAN spins fast as soon as I short power pins, then I know this time will boot up, thank God. I don't any resistance or caps are damaged, but nothing. One thing I didn't test is testing with different CPU. But I searched further, ASROCK says, now they support FX8150 since Bios 1.50. So Mobo has to support CPU without problem. I also took out CPU fan and looked in the socket to see if there's any damage to CPU pins or socket pins even though I always put high caution when installing CPU to socket. Maybe I could have made damage to pins of Socket or CPU, clean.

No Bios update helps, no memory beep, no lan/keyboard light but mouse light(why only mouse???? mystery), no video, no post.


ASROCK 970 Extreme 3
AMD FX 8150 8 core
2 X G.SKILL Value 8GB DDR3 1600
ZOTAC (P/N: ZT-20308-10L) GEFORCE 210 LP 1 GB PCI-E 2.0 X16
Samsung SSD 840 120 GB 6Gbps
Western Digistal 1TB SATA 6Gbps 64MB cache

[profJim]

What are the brand and model names of each psu you tested with? How old is each psu?

You are making it much more difficult for us when you don't add full hardware information in your forum signature or in the PC Specs section.
I won't scroll back through any thread to try and find the system's specs each time I view a thread.

We can best help you after you create a detailed hardware list in the System Specs portion of your
forum profile http://forums.tweaktown.com/profile.php?do=editprofile at the bottom of the
profile page or in your forum signature http://forums.tweaktown.com/profile....=editsignature.
Be sure to include brand names and model numbers.

[vgtech2011]

Thermal take 430W
CorSair 500W
??? 600W (can't remember, not popular)

It's the same symptom with only cpu, cpu fan, and memory. Still no post, same symptom. I doubt , but if ASROCK makes good successful boot rate with only expensive PSU without harddisk, it's more problem. people chose cheap mobo, now has to buy expensive psu, lol.

What are the brand and model names of each psu you tested with? How old is each psu?

You are making it much more difficult for us when you don't add full hardware information in your forum signature or in the PC Specs section.
I won't scroll back through any thread to try and find the system's specs each time I view a thread.

We can best help you after you create a detailed hardware list in the System Specs portion of your
forum profile http://forums.tweaktown.com/profile.php?do=editprofile at the bottom of the
profile page or in your forum signature http://forums.tweaktown.com/profile....=editsignature.
Be sure to include brand names and model numbers.

[vgtech2011]

Asrock 970 extreme3 motherboard problem

Found exactly the same problem online several posts, but neither of them posted solution which means, it's been an old problem and persists still with even BIOS update. ASROCK can be quiet about this issue, but can't hide it. I think it's caused by poor circuit design or BIOS programming. Either way, ASROCK,this was my last chance I tried with ASROCK. There will be no ASROCK for me and for my friends. I'll highly discourage to buy ASROCK if anyone asks me.

Thermal take 430W
CorSair 500W
??? 600W (can't remember, not popular)

It's the same symptom with only cpu, cpu fan, and memory. Still no post, same symptom. I doubt , but if ASROCK makes good successful boot rate with only expensive PSU without harddisk, it's more problem. people chose cheap mobo, now has to buy expensive psu, lol.

[profJim]

I had a ThermalTake 430 watt quite a few years ago and later found out that it was a pretty good 350 watt psu that could deliver its full rated power.
350 watts is more than enough for your motherboard to post and run with minimal hardware setup.

The bad capacitor problem several years ago affected many mobo and psu manufacturers.

Send a PM to ASRock TSD - Emily, provide a link to this thread ask for her help.

[vgtech2011]

I got response from ASROCK, they just want me to send as RMA, which means, they think it's defective motherboard. It can not be defective motherboard among majority of good manufactured and good designed motherboards when lots of new motherboards are having the same symptoms. I like to know what ASROCK says about this issue, but they don't want to say any about this particular issue, but bothers customers to send as RMA which takes weeks to receive the same motherboard which has good chance of having the same issue. Or, maybe they say something saying 'bent CPU pins' and others keeping customers till they give up and forget.

ASROCK, there you go. same for 4 years after I came back.

[vgtech2011]

Finally I had a chance to talk to ASROCK technician, he said it's not design problem, but just a defective motherboard among many motherboards.
I couldn't go any further when he said, since I haven't tested any other same model of this motherboard. So, I'll keep this post until I get a replacement from ASROCK, and test to see what happens.

[vgtech2011]

This is final update for this issue.
In stead of sending the board to ASROCK RMA, I sent the board to the seller for refund. I didn't want to go the long trip and headache of sending back and forth with ASROCK RMA. I purchased BIOSTAR TA970 board, all the issues I had with ASROCK 970 Extreme3 was gone. No booting problem, CPU stays low in temperature.

Besides the problem I described above, the ASROCK 970 Extreme3 somehow make CPU very hot, so the CPU fan spins at full speed creating very noisy sounds. I looked at BIOS, something I found was, the BIOS update 1.6, 1.7 make this board automatically in over clocked mode, can't remember exactly if it's for both CPU and memory. I thought it was a little weird, didn't like overclock, but ignored. I think this may create hitting problem and cpu temperature problem as well. This board was released two years ago. So, to accomodate FX 8150, my cpu or any recent cpu, BIOS has to put the board in overclocked mode default?

I just checked in Newegg for ASROCK 970 Extreme, it shows 1600(OC), which means, to run ram at 1600, it has to be overclocked. But BIOS update automatically put this to overclocked. Basically I think this board is not doing well of running my FX 8150 and DDR3 1600 without over clocked, which creates problem.
This is just my guess.

Anyway, If it was defective board as ASROCK tech support says, I was unlucky. If it is not, thank god, I switched to BioStar TA970. What I like about this board, it is very simple, yet has all I want. USB3, 6 SATA 6gbps, supports FX(with no over clock in default), USB 2.0/3.0, etc. If you are like me, business end user looking for reliable board, yet don't want to lose basic performance, I highly recommend this particular board, Biostar TA970. There is another version, Biostar TA970EX, but like other boards, they claim it has lots of features and overclock. I didn't buy those features, it just makes the board complicate and creates other problems. That's why I chose TA970.

Everything works good, no booting problem, install was superfast like racing car, I don't hear any fan noise, quiet which means, it doesnt' have temperature issue even with the cheap fan from the box, no random freezing problem I had with ASROCK 970 extreme3. Everything cool.

One thing I had to do with Biostart TA970, The board recognized my G.Skill DDR3 1600 Mhz ram as 1333Mhz. After Further research showed that it's the ram issue, not the board. The RAM is at 1333 Mhz with XMP to 1600 Mhz, but G.Skill advertised it XMP enabled mode in the ram as the full speed. So, I had to enable XMP in BIOS, then the ram ran on 1600Mhz.

I noticed nobody posted solution or they just stopped posting when I researched online for the problems I have. I found at least 7 posts where they have exactly the same problems. None of them posted their solution or update. Here, I'm updating my post to share some idea, so you can get some good start to troubleshoot or to do whatever your solution. Good luck!