Z77X-UD3H (F7) with i7-3770K @ 4.5GHz - freeze in BIOS - seems ok in Win 7 - should I flash?

[Rikki]

I ordered a new prebuilt system last week and it arrived yesterday - Here's the spec:


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £254.99
1 x Intel 520 Series 180GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £179.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard with FREE BOOGIE BUG XXL GAMING MOUSE MAT £129.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £119.99
1 x MSI HD 6870 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £113.99
1 x Corsair HX 750W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-750HXUK) £99.98
1 x Corsair XMS3 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX16GX3M2A1600C11) £95.99
1 x Antec Kúhler H2O 920 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/AM2/AM2+/AM2+/AM3+) £84.98
1 x Fractal Design Define R3 Midi Tower Case - Arctic White £79.99
1 x Akasa USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Memory Card Reader with eSATA (Internal header) (AK-ICR-17) £26.99
2 x Akasa AK-FN062 Apache Black Super Silent 140mm Fan - 4 Pin PWM £14.99 (£29.98)
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £12.98
1 x Nero 10 Multimedia Suite Essentials - Suite 2 - OEM £1.99
Total : £1,248.32 (includes shipping : £13.75).


It works fine though Ive only had it running for about 5 hours inbetween my normal work.


What I did find though was when I went into the BIOS, if I stopped activity - didnt move the mouse or navigate the menus with my keyboard it just locks up tight. No mouse movement, no keyboard input, cant alter the caps lock light etc.


In Windows it seems fine though. I ran IBT on extreme, Ive installed software and Ive left the machine overnight to see if it would freeze which it didnt.


Having researched most of last night it appears the motherboard has some issues and upgrading the BIOS seems to fix one problem but introduce another.


As it stands its on F7 which is apparently decent but the BIOS freeze is known; if I upgrade to F9 or F11 I run the risk of having USB 3.0 port conflicts; problems with my SSD and other gremlins. Strange thing is on the GB website it says my CPU isnt even recognised until F8 BIOS!!


Hence my post, should I bite the bullet and flash the BIOS and see how it goes or should I just keep playing with the system over the next week installing programs and testing things out on the current firmware.


I also am not sure what overclocking settings that have been used and know they would get nuked if I flashed the BIOS too hence my predicament.


Many thanks for your help and guidance,


Rik

[Acebmxer]

I always suggest using the latest beta bios available. If you have problems or you think the older bios is better then you can always flash back. I do suggest you do all your bios flashing in q-flash not in windows with @bios. When you flash a bios you will always lose your saved profile settings. It is also suggested never to load a saved profile from a older bios as it may contain or not contain current settings that are available in the bios. Always manually reaply your overclock settings and retest for stability as they may have made some changes that could change that you may need to raise or lower voltages again to gain stability back.

[thebeing]

From my own testing over the past few weeks, the UD3H bios has a moderate chance of freezing if your overclock isn't 100% stable. Raising your vcore voltage is usually what's needed to resolve it. This can be extremely annoying at times, but you can think of it as an additional stress testing tool.

You may also want to check your Win7 Event Log for WHEA errors when stress testing with LinX AVX, Prime95, x264, 3DMark, etc. WHEA errors are also a sign of vcore voltage being set too low, and an unstable system.