Bad BIOS on new board?

[Gunjitsu]

Hello Everyone,

I'm currently having problems with my new ASRock Z68 Pro Gen 3 Fata1ty board.

Sometimes I can boot into BIOS without any problems, other times it wont even let me in. I press DEL, the screen goes black, and Dr. Debug gives me code "0d"; which isnt even in the manual by the way. After that it just stays on that black screen until I shut down. I've had to do this atleast two dozen times so far and it's becoming really infuriating. The only way to get around this is to use the "CLR_CMOS" button that is on the back of the motherboard. I am running the latest BIOS since day one, and it pretty much has never worked for me fully. On top of that when I tried to update my SSD's firmware the keyboard wouldnt work. This goes for both USB keyboards and PS/2 keyboards, this works fine when I'm in BIOS though, only when I try to update the firmware (have to type "yes") and it wont let me.

I bought this motherboard because TT gave it such good reviews, but so far all my experiences say otherwise. Is my board faulty? Did I get a lemon? I really would like to avoid RMA'ing it since this is my only computer and I need it every night to do take home work from my job. I know an RMA can take weeks to go through =(

Please note, that when I am not trying to get into BIOS the board works great. I can bring up all of my MS Office apps with no problem and can even play some games without any issues. In fact I have yet to find an issue with this board when I am loaded into windows. Problems only show face when I am in the BIOS =(

Here is my current setup...

Intel I7 2600K
ASRock Z68 Professional Gen 3 Fatal1ty Edition
MSI Radeon 6850 PE
16GB (4gb x 4) Mushkin Redline PC-17000 (board wont even run this at 2133 btw)
Windows 7 Pro 64-Bit
X-Fi Titanum Sound Card
Crucial M4 128GB SSD
250GB 7200k Seagate HDD
Seasonic x750

Please advise!!

Thanks

[MarkJohnson]

Typically when I have issues like that it ends up being memory problems, which sounds like you have if you can't get them to work at rated speeds.

Try borrowing a stick from another machine or from a friend to test with. If you can spare $20 or so, try buying a cheap single stick, but I don't recommend spending any money until you find the problem.

also, try loading optimized defaults in the bios if possible. that works usually.

also, try to manually set your memory speed and timings.

I have had issues with X-Fi products causing conflicts so try removing that and any other item plugged into your computer. Just use 1 stick of memory, video card, and everything else unplugged. If that works, plug things in 1 at a time until problem reappears.

Good luck
-=Mark=-

[Gunjitsu]

Mark,

Thanks for your reply. I have this RAM sitting in my room

Newegg.com - G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL9D-8GBSR

I will give it a shot when I get home. I hope its the RAM that causing these issues, in which case I can easily get them replaced by Mushkins awesome return policy.

Thanks

[electric bill]

My 880G Pro3 did something like that which is why I first came here.
In my case I could always navigate in the BIOS if I used a VGA (D-sub 15 pin) cable.
When I tried DVI or HDMI it would do what you're describing.

Right after my first post here at TT a new BIOS was released for that board which did work (sort of) - now I can only see 1/4 of the screen at a time but at least it works. It's like using the Magnifier in Win 7. This only happens when using HDMI or DVI. With a VGA cable the screen appears normal.
I should mention that I'm using an older Samsung 32" TV at 1920x1080 res.

Bill

[kick]

try expanding the bios/uefi access time to 5-10 sec.