Fatal1ty Z68 Gen 3 - Big problems!

[drayen]

I built my machine today, Fatal1ty board, Intel 2700k, AMD Radeon HD 7970, 16 gigs of ram, adata s510 ssd, and a standard hdd for media. I installed windows 7 ultimate just fine. I ran it all day, installed some games, and just when I had everything the way I wanted it- I noticed my sound seemed low. Even with my windows volume set to max. I decided to try out that Driver Genius program that automatically detects hardware and lets you download the most current drivers. After installing these drivers (Which included a sata, ide, usb controller drivers.. as well as sound, and chipset drivers) I rebooted. After installing those drivers, my motherboard would hang at the screen with fatality's face asking if I want to load setup, flash, boot settings etc. No options work. if I hit Tab to show the text screen, it only says "Version 2.02.1205. Copyright (c) 2010 American Megatrends, Inc. The current version of Intel ME firmware is 7.1.10.1065, backup is 7.1.10.1065" If I press f2 or del, it'll say entering setup but it will not. It will simply hang there until I ctrl alt del or reboot. I managed to get into windows ONE last time by putting a combination of a non-bootable USB and a windows7 dvd in. It failed to boot from the usb, i didn't press a key to boot from dvd, and windows started. From there, I updated to the latest stable bios and rebooted. I never got into windows again. Now the bios was telling me I had to remove the thumb drive, and it wouldn't detect my dvd drive anymore. I created a windows bootable flash, and ONLY after resetting the cmos can i get it to boot to windows setup. I can install windows, but I can't boot into it, not even on a fresh install. it will either load windows setup again, or continue hanging at the fatality splash. Windows setup recognizes my drives, my bios does not. (Remember, i can only get into my bios if i reset the cmos and boot from my usb at this point. on that first boot it will ask me if i want to run setup and it actually works.) Help.. please? I know this post i awful, but I've been up all night trying to fix this. Very tired.

[profJim]

Re: Fatal1ty Z68 Gen 3 - Big problems!

What brand/model/type is your keyboard?
Can you boot from the win7 DVD and try a win repair or use the win restore point rollback?

I don't trust 3rd party auto driver updates.
I prefer to let windows search for driver updates from Device Manager or going directly to the OEM website.

[drayen]

Re: Fatal1ty Z68 Gen 3 - Big problems!

I use one of those microsoft natural keyboards. I'm not sure why I wanted to try the driver software. Curiousity perhaps. I've already formatted all my drives to try and do a fresh install. I still get the same issues. I can get it to the point where it installs windows on my SSD, but then it won't boot from it. It'll keep loading from the Flash drive, or if I take the boot flash out it will just resume hanging at the Fatality splash screen. I had previously tried to restore windows, but that did not work either. It would just hang at mobo screen again, and I couldn't even use my flash drive after that. I had to remake the windows7 boot usb from scratch because it wouldn't even go back into setup at that point. It would load a screen saying that a recent software change had stopped windows from booting.

[drayen]

Re: Fatal1ty Z68 Gen 3 - Big problems!

Issue may be Solved.. Something I hadn't even thought of. At the same time I updated all those drivers, I had switched my USB mouse (Razer Naga) to the Fatal1ty mouse port. DONT DO IT. That caused all of these issues. I simply moved it back to a usb 2.0 slot and everything is working fine...
On a side note, I can't update to the latest beta drivers. my bios keeps saying "no supported device detected" when trying to run instant flash.

[profJim]

Re: Fatal1ty Z68 Gen 3 - Big problems!

You can flash your bios using DOS, Instant Flash, or Windows:
ASRock > Products > Motherboard > Fatal1ty Z68 Professional Gen3 > BIOS Download

I prefer to use DOS when flashing my systems because there have been many reports over the years of bricked motherboards when using the windows flash version. This has been a problem with many motherboard brands.

Thanks for the update about the mouse ports, this info should help others.