Asrock Z77 Extreme4 booting issues

[Deleted]

Hi guys,

Back again. Switched my vcore locked mobo for a ASRock extreme4. Installed it in my rig, and I'm having some issues. I run into this issue quite a lot when browsing (ie, a lot of other people have it). Spend the better part of last night trying out various solutions, but I'm afraid it's all been to no avail.

Issue: Whenever I shutdown the computer, it will hang for 5-15 seconds. This is after the windows shutting down screen. Screen goes blank, I hear my HDD's turning off, but my mobo and all fans stay active. Dr Debug is showing different codes every time, which makes me think it just hangs at random points during shutdown. Most frequent code would be 0x05, which is "OEM initialization before microcode loading". - Again, sometimes it's a different code. End result is always the same.

I would've guessed it's just a shutdown delay, which I can live with, but.... after the freeze, it will power down everything, and reboot! -_-

The same thing happens when I restart the computer (same freeze, same codes, same time delay until restart, although the restart is intended here obviously.)

Things I've tried:
- Disabled various programs / drivers that people on the interwebs told could be the solution. Amongst which were: Intel Rapid Storage thingymajig, Java, and a few others. All to no avail.
- Figured it might be an issue because of mobo switch, so I wiped my SSD and did a fresh install. (Wanted to try win8 anyhow!)
- Switched RAM banks from A1 + B1 (dual channel setup according to manual), to A2 + B2. (Also Dual channel according to manual).
- Disconnected all drives except ssd, took out videocard, basically went back to the essentials. No fix.
- Flashed BIOS from v2.70 which it was shipped with, to the latest v2.80. Same issue.

As a side note, my RAM is not listed in the "Supported Memory" bit on the ASRock website. Could this be the issue?

Lastly, I ran Prime95 overnight just to check out the actual system stability (core clocks / voltages). It passed an 8+ hour test. Don't actually seem to be having any issues with it other than the shutdown thing.

Any ideas would be appreciated.... I'd hate to RMA this sucker after having first purchased the wrong mobo, and also having waited a week for this to arrive. >.>

Cheers

Redd

[Deleted]

damm you've been unlucky.
i doubt the unsupported ram would be the issue.
what i can find about that 0x05 code is that it is caused by damaged mircosoft files?

[Deleted]

damm you've been unlucky.
i doubt the unsupported ram would be the issue.
what i can find about that 0x05 code is that it is caused by damaged mircosoft files?

Well, I had it on my old Win7 setup, and I reinstalled win8. The problem never went away during the whole process. As I said, sometimes it's a different code.

And yeah, unlucky me, lol.

For the sake of argument, which microsoft files?

---------- Post added 2013-03-30 at 12:10 PM ----------

What the... heck. -_-

I just cleared my CMOS using the button on the back, like I've done before without success, and my problem has vanished. o.O

Much like this guy, 95viper, about halfway down the page.

[Deleted]

Did you reinstall Windows when you changed the motherboard?

Pretty much all hardware config info will be wrong now if you have not since the mobo is the backbone of the system and some of the config only gets done during a Windows install.