I finally got the time to fully assemble my rig with a 'new to me' i9 9900k and a maximus apex xi motherboard. coming from an i7 7700K and an APEX IX I was excited to get the extra cores and make use of the impressive OC with the memory and my 4k BDIE sticks. With my case assembled I looked into using my Asus Fan Extension card that I was using with the APEX IX Z270 but alas this new APEX XI doesn't have that header any longer. It now has a fancy new 'NODE' header. Looking at my Mother Board manual and having a look online it appears there is a new ASUS Fan Extension card II that is made for the same thing and plugging it into the new NODE header should provide the same functionality I have come to expect and enjoy from the original card and my APEX IX.
I found a decent deal on ebay and picked one up. plugged it in and at boot I noticed that all the attached fans were at least responding by spinning, slowly, plugged into the Card, a good start. I step into the bios (2004, the latest bios release) but I don't see the new 'Fan extension' settings under the 'Monitor' or 'QFAN' menus. I went into windows and had a look around. I tried Fan Expert, Armoury Crate, even HWINFO and still no new fans nor temp sensors. Refusing to give up so quick I dove deeper. This time looking at the bios thru a program called 'UEFI TOOL' and 'UEFI Editor' thinking that it just needed to be 'turned on' by giving access as discussed in this thread for an ASUS AMD motherboard with the same NODE header and how to solve the same problems I was experiencing ( overclock.net forum ROG Zenith 2 Extreme )
Now more confused and being as stubborn as I am I keep on diving. I learn that the Asus Fan Extension II Card comes with the XII Z490 Maximus Extreme board and I also see posts online about people using the same Fan Extension card on the APEX XII Z490. Using the same UEFI Tools as before I examined the latest BIOS for the APEX XI (2701) from the ASUS website and there it is! the Fan Extension settings I was expecting to see. Under 'Monitor' and under 'Q fan Configuration' are all the options for it. This then means that, despite there being a NODE header on both motherboards, the Maximus IX Z390 was never given the actual hard coding functionality!!!
While there is a community of Bios modders, its a long and delicate process with serious risk of brick. That is if its even possible at all to have part of one Asus AMI Bios merged with another. It is also something I am certain Asus would frown upon. Now I doubt any fix will come of this. Asus has moved on to much newer things. the z790 and z890(maybe) and z990(maybe) etc. and given up on the 'NODE' header concept entirely Its just frustrating that no indication of this Fan Extension II card being incompatible is mentioned on the website.
This 'NODE' header was supposed to be an upgrade and came at a cost of the original FAN EXT header on my APEX IX as well as the ROG EXT header making the ROG OC Panel unusable. This didnt set me back a whole load of $ and I did learn about BIOS modding and how to use the UEFI TOOL among other programs. I made some new friends on other forums while trying to figure this out. I also learned some things about ASUS too. I dont want to hate on the company as its brought my years of enjoyment. decades even. They make some of the best bleeding edge hardware there is. have a solid RMA process and a great support team in most aspects. This issue tho just seems lazy. I would hate to think its a simple as some BIOS engineer at ASUS needing to copy/paste Bios Menu options from Maximus XII to XI.
Well that's my rant and if you read this whole thing then Thanks. I feel like I have earned it with the deep dive and research I put in. At the end of the day its half a dozen fan headers, some temp sensors, and prob some LED stuff tho that's not my thing. In general I am a big ASUS fan. This hasn't changed that and I still would consider buying another ASUS motherboard when I next upgrade as the gear is just that good, but **bleep** it all why cant something like this be remembered and fixed with a BIOS update? I know its a old and prob considered obsolete by many but it did cost the same hefty price that the newest Maximus models do now and maybe its just me but I get a kick outta populating Mother Board headers.
