ROG Maximus Z790 Extreme BIOS 2202 is broken

[acowsik]

I tried updating the BIOS to 2202 yesterday and it basically was stuck at QCode 69 with CHECK CPU on the LCD display and the VGA debug LED was glowing.

Reseated the RAM, cleared CMOS and still the same result. It would not show anything on the display and I couldnt get into the BIOS menu at all. Same error code 69 over and over.

Eventually I used BIOS flashback to go back to 2102 BIOS and that allowed me to get into the BIOS and set everything like I wanted. Anyone else with the same board trying to update to 2202, be warned. You are better off updating to 2102 instead.

My specs:

i9 14900KS, Z790 Extreme, 64GB DDR5 5600 (4 x 16) Dominator Platinum, RTX 4090 FE, Soundblaster AE9, Samsumg 980 Pro 1TB + Samsung 990 Pro 2TB SSD drives, Corsair HX1500i PSU

[Silent_Scone]

Hi @acowsik 

I've yet to see anyone else experience this issue as of yet. However, if not experiencing issues with bios-optimised defaults there's no real need to flash to 2202.

[s_Fat_Tony]

Trying to EZ Flash from 2102 to 2202  

I'm getting a "File is not a proper BIOS" error

Z790-F Gaming WIFI, 64GB DDR5 6800 Dominator Platinum, ASUS STRIX RTX 4090 OC, 990 Pro 4TB, Corsair HX1500i

[acowsik]

In my case it was able to recognize the BIOS as one for my board, flash it and then on reboot, get stuck. Only rolling back to 2102 solved the problem. 2202 is definitely a no go.

On a side note, Intel failsafe has resulted in more harm than good. For starters, idle temperatures were way higher than normal (55C on a 14900KS with a 360 AIO running 100% fans and pump. Mounting is fine). Ever since I got the CPU, I have been running it with fail safe SVID and 253W TDP. Now the system wont even boot into Windows on BIOS defaults. It will instantly BSOD and reboot. Only failsafe works. Have initiated an RMA for the CPU.

Am going to run it with auto settings instead of this failsafe crap cos it has ruined a new CPU in the matter of a month.

[Silent_Scone]

Sounds like, or is, pure conjecture. Intel Fail Safe isn't going to "ruin" a CPU by simply adjusting the AC loadline. Not unless you're hitting it with copious amounts of current for quite sometime and unable to cool it. There's no reason to even use Intel Fail Safe unless stability cannot be found without it.

[acowsik]

I was under the impression that fail safe was to prevent this kind of degradation that was happening by running the CPU with unlocked voltage and power limits. So from the get go, I never ran it with unlocked settings so that it was always running within spec and despite that it was running hotter on idle.

I am trying to understand how to run the CPU at its designed boost frequency (as mentioned on Intel ARK) without having to alter it. If neither auto nor failsafe seems to help, I am kinda lost.

[StFual]

Reply deleted - as wrong product 🙂