ASUS Maximus Hero Z690 - Abnormal stability

[Sundownerphd]

Hello all,

I've recently built a new PC in March after a much needed upgrade.

The current specs of this PC are:

Motherboard - ASUS Maximus Hero Z690 (Checked the infamous capacitors issue my board appears ok and not one with that defect)
BIOS Build - 0237 (Only stable version I seem to be able to boot into Windows with)

CPU - Intel Core i9 12900k
Case - Corsair iCUE 7000X RGB

Cooler - iCUE H170i ELITE LCD Display Liquid CPU Cooler

GPU - ASUS STRIX NVIDIA RTX 3080 (Carried over from previous build)

RAM - 2x16 DDR5 Corsair Dominator Platinum 5600mhz (CMT32GX5M2B5600C36)

PSU - Corsair 1200W HX1200 80+ Platinum Power Supply (Carried over from previous build, fairly recent worked perfectly fine in my old build)

SSD - Samsung 1TB 970 EVO Plus M.2 NVMe SSD (Carried over from previous build)

I have encountered several issues with my PC and I am finding it extremely difficult to troubleshoot after exhausting many options.



First issue i encountered was enabling XMP for my RAM, PC was unable to boot so BIOS reverted back to default. No worries not a show stopper. PC works on stock 4800mhz. Ensured things were back to default.


The main issue I have been getting is on occasionally loading some games, my PC randomly will reboot as in turn itself on and off. Event Viewer isnt showing me much other than the usual Critical Event ID 41 when these things happen. Event Log is not telling me anything on the lead up to these so nothing really sticking out here.


This issue appeared as well on a BIOS update. I tried BIOS versions 1304 and 1403 with no luck. So I could access BIOS no worries, Q-code was displaying only A0 which means all clear. On attempting to boot to Windows 11, PC immediately rebooted. This also occurred when even attempting to directly mount onto the W11 Installer USB via BIOS.


I was able to bring the PC back to stability by rolling back to the base BIOS version 0237. With this I was able to successfully boot to Windows no issues.


Now what is very interesting to me is I am not getting crashes weirdly on certain games. I've had no issues with Elden Ring, COD Vanguard, Lego Star Wars. I have consistent crashing on Apex Legends on the main menu, no BSODS , no CTDs, just a straight up PC restart...

Drivers are up to date, Windows 11 is completely updated. Haven't even received a single BSOD once this build.

I am kind of at my wits end on what could be going wrong here. Any suggestions or thoughts would be appreciated.

Will include, nothing is OC'd on the machine. I've kept it all stock other than ASUS MCE being disabled and enforcing all limits. Issue was occurring even with ASUS MCE Enabled.

[jmass]

Do you have your Mem sticks in the right slots (Slot 2/A2 and Slot 4/ B2)?
If so, can you try following the steps here (Disabling SPD etc...7th post/reply from TZero) and report back?

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?127485-Another-Board-Another-failed-XMP-Profile-ASUS-Z690-...

Good luck!

[Sundownerphd]

Can confirm my DIMMS are installed in A2 Slot 2 and B2 Slot 4 respectively.

Currently running everything on stock with XMP off for now as I try to address the stability issues I've had in general with this motherboard before attempting any OC'ing. My main concern is the random powering off with certain games. Not all games seem to be affected. The best possible example i can think of is Cod:Vanguard/Warzone. Computer runs stable playing that, no concerns from sensors, cooling is adequate. Compiling shaders for the respective titles put load on the CPU bringing it up to 70C-75C before stabilizing down to around 54-58C in general gameplay after this completion.

I am going to look at swapping with a new PSU into the build to see if there are any issues with my current PSU to give it a start alongside another kit of DDR5. If i get continued crashing on that, I'd be confident in saying the motherboard may be at fault at this stage, given the general stability issues that occurred off applying BIOS updates and the OS, Recovery USB's failing to boot restarting my PC instead, requiring me to revert back to the base bios build to get some form of stability.

[Undertoker]

I’ll be honest*
I had the same issues with the hero board
I also had another issue where any bios above 811 crippled the performance of my gpu, to around 60%…/
The board was a total nightmare, to the point I nearly threw it out the window, in the end I binned it and bought a Max extreme board *- I should have done this in the first place.
Needless to say every post for advice on here went unanswered and the reality is there is no real support .
Save yourself pain and get rid of it as I did, sadly this board has turned out to be a dog.*
Try rolling back to bios 811. - that is the only bios I could run on that hero board that actually worked properly

It saddens me that the memory XMP performance is so crappy on these boards**