ASUS Rampage IV Formula problem with extremely long boot time

[jonnyp]

Hi all, I'm new to the forums so please be gentle and I appreciate any help you can give on a weird problem I've encountered on my new PC that I bought from Maingear.

I have the following configuration:
Motherboard: Asus® Rampage IV Formula
Processor: Intel® CoreT i7 3930K
Processor Cooling: MAINGEAR EPIC 140 Supercooler
MAINGEAR Redline Overclocking Service: YES!
Memory: 16GB Corsair® VengeanceT DDR3-1866 1.5V (4x4GB)
Graphics: 2x EVGA® GeForceT GTX 580 6GB GDDR5 Total in SLI with MAINGEAR EPIC X2 Liquid Cooling
Power Supply: 1200 Watt Corsair® Professional
Hard Drive Bay One: 128GB Crucial® M4 SATA 6G
Hard Drive Bay Two: 128GB Crucial® M4 SATA 6G
RAID: RAID 0 - Increase and speed up your storage
Optical Drive One: 12X LG SuperMulti Blu-ray/DVD
Memory Card Reader: All-in-One Integrated USB 2.0
Flash Card Reader & Writer
Audio: 7.1 Channel High Definition Surround Sound
Audio Enhancement: MAINGEAR® EPICT
Wireless Network Adapter: Linksys® AE1000
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit


The 2 SSDs are configured in RAID 0. I have three other regular HDDs installed. CPU has been overclocked by Maingear to 4.2GHz and uses their proprietary liquid cooling system for cooling.

EDIT- would like to add that BIOS version is 1202 03/09/2012.

The first time I turned the computer on boot up went fast except I got a CPU fan error. I contacted Maingear about this and they said that's normal since their fans ran at very low RPMs such that it wouldn't be recognised by the motherboard. This didn't stop the PC from booting and everything seemed fine, no problems with POST or boot times and the error only appeared for the first two times I booted up. After that I've had no errors shown during POST or bootup. A few days later I was gaming and experienced a random crash. When I reset it, the ASUS screen stays frozen for about 4 minutes before it proceeds to boot normally. Pressing Delete does not work, it stays frozen for those 4 minutes, however when it finally starts booting I can access the BIOS like normal by pressing delete.

I don't understand why it's frozen for 4 minutes before it decides to start booting all of a sudden. Boot times were fine until the system crashed while gaming. After the 4 minutes have passed and it boots up normally, everything seems fine and running well in Windows. Temperatures for the CPU at idle is less than 40 degrees C and around 45 for the 2 GPUs. All drives I've installed are recognized and I can game and watch 1080p blu-rays with no problems. I've stress-tested the CPU and temperature doesn't go past 60 degrees C after 10 minutes of 100% CPU utilization test with OCCT software.

Anyone know what the problem with the incredibly long POST and boot times might be?

I can post all the OC settings Maingear have done in the BIOS if you think that will help with problem solving.

Appreciate any help I can get.

[aznsteil]

Hey maybe this might be helpful:

CPU Fan Error problem: Go to the Fan Monitoring and set the CPU Fan at "ignored", then the message won't appear anymore.

Slow boot: Go to "Extreme Tweaker" and search for "CPU Clock Gen Filter". Set this to Enabled or Disabled, but do not leave it at Auto. In my case (RIVE) the boot loops at the beginning disapeared! The boot time shortened.

Please give a feedback if it's working or not. Both methods worked in my case.


Greetings aznsteil

[jonnyp]

aznsteil,

thanks for the advice, I tried both your suggestions but it still takes 4 minutes before it starts to boot up so it didn't work.

- Jon

[HiVizMan]

Hi Johnny

Mate that is one fine system you have there. Very very nice.

May I ask why you would want to go into the BIOS if it is a pre-overclocked system? And when you were there did you change anything at all? I ask because you should have been getting the fan error each and every time unless a setting was changed in the bios. If not and your fan was therefore spinning quicker what has caused that increase in fan speed?

You see where I am going with this...

What is the two digit code on the LED POST panel during the 4 min pause?

[jonnyp]

HiVizMan wrote:
Hi Johnny

Mate that is one fine system you have there. Very very nice.

May I ask why you would want to go into the BIOS if it is a pre-overclocked system? And when you were there did you change anything at all? I ask because you should have been getting the fan error each and every time unless a setting was changed in the bios. If not and your fan was therefore spinning quicker what has caused that increase in fan speed?

You see where I am going with this...

What is the two digit code on the LED POST panel during the 4 min pause?

Hi HiVizMan, thanks for the compliment!

I didn't go into BIOS at all until the long boot time problem presented itself. I didn't touch anything either until I tried aznsteil's suggestions which didn't help unfortunately.

The debug code during the 4 minutes is a constant 99.

Here are the OC settings from Maingear:
AI overclock tuner - X.M.P.
CPU Level Up - Disabled
CPU Strap - Auto
Clockgen Full Reset - Enabled
Turbo Ratio - By Per Core - all cores set to 42
CPU Clock Gen Filter - Auto (tried switching to enabled as per suggestion, but had no effect).
Xtreme Tweaking - Disabled
EPU Power Saving Mode - Disabled
CPU Performance Settings
--> CPU Ratio - Auto
--> Speedstep - Enabled
--> Turbo Mode - Enabled
--> Powe Limit Control - Auto
DRAM Timing Control
--> Rampage Tweak - Auto
--> Timing - 9-10-9-27-2
--> Latency Mode - Auto
--> Secondary Timings - All set to auto
--> Third Timings - All set to auto
--> Others - All set to auto
Digi+ Power Control
--> CPU Load Line - Auto
--> CPU Current Capability - 130%
--> CPU Voltage Frequency - Manual
--> CPU Fixed Frequency - 400
--> VRM Over-Temp Protection - Auto
--> CPU Power Duty Control - Extreme
--> VCOR MOS Volt Control - 7V
--> CPU VCORE Bootup Voltage - 1.425
--> VCCSA Load Line Calibration - High
--> VCCSA Current Capability - 120%
--> VCCSA Fixed Frequency - 400
--> CPU VCSSA Bootup Voltage - Auto
--> CPU VTT Switch Frequency - Auto
--> CPU VTT Over-Current Protection - Auto
--> DRAM-AB Current Capability - 120%
--> DRAM-AB Voltage Frequency - Auto
--> DRAM Power Phase Control - Optimized
--> DRAM-CD - same settings as for AB
--> PCH 1.1V Switching Frequency - Auto
Extreme OV - Disabled
BCLK Skew - Auto
CPU Core Voltage - Manual Mode
CPU Core Manual Voltage - 1.380
VTT CPU Voltage - Auto
2nd VTT CPU Voltage - Auto
CPU VCSSA Voltage - Manual Mode
CPU VCSSA Manual Voltage - Auto
DRAM Voltage - 1.500V
CPU PLL Voltage - 1.900V
PCH 1.1V Voltage - Auto
VTT DDR Voltage - Auto
CPU Spread Spectrum - Disabled
PCIE Spread Spectrum - DIsabled
CPU Tweaker's Paradise - All set to Auto
Memory Tweakers Paradise - All set to auto
PCH Tweaker's Paradise - All set to auto

BIOS: 1202 x64, date 03/09/2012
iROG version 23
ME Version 7.1.21.1134

[aznsteil]

Try the new Bios, maybe it will help?

Greetings aznsteil

[HiVizMan]

Edit: You replied while I was posting.

Do not use a new BIOS for now please. Doing so will remove your overclock.


What I am going to suggest is that you contact your retailer and request that they sort this out. The reason I am saying that is not that we can not help you, but that you have paid for a product that must do what they said it would. In other words they hold the warranty with your system. If something goes wrong or is not perfect with the overclock they need to fix it for you.

How I would resolve this is by pressing the memory go button. However that will remove the memory overclock and as I have stated that might just void your retailers warranty.

If however they are not willing or keen to help please do post back here and we will be very willing to assist you further.

[jonnyp]

Thanks HiVizMan, I will contact them now, just figured I would post here first in case it was a known problem amongst you guys.

They downclocked the memory to 1600 by the way. Memory is 1866Hz native I think?

Thanks for the replies guys, I appreciate it!

- Jon

[Rody]

just for fun unplug all possible usb stuff. For some reason USB seems to hold up boot on my system, not for 4 minutes but for a while.

[jonnyp]

Rody wrote:
just for fun unplug all possible usb stuff. For some reason USB seems to hold up boot on my system, not for 4 minutes but for a while.

I suspected this as well so I tried to remove all USB devices because I've experienced similar things before. However, no luck. Maingear support hasn't been able to figure it out yet either.

It's strange because it used to be fast booting up with my USB keyboard, USB mouse and external USB HDD plugged in. All of a sudden it just started to freeze like that for 4 minutes on start-up and then proceeds to boot up just fine.

Thanks for your suggestions and tips though guys! Keep 'em coming! 🙂