Crosshair V Forumla 990FX - Q Code 64 and Boot Device LED halts boot process

[telferg]

Afternoon all,

I have had my pc setup since may this year, built by myself with no issues, and after a general strip and clean yesterday afternoon i noticed that my Radeon HD 7970 was sitting in the wrong slot, i had it in PCIEx8 instead of PCIEx16 slot.

I rectified this issue by moving the GPU from the incorrect slot to PCIEXx16_1 (Slot 1 on the MB).

After an initial boot to the ROG screen (with F2 or DEL to enter BIOS), i ran across issues where the time to boot into windows was a lot longer than usual.
Sometimes i was getting into windows login screen although keyboard and mouse not functional, other times i could hear my login working but the screen was stuck at the ROG BIOS BOOT screen.

After looking at the MB error codes i am most commonly getting a Q-code 64, which refers to CPU-DXE??? and the Boot Device LED, which i assumed was my SSD. I have not moved the CPU or SSD in any way as there was no change made to these.

The only thing i have removed and reseated is the GPU, and last night i tried it again in the various PCIE-x16 slots which i could get access to and now always come across this error.

I have never tweaked any BIOS settings, and from memory i am running on BIOS 1503 from 01/11/2013. I am unsure whether a BIOS update has caused this issue but i tried clearing CMOS using the button on I/O panel and re-booting but no joy.

Before i go home tonight and completely strip the PC to rebuild i am hoping someone here can make some sense of what i have done.

System Specs:

CPU - AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8350 Black Edition 4.00GHz

H/S - Cooler Master Hyper 612S CPU Cooler

MOBO - Asus Crosshair V Formula Z AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard

GPU - Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition Windforce 3X 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express

RAM - Avexir MPower Yellow Series 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit

PSU - Akasa Venom 850w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply

SSD (OS W7 Prof 64 bit) - Corsair Force GS 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive

HDD (Files) - Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD

Case - NZXT Phantom Enthusiast USB3.0 Full Tower Case - Orange/Black

Keyboard - Logitech G19s LCD Display

Mouse - Mad Catz MMO 7 Gaming Mouse

Any help or potential solutions would be greatly appreciated guys.

Thanks
telferg:D

[HiVizMan]

Hello mate

What I would suggest is simply do a clear CMOS. Check in your user manual if you are not sure how to do a Clear CMOS.

Was your system powered down completely or on standby when you swapped the PCIe slot?

[telferg]

Powered down completely mate, the system was in bits on my living room table.

All cables removed and static purged from main case.
I work in systems engineering so i always use ESD straps also, just in case.

When clearing CMOS, should i use the button on the back of the I/O panel, ive read that holding that can clear this, or should i just removed CMOS battery once safe to do so, i.e after power down etc.

Cheers
telferg

[telferg]

Update: I have cleared the cmos by removing the battery and refitting. I can now get a windows logo up but no further on than that. Any ideas? I'm still getting a boot device led. Only real difference was the bios setup ran, obviously it knew there was an issue and led me to that. It's now running bios version 1302.

Any other ideas mate? Nit wanting to do anymore myself without advice. I'm just surprised it's a boot device failure

[telferg]

I think it may have something to do with the bios compatibility support module set up. I'm not up to speed on this stuff. Any ideas what it should be for my system or whether I even need it on ???

[telferg]

Well not really sure what the hell was going on but i seem to have resolved it. At least for the meantime, i am typing this from my own PC in windows woop!!
I tried updating the BIOS last night from 1503 to 1701 but to no success. Earlier this morning i reverted back to BIOS Version 1302 and now i am actually able to boot into windows. It did not happen instantly though, i was left held on the post boot screen for a while and then finally into windows. I will monitor my boot time to ensure its ok but i still think a setting in the BIOS is not quite correct.

I am still getting a system BIOS beep upon startup so i will try to monitor this.
1 other success is that my GPU is working fine, just as i thought!! and i now have it running at PCIEx16 V2.0 as intended when i assembled the PC.

Not sure if the BIOS boot settings for NB affect this but i noted the boot option of either PCI/PEG or PEG/PCI. I assumed this was maybe at fault although i did not change it.

Would like to understand what has caused the issue just in case it reappears as i am not too confident in the system stability at the moment.

Please reply in kind with any considerations for what i could do to mitigate against any more failures of this kind, or to actually diagnose the fault.

Thanks
telferg

[telferg]

after a little more fault finding i was sent down the direction of USB devices as my Logitech G19s keyboard seems to be non responsive now and not recognized by Logitech Gaming Software.
The interesting thing is, i installed this Keyboard last saturday, and never had the PC off until wednesday where i swapped the GPU slot.

I now think that the real route cause of this boot issue is the Keyboard.
I have tried booting with it in and get the Q-Code 64 failure and a hold up on the POST screen for around a minute-2 minutes.
With the keyboard out i get a BIOS beep, the boot device LED still flashes on but for a shorter time, but i boot right into windows now.

Going to play around with this keyboard and see what i can do to resolve this issue, hopefully i have found the route cause

[telferg]

Well seems to be completely resolved from the perspective of boot issues. Must have been bad drivers causing the failure to boot.

I am however still getting a single beep from the System speaker whilst booting up. This was not there before. I was not able to find any results online for what this could mean. The Q-Codes move fairly quickly and as of yet i am not able to see what ones are calling up.

Could this have anything to do with the way i have BIOS set up for Primary Display Boot Device? (I have it set for PCI/PEG instead of PEG/PCI).

Thanks
telferg

[HiVizMan]

Pleased to see that things have worked out for you, had a weekend away with the family, so not really able to respond until now.

USB devices can and often do play havoc with systems, and I have seen a number of issues due to corrupt drivers and high end Keyboards.

[telferg]

Its ok mate, i was working on this all weekend, hence i kept updating this as a sense of achievement!!

I have not had any further boot issues as i mentioned but i am still getting 1 System Speaker beep? Any ideas what could cause this?

Also as above:
Could this have anything to do with the way i have BIOS set up for Primary Display Boot Device? (I have it set for PCI/PEG instead of PEG/PCI).

thanks
telferg