Frozen Time Clock in UEFI - The Fix

[Raja]

Is your motherboard suffering from the malady of a frozen time clock in UEFI?

If so try the following:

1) Reflash the latest UEFI, using EZ Flash 2 or USB BIOS flashback.

2) When the system POSTs, enter UEFI. Once in UEFI power down the motherboard. Keep the PSU attached and "on". Only the motherboard is powered off and in "standby". You will see the MB standby lights on (boards with start buttons onboard will be lit). Standby does not mean the board is actually running, standby means the board has power, but you have not pressed the power button to turn it on. Make sure the board is off before you go to the next step in this list. You will know if it is off because if you leave it for 5 seconds it should not POST~BOOT - this means it is in standby.



3) Clear CMOS (Clear RTC) for 10 seconds. This will clear the Management Engine.

4) Power up the system, enter UEFI, set the clock and then save and exit.

5) Update MEI driver to Version 9.5.14.1724 in the OS.









6 )Carry on using the system as normal.

The above steps should fix the issue.

-Raja

[virge]

Tokens210 wrote:
I was curious to how hot the 290 was getting as almost all videos I've watched said the cards are designed to run at 95c by default, and that's from and not Asus

Also the USB issue I'm guessing is just you or a few boards, when the PC shuts off anything plugged into USB should shut off, anything plugged in after that that draws power such as a cell phone charger should still work but possibly not it if was pplugged in before shutdown, u may have to replug it in to make it work

The USB your talking about tho is like that on every single ROG board, if you noticed it should say ROG connect it something under the USB, its cause that USB is the one that allows you to upgrade the bios without having ram or anything like that attached yet


I also have the issue sometimes where selecting shut down just restarts the PC but being as reboot times like 13 seconds and when I hit shutdown that time it actually shuts down its not really an issue for me, altho it does make me wonder where it came from as it literally just started to happen the last week and I've not updated or anything like that, I have a guess its actually a windows setting messing with the board





Also a PS. To the ppl posting here, a few pages back the Asus ppl here, at least one of them, posted they went going to answer or come by this thread anymore cause no one seemed interested in them assisting, many also seemed to show the massive disrespect so I don't blame them at all, so most likely Asus themselves were never actually here just qualified Asus techs and support, but now this thread at least is most likely just users now

The problem is that Asus has dropped the ball on this frozen BIOS clock issue, and also it must have been the janitor who designed the Maximus VI Formula instead of their design team. To have put the battery in behind the " armor" is unforgivable. As to a timely response from Asus, it has proven to be non - existent. I contacted Asus tech on numerous occasions, and no person was ever able to help me. finally one tech insisted that it was a battery problem, and I had to replace my battery. Given the fact that my board is new, I had my doubts, but I thought maybe the tech was correct. So I purchased a battery, and then I realized something that Asus, who has been designing motherboards for years should NEVER have done. They actually covered the battery with the armor, requiring me to totally dismantle my system, which included removing video card, water cooling loop, memory, all cabling, in order to remove the board so I could remove the armor just to access the battery. As it turned out though, the battery does NOT appear to be the issue. So it was my attempt to solve one problem by changing the battery, that I discovered how inept Asus was in their quality control, regarding this motherboard. Granted some might have been angry, but when you pay a lot of money, and time, and the best response is from a couple of probably low level techs sent by Asus to try and mitigate a problem with the Z87 boards. It seemed as if these techs were putting the responsibility on the customer, rather then Asus being pro-active in resolving this problem. Asus could have simply swapped out the boards for the customers with this issue, with boards that were free of this problem, because by their own claim this problem was very small, because the claim by these techs was that Asus tried over, and over to recreate the problem, but could NOT. So it seems reasonable to just swap out the bad boards, with new problem free boards. So rather then have disgruntled customers, Asus could have turned this problem into a public relations bonanza, by being pro-active rather then trying to place all the responsibility on the customer.

[virge]

One last thought. This thread has been up for quite a while, and still there is NO fix. It seems evident to me and most here, that Asus is too interested in their new potential customers with the new Z97 boards to care about the few that were left with faulty Z87 boards. I guess they take into account in their planning, on any potential collateral damage, and have decided that this problem with the frozen clock issue is a reasonable risk to take by ignoring these customers. Ignore, and in time these people will just fade away, and Asus can continue to claim how superior they are to all their competitors. General Motors took that same attitude, and look what has, and is happening to them.

[Creos7]

I started experiencing this a few weeks ago. So there is no official solution to this? 😞

[Hopper64]

Well, add me to the list. I thought I didn't have this problem, but for the last 2 days my clock is stuck too. Noted in both 1302 and 1402 bios versions. Is there really no fix here? I tried the CMOS button and reflashing the bios with no change. ??

[virge]

Hopper64 wrote:
Well, add me to the list. I thought I didn't have this problem, but for the last 2 days my clock is stuck too. Noted in both 1302 and 1402 bios versions. Is there really no fix here? I tried the CMOS button and reflashing the bios with no change. ??

Well it looks like you will just have to live with it. Asus does not appear to be willing to fix the issue. You see they already have your money. Considering the fact that you paid a heavy price for the Extreme, it has to be very frustrating for you. I guess Asus just expects you to trash that very expensive new board of yours, and go out and drop another load of money on their newest boards. While your at it, this will give you the chance to also buy a new Haswell CPU to go with your new Z97 motherboard. So I guess Asus did you a favour, by ignoring the problem, you can just go out and get one of those new boards they have flogging everywhere.

[Kelvin]

I have been dealing with this problem for months now, trying to get rid of my Mobo to get a Gigabyte now, I was blinded by the Bling and software that came with this board and did not look into it much to see if there were any problems with this board because I always looked at ASUS as a reputable brand, how wrong I was.

[ialej95]

Any fix at this point guys?
It's becoming very frustrating...
Thanks,
Alex

[volcano_god]

The most current production patch is 19, so Asus's is a bit old

Still waiting for Asus Mod/Admin to contact me with a valid email address. 😞

I've had this issue since day one with my Rog Maximus VI, but have been monitoring this thread in hopes of a fix.

System Specs:
Maximus VI Hero
P/N: 90MB0FU0-M0AAY0
S/N: DCM0AB440268
Intel 4770K 3.5GHz running at 4.3GHz
CPUID: 306c3
ucode patch: 12
Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB 2x8GB DDR3 2400MHz PC3 19200 Desktop, Red CMY16GX3M2A2400C11R
ASUS GTX760-DC2OC-2GD5 GeForce GTX 760 2GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE250BW 2.5" 250GB SATA 6Gb/s TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
RAID1 2 x WD Black 1TB drives

Window8.1 Pro with all latest updates.

I put together >50 Z87 Plus Asus Win7 ENT systems with similar HSW based i7 and haven't seen this problem, however they are use on a domain. On the other hand the BIOS on them was running a very old ucode patch and they had serious stability issues with HT enabled until Asus released a new BIOS with ucode patch that address the issue. I will check tomorrow to see if there are other reports of issues with RTC with it freezing and see how far back on ucode my Maximus VI and respond back. Like most ODM's Asus will not run the latest greatest on ucode patches until they fully evaluate them.

In the meantime I've done the task manager fix to work around the problem as I lost a bunch of saved games due to the clock mess.

For folks wanting to know how to add a task to help work around this, please see their site: http://www.pretentiousname.com/timesync/

As a task, it will not update if the widow of time difference is too great, so you may need to mess with the setting suggested till you get it right.


@Asus admin, please PM me a valid Asus email address so we can exchange info and my work email address.

Thanks,

Lee

[PerpetualCycle]

I hope I am wrong, but dream on and move on. If I encounter this debilitating issue in the near future I will buy a Z97 and from another manufacturer.

The Asus ROG series has lots of features and lots of appeal, however, if they have serious issues and Asus doesn't fix them, that is all for naught. I would rather purchase a functional board with low risk than a feature-full board with high risk.

[crnnz]

I have recently installed the third Z87A motherboard. The clock problem is still there.

Asus have boasted in the past about being a leader in the developement of the new UEFI BIOS. If I had to guess, I'd say that is where the problem lies.

The computer shop that I deal with has been very good and replaced the board twice without question. The strange thing is that they say that they have never had the problem with any of the 200 motherboards a month that they sell, except for me.

This is a decent guy. I can't believe he is standing there telling me a bare-faced lie.

I said in a post, since deleted, that Asus would abandon us and concentrate on their new boards. That is bad enough but deleting our posts is a really dirty business.

I've been buying Asus stuff for at least 15 years and always thought they were the best. From now on I'll avoid them like the plague.

Asus should understand that they need us more than we need them.