Maximus IV Extreme-Z ROG Motherboard Issues

[Huscurian]

Hello,Hello,

I've set up my computer build today and managed to put everything all in its right place. I even set up the motherboard, graphics cards, RAMs, everything. I even wired and placed the things in the right place. Here's the configuration I have now:

Maximus Extreme-Z ROG ATX motherboard
EVGA GTX 560 (x2; not SLI-Ready atm)
i7 Core Processor 2600k (2nd Gen)
Ballistix 4GB RAM (per stick; bought from Crucial.com; 16GB on the motherboard currently)
Coolmax ZPG Power Supply (1200 Watts)
OCZ 2.5" 120 SATA II Solid State Drive (x2)
Plextor Blu Ray Player (PATA according to the box; but used it for SATA)
Coolermaster's HAF 932 ATX Case

EDIT: I modified the post to better reflect my situation.

I did say that there was an orange LED near the RAM. I checked again and found that the MHz range was set to auto so I naturally set it to DDR3-1600MHz as the RAM is when I bought it from Crucial.com. After saving the change, it modified itself to green so I realized that it was not the RAM being dysfunctional. However, I did notice that the BIOS LED was orange. Is this normal? I also noticed a red LED lit near the ATX power connector but no activity from the HD LED. There was no blinking nor lighting to show that the hard drives of the SATA were active.

The screen did say that there was no hard drive detected. The oddest thing was that the MegaTrends BIOS detected ATAPI devices: SATA 1 6G: Plextor .... (which is my Blu-Ray Drive, and SATA3G 3: OCZ VERTEX DRIVE, SATA3G 5: OCZ VERTEX DRIVE. If it could detect the ATAPI devices on the MegaTrend screen but could not detect it initially in the beginning, then what went wrong?

I'm new to computer building and am looking forward to having this BIOS issue resolved with the hard drive so that it can be active, finally get itself rolling with installing Windows Ultimate. Hopefully I'll be able to play Skyrim on the new computer that I just paid for and built!

However, all is well in most areas. I just need to figure out how to detect those drives and to get the HD LED blinking or lighting to indicate it's active.

Any more advice on how to resolve this? Any other advice to help a newbie install Windows 7 Ultimate after he solves the HD LED problem?

[digmeahole]

The yellow light by the bios is normal it just tells you what bios you are booting from. The HD Led by the red sata port should blink but its not going to if the bios does not see your HD.. The lights for the memory reflect normal / High /& Crazy lol i believe it reflects the voltage or the ram. I am at 1.65 so i am at yellow anything over 1,65 would indeed be crazy at Intel states you can fry the memory controller.

You should get the red light by the AXT power connector upon boot so that's normal as well. As far as the hard drive being detected go into advanced bios and make sure that the controller chip you have it attached to is enabled. IE Marvell or Intel chip. My best suggestion would be to read the manual as this is not a power on and go mobo as far as i am concerned. It has a lot of options that other boards do not have. Try and read the entire book or just section you are working on 1 at a time. Hope this was of some use to you....

As far as installing windows 7 I set mine up as UEFI, Again the manual will tell you much more then i can.....

Huscurian wrote:
Hello,Hello,

I've set up my computer build today and managed to put everything all in its right place. I even set up the motherboard, graphics cards, RAMs, everything. I even wired and placed the things in the right place. Here's the configuration I have now:

Maximus Extreme-Z ROG ATX motherboard
EVGA GTX 560 (x2; not SLI-Ready atm)
i7 Core Processor 2600k (2nd Gen)
Ballistix 4GB RAM (per stick; bought from Crucial.com; 16GB on the motherboard currently)
Coolmax ZPG Power Supply (1200 Watts)
OCZ 2.5" 120 SATA II Solid State Drive (x2)
Plextor Blu Ray Player (PATA according to the box; but used it for SATA)
Coolermaster's HAF 932 ATX Case

EDIT: I modified the post to better reflect my situation.

I did say that there was an orange LED near the RAM. I checked again and found that the MHz range was set to auto so I naturally set it to DDR3-1600MHz as the RAM is when I bought it from Crucial.com. After saving the change, it modified itself to green so I realized that it was not the RAM being dysfunctional. However, I did notice that the BIOS LED was orange. Is this normal? I also noticed a red LED lit near the ATX power connector but no activity from the HD LED. There was no blinking nor lighting to show that the hard drives of the SATA were active.

The screen did say that there was no hard drive detected. The oddest thing was that the MegaTrends BIOS detected ATAPI devices: SATA 1 6G: Plextor .... (which is my Blu-Ray Drive, and SATA3G 3: OCZ VERTEX DRIVE, SATA3G 5: OCZ VERTEX DRIVE. If it could detect the ATAPI devices on the MegaTrend screen but could not detect it initially in the beginning, then what went wrong?

I'm new to computer building and am looking forward to having this BIOS issue resolved with the hard drive so that it can be active, finally get itself rolling with installing Windows Ultimate. Hopefully I'll be able to play Skyrim on the new computer that I just paid for and built!

However, all is well in most areas. I just need to figure out how to detect those drives and to get the HD LED blinking or lighting to indicate it's active.

Any more advice on how to resolve this? Any other advice to help a newbie install Windows 7 Ultimate after he solves the HD LED problem?

[Huscurian]

Funny ID you got there. Dig me a hole. Haha, let's go grab a shovel and make one for you! 😛

digmeahole wrote:
The yellow light by the bios is normal it just tells you what bios you are booting from. The HD Led by the red sata port should blink but its not going to if the bios does not see your HD.. The lights for the memory reflect normal / High /& Crazy lol i believe it reflects the voltage or the ram. I am at 1.65 so i am at yellow anything over 1,65 would indeed be crazy at Intel states you can fry the memory controller.

I wrote this out of desperation, finally went back to checking the manual that the motherboard had with it. I realized that it indicated voltage and changed the settings. Changed it to 1600MHz so it was green. 🙂 Great thing we have manuals to help assist us in our build. As for the Intel CPU, I read somewhere about the percentages of CPUs that can handle certain voltages and I think it was denoting the chances of a CPU surviving it at NORMAL, HIGH, CRAZY. That's what the manual said itself: CRAZY for the third setting. A nice little sense of humor obscured in a manual.

digmeahole wrote:
You should get the red light by the AXT power connector upon boot so that's normal as well. As far as the hard drive being detected go into advanced bios and make sure that the controller chip you have it attached to is enabled. IE Marvell or Intel chip. My best suggestion would be to read the manual as this is not a power on and go mobo as far as i am concerned. It has a lot of options that other boards do not have. Try and read the entire book or just section you are working on 1 at a time. Hope this was of some use to you....

As far as installing windows 7 I set mine up as UEFI, Again the manual will tell you much more then i can.....

Yeah, the ATX connector works fine. The only problem with the motherboard is the hard drive, that's all; and none of the components failed in its POST testing. They were all working in concert with the motherboard and the PSU where applicable. Your advice is useful and I know I should go back to the manual again.

I have a question: my hard drives are Solid State Drives and they're SATA II 3.0Gb/s, which I connected to the grey. Am I supposed to put them in specific order? I don't think I have to since the computer initially detected the drive. The Plextor Drive is a PATA but the box says SATA in its manual so I used SATA to make sure that the drive could read from a non-MARVELL port. It's reading from the normal one.

I'll have to retry and hopefully get it all fixed. Once I have it fixed, I'll update and let you know if the computer's running Windows 7 Ultimate without any problems.

Thanks for all your help, digmeahole. 🙂

[digmeahole]

LOL! Its from my metal detecting hobby 🙂

No order is necessary as far as i know. but i am a freak and put my operating system on 0 and leave the other sata drive such as dvd drives for the last ports. So the Intel port still wont recognize your ssd drive?

Have you checked you ssd firmware to see if there were any updates on the manufacturers web site? Also try the red ports they are backwards compatible with sata 2. And if i remember correctly people reported slight performance gains on the 6gb ports even though the drives were 3gb drives. Next step if all else fails is to call Asus phone support listed in the manual. Hope you get it running soon . And please let us know what the issue was.......

[Huscurian]

New Update!

I turned on my PC after I woke up. I turned on my monitor, checked the motherboard LEDs. The oddest thing was the HDD LED turned orange, stayed orange, not blinking. The initial screen flashed then disappeared. The MegaTrends screen appeared again... No "No Hard Drive Disk Detected." It asks me to "Continue POST? Press ESC". I did. Then BAM! Windows 7 Ultimate's screen loads. It says it's "loading Windows Files..." I went through the installation process, then it told me that it would reboot to update the process. Then... initial screen, MegaTrends screen... "No Hard Drive Disk Detected" appears as well as "Warning! CPU Temperature Error! Press F1 for Setup..." The initial setup is 90+ Celsius to protect the CPU from overheating. I saved the configuration, rebooted, but no hope of going to Windows 7 Ultimate. :(***** (tons of crying... just kidding)

I believe the generic CPU fan did not come with a compound so luckily I've already ordered two Artic Silver 5 compounds to help cool the CPU. It'll arrive soon. I think it has to do with the CPU that it refuses me to detect the Hard Drive and as it overheats, it may have cut off the Hard Drive Disk detection and made sure I couldn't get anywhere... Or the problem may be something else. Not sure. I'll have to look into it.

Any idea what you think that orange LED means on the HDD LED? Any thoughts on what the problem might be?

EDIT: All fixed now! I tinkered with the BIOS a bit. I realized that I was using MARVELL which is not using any drives at all so I disabled it. That enabled a bypass; I had to set the SATA drives to IDE, which OCZ said that I must allow an optical drive to be its first boot option with the Solid State Drive as the secondary option. Then when I ran it again! BAM! I finally got into Windows 7 Ultimate, updated some drivers but unfortunately I had to hold off updating since the CPU will require a thermal paste to keep it cool. The conductor on the fan is keeping it hot, or having risen its centigrade. Thank goodness the warning system alerted me.

I can consider this thread closed since I have solved the problem. 🙂 I appreciate you helping me out!

[X-ROG]

If you're using a generic fan then it may not be seated correctly - check the pressure of all the clips is fully inserted. You can check the real-time temp of your CPU in the BIOS so it'll tell you if it's continually rising indicating a problem.

Try the HDD on different ports: try the top red ports, then middle black ones. Also check your SATA cable and SATA power connectors - try different ones to check they aren't intermittently faulty.