Hi everyone,
I damaged 2 pins on the CPU socket of my new MVF board and was told by the retailer that they can send it to Asus for a socket repair/replacement at cost of $50 + shipping (since socket damage is not covered by warranty). OK, that’s much better than the price of a new board. After 4 weeks I got the board back, seems it’s not my original one because this one has a different serial no, but it’s clearly not a brand new board either. Anyway, it looks fine so I install the 3770K and RAM, boot into Windows 7 and run a few threads of Prime95 to test it. After about 30 minutes it reboots and gets stuck with QLED code 55 (Memory not installed).
A whole weekend’s worth of testing and investigation follows. The board is flashed with latest BIOS (1604). The RAM is GSkill 1866 Ripjaws X (2x 8GB) which is on the QVL. I test it in different slots, with 1 or both modules. I run memtest86+ which starts throwing errors halfway through the first pass. BUT when I test the memory overnight in my old rig it completes 4 passes successfully (with same speeds and settings). In any event I also test the MVF with Corsair Vengeance 1600 (2x 4GB) DIMMs (also on the QVL). I also test the CPU in another Asus (cheapie) board just in case the problem is with the CPU, however it runs Prime95 through the night without a hitch. Note all these tests are run with stock CPU and RAM (XMP profile) clocks.
So now I am stuck. The end result is the same every time: the system boots fine into Windows but after a while the system becomes unstable, reboots and then gets stuck with QCode 55. After that I have to use MemOK or clear the CMOS to get it running again.
So I have 2 questions that I hope to get some help with:
1. Am I right in assuming this board is broken… at this point I am pretty sure but I would like to get some input/advice from the members here before deciding what to do.
2. If the board is broken, what are my options? Send it back to the e-retailer at my expense, who will send it back to the repair center again, wait another 4 weeks and hope for the best? I am considering just buying another board, but these boards aren’t cheap and I am disappointed in Asus now after I had to wait 4 weeks for repairs (at my expense) only to get a dodgy board back. I've only bought Asus boards for my last few builds over the years and I love the MVF, but I expected a better experience that this when I bought RoG.
Sorry for the long post and thanks for any input.