Sabertooth Z87 - Bios Clock Issue

[Krait]

The basic problem is that the clock in the UEFI bios stops working on a regular basis.

I can remove the battery and it will restart (at least for a day or two) but it always stops again - I've tried 4 different batteries and the longest that the clock continued to work was 8 days.
It's only the clock that doesn't work (at least as far as I know) - all the other bios settings stay the same (except when resetting cmos ofc)
I've tried it at stock and OC'ed and it still persists in stopping, I've also tried using my older PSU (Seasonic 860 xp1) and the same result.

I suppose it's either a bios problem (bios 1205) or a MB fault but if anyone has a suggestion for me to try, in case it's neither of these, it would be most welcome.
🙂

[Fredericksburg]

I'm yet another with the same problem. On an 87 Sabertooth.

Here's something interesting, however. Do any of you have programs that read info off of motherboard data? I have AIDA 64 (you can download a free trial from their website if you wish) reading temps and data (memory usage, disk space, etc.) and outputting it to a Logitech G15 keyboard LCD screen and a Rainmeter app (a desktop customization tool, I have the temp and cpu usage graphed out in front of me). Well get this: when the clock stops, so do they. They freeze up the same way. The clock gets stuck at 1:23am and if the temp at that time was 43C then 43C it will stay.

Until I manually tell windows to sychronize it's clock with an available internet server. As soon as I do that, and the clock starts to work, AIDA 64 starts working again, and my LCD screen and desktop displays start moving and responding the current data.

What the hell?

I thought it was because I had the time measured, but I took otu the time measurement from AIDA 64 (well... as best I could, simply un-checking it as a shared value), yet it still freezes its data (the program doesn't actually freeze up)- EXACTLY AT THE SAME MOMENT AS WHEN THE CLOCK FREEZES.

I think this thing has deeper implications than just the clock.

A note: I also have AI Suite III running, and as far as I have bothered to take note, it is unaffected. The fans also spin up whenever I am using CPU intensive programs, even though the temperature readings I am receiving from AIDA 64, the Logitech LCD, and Rain meter are frozen.

What the hell is going on here?

[Fredericksburg]

EDIT: I just realized, much like some guy before me somewhere on this thread who set Windows to resync the clock every 15 minutes, what the problem might be: AIDA 64 is set to update the data at regural intervals, down to the millisecond. But if the clock freezes, how does it know how many miliseconds have passed? Maybe it doesn't, and so it waits for the next 5000 milliseconds to pass, and keeps waiting. So perhaps it's not "frozen" but "indefinatly waiting" for a time to pass that never shows up.

Man, this clock situation eff'd everything up. Will do the reflashing and resetting of cmos, but if the people on this board are to be believed, the problem always comes back.

Also, I was thinking, perhaps it has nothing to do with the settings themselves, but the amount of times that the settings are changed? I remember that when windows 8 first came out, there was an error with the screensavers. If you changed the picture more than 8 (or maybe it was 10, i forget) times, it would stop updating the pictures and continuously reuse the old ones, even if you tried to change the picture manually. It had nothing to do with the pictures themselves or even their format, but the amount of times that the picture had been changed. Perhaps due to a part of the code which a programmer had placed a low amount of variables when testing or something, and then forgot to change it.

It seems the only regular variable is the fact that it happens to people who are changing their bios settings, and some are saying they think the amount of times they change it has an effect. I myself tried to load a profile from before the problem occurred, but the problem STILL showed up. The problem can apparently also be brought about an unaffected machine by bringing in a profile that it has occurred on. I would think the only way this could be is if there was a hidden parameter somewhere that could be transferred through profiles but was also independent of the profile settings themselves.

Perhaps there is some setting or file or line of code that tracks user history and changes, even just counting the number of times something has been switched, that is broken or something. Perhaps, for those trying to replicate the problem, you could try sticking with just one motherboard, and see if after numerous setting changes the problem appears.

I'm no expert though, so I have no idea, I'm just throwing out some thoughts.

[CDreier]

EDIT: I realize this is a technical forum, not a complaint site. But I've got to say this clock issue is becoming a real annoyance. It has repercussions in almost every aspect of my daily computing; time stamps on financial spreadsheets and programs, logbooks, verification of the time emails are sent and received, on and on. I trust this is THE thread to find out the latest on what's being done to fix the problem. By the way, I notice this thread began on August first of last year. There's been no resolution and we're now going into March! This is a concern. Thanks.

[Fredericksburg]

I second CDreier thoughts.

And also, I take back the part about ASUS Suite III working fine. It's working... but I just noticed that sometimes it would just...



This never happened before the clock started screwing up. I've had this board up and running daily for almost 6 months now. The clock stopped functioning properly about a week ago. And also: since ya'll don't know the cause, ya'll don't know how big the problem might be or what all may be affected. It may be more than the clock that is messed up. and the clock is just a symptom or side-effect of sorts.

This needs to get fixed. ASUS has a reputation of being a world class company so I do hope they want to keep it and that they will keep working on a solution to this issue until they figure it out, because this is a make it or break it deal-breaker sort of problem for most.

EDIT: I uploaded the pic three times, sorry about that, didn't know it would just post the non-marked ones down at the bottom. I deleted one but having the site isn't responding to the others. My bad.

[desolator4u]

CDreier wrote:
EDIT: I realize this is a technical forum, not a complaint site. But I've got to say this clock issue is becoming a real annoyance. It has repercussions in almost every aspect of my daily computing; time stamps on financial spreadsheets and programs, logbooks, verification of the time emails are sent and received, on and on. I trust this is THE thread to find out the latest on what's being done to fix the problem. By the way, I notice this thread began on August first of last year. There's been no resolution and we're now going into March! This is a concern. Thanks.

^^^

[Praz]

Hello

Those screenshot point to a ME issue.

[adonisx4]

also having the same problem

[Nicholas_Steel]

Thanks everyone. We found this thread after experiencing the same issue of the RTC stalling whenever the computer was switched off, after upgrading the BIOS. The solution of simply resetting the BIOS via the Jumper Pins appears to have worked great (It's been numerous days/weeks now).

I like to imagine that the newer BIOS simply doesn't recognize some of the values that the older BIOS was using for various settings and the Jumper Pins completely erases the old configuration files allowing for completely fresh, fully compatible files to be generated.

[Fredericksburg]

Thanks Praz for the tip. I completely uninstalled AI3 for the time being. I'm at the point (not just due to this problem, but it's about that time...) to where I'm going to clear, reflash, and then reformat, and reinstall (windows, all drivers etc.) for a fresh start (fingers crossed). Just waiting for some free time.

Nicholas Steel

I like to imagine that the newer BIOS simply doesn't recognize some of the values that the older BIOS was using for various settings and the Jumper Pins completely erases the old configuration files allowing for completely fresh, fully compatible files to be generated.

Time will tell whether or not it comes back like some here claim must happen. I am starting to wonder which BIOS version they are using. Maybe your theory explains why one user said a recent BIOS upgrade "broke" it again.

I did find a somewhat hilarious consequence of this broken clock thingy, an small upside if you will (glass half-full..): several time-based software trials and demos couldn't figure out how much time had passed since I started using the software, and so therefore it now appears that the trials seem to stay open indefinitely... heh... one of them even informed me though a little periodic popup that it couldn't tell how much time had passed since I started my trial and urged me to make sure that "such-and-such-trial-monitoring-service" was running... as if I was actually going to take the time and go troubleshoot around to make sure that the service responsible for cutting me off after I'd hit 10 hours or whatever was running properly, haha!

[Nicholas_Steel]

Fredericksburg wrote:
Time will tell whether or not it comes back like some here claim must happen. I am starting to wonder which BIOS version they are using. Maybe your theory explains why one user said a recent BIOS upgrade "broke" it again.

Well, the theory is based on the fact that the motherboard uses a UEFI BIOS which is essentially an operating system, which is vastly more complex (code wise) then the low level BIOS that we're used to.

It's not too surprising that early motherboards supporting UEFI are prone to problems, I imagine it will be a year or 2 before motherboard manufacturers become completely comfortable with the new system and develop methods of avoiding this kind of thing in the future.