Wish i never purchased the Rampage 4 Black.

[PFS38]

This is the worst motherboard i have ever owned, its stuck in a constant boot loop, i cannot even get to the bios. Does anybody know how to fix this?

[NEOAethyr]

Sounds like it could be some issue with power.
Have you checked your dpc latency?

Other things I can think of to try for trial and error.
Swapping the vga cards around.
Onboard audio.

One other thing I can think of maybe is to test each slot.
Move the audio card to one slot, and test the others one by one with a single vga card.
To see which specific configs cause an issue.
Tedious I know...

I'm guessing something is leaking into the power of your audio cards.
That's what I'm thinking, or maybe it's a dpc latency prob with software or a bad card somewhere.
Could I suppose be a bad mobo.
I've had a bad vga card I was given once, acted up on on 2 diff machines in the same way, it would get massive spikes in dpc latency.
The card was a waste unfortunately.

[Kosmosagamemnon]

NEOAethyr wrote:
Sounds like it could be some issue with power.
Have you checked your dpc latency?{/QUOTE]

Yup the DPC Latency is fine according to the tool, I should have no problems with media playback.

NEOAethyr wrote:
Other things I can think of to try for trial and error.
Swapping the vga cards around.
Onboard audio.

Well I actually removed one video card to test, then swapped it for the second card. This made no difference to the audio playback issue. Then I repeated the same test again except with the Xonar sound card which, again exhibited audio issues.
While I haven't yet tried using the on-board audio, I have tried (as mentioned above) the Xonar Essence STX; this achieved a similar result, though it was slightly different, presumably because the Xonar card has a different architecture and audio processor.

NEOAethyr wrote:
One other thing I can think of maybe is to test each slot.
Move the audio card to one slot, and test the others one by one with a single vga card.
To see which specific configs cause an issue.
Tedious I know...

I actually already tried this, in addition to the steps you outlined above, I also disabled other onboard devices like the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth controllers. Disabling Wi-Fi and Bluetooth actually helped considerably but only when I put the audio card in the next PCIe x 3 slot. when the card is in the PCIe x1 slot the audio artefact is back.

NEOAethyr wrote:
I'm guessing something is leaking into the power of your audio cards.
That's what I'm thinking, or maybe it's a dpc latency prob with software or a bad card somewhere.
Could I suppose be a bad mobo.
I've had a bad vga card I was given once, acted up on on 2 diff machines in the same way, it would get massive spikes in dpc latency.
The card was a waste unfortunately.

The power leak is a distinct possibility. I also know I am not the only one suffering the problem with an add-in audio card either. So this is what I've tried; I've tested the card in various slots under Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Windows 8 x64 Pro and Windows 8.1 x64 Pro. With Windows 7 Ultimate installed I then proceeded to remove some devices to test the problem and came back with the same results. While still under Windows 7 x64 Ultimate I swapped the ZxR for the Xonar which resulted in a similar problem (bear in mind the Xonar Essence requires its own 4 pin molex power connector too.) If it also helps my card is connected via Optical SPDIF connector to a Dolby Surround receiver. Since only data is transmitted and not strictly an analogue audio signal, I doubt that power leakage is the culprit. I also use a Thermaltake Toughpower grand platinum PSU rated to 1,050 Watts I doubt that it is the problem

So what I can confirm that the issue happens irrespective of Operating Systems, and irrespective of whatever sound card I use or the driver versions installed. My money is firmly on the motherboard being the culprit.

As far as it being a bad card, I only have three add-in cards in my machine. 2 Geforce Titans and the audio card. That's it. all of these devices worked perfectly on my previous board which was a Rampage IV Evtreme. I have thought about rolling back to the RIVE, but with the imminent launch of the X99 series mother boards I have decided to upgrade to one of those as soon as they become more readily available. I have also tested my RAM with Memtest86 and allowed it to complete 8 successful passes.

If I had to guess, I'd say that the problem is related to resource allocation/sharing on the board. This is something that should be addressable via firmware/BIOS updates. I still remember when the RIVE launched, it was fairly unstable and too many BIOS/Firmware revisions to stabilize the board. However I don't want to wait for months on end until the board's issues are addresses, I will probably move to an X99 chipset before this board is fixed. I have thought about RMA-ing the board but that again will take a lot of time, and this problem is fairly obscure by the time its RMA'd I will probably already have an X99 board. And all of this doesn't explain the random momentary freezes that occur too. No I hate to say it but this board cost me $750 when I bought it, a premium product with a price to match but the performance doesn't match the price, at least in my case.

Yep for a premium product I'm disappointed on the level of support for it and I am seriously considering buying an x99 board from a different manufacturer. We'll see what happens. 🙂

[Pixels]

Interesting read Kosmosagamemnon, this is my first asus board [rivebe] so have nothing to compare it with, except for my last two x79's from other manufacturers which were epic disasters!

Compared to them, this board works quite well though I have noted oddities like you have, e.g. video card locks up occasionally [everything on default clocks with win7 x64], but who do I blame, the video card [asus gtx690] or the mb or drivers.
The wifi also has not lockup but 'lock out' issues where even a power off > cold restart doesn't restore the network, you have to pull the power lead for more than 15 secs. then restart.

But this only happens when connected to my new billion router, but the billion has no problem with other wireless devices. So again, who is at fault.

End rant