ROG Front Base Problems

[MattL21]

Dear Asus,
First off I want to say how disappointed I am with your ROG Front Base and your customer support. I have been a customer of Asus for years and have purchased many item in the past (These item include motherboards, video cards, Laptop’s, etc.). I have had two major problem with the ROG Front Base since I purchased it from Newegg on June 12th. The first problem was that the AAFP cable (Audio Cable) was too short, I guess they did not think people that buy a front base would be using a full tower. No big deal I will call Asus and get them to send me a longer cable. So on June 27th at 9:29am (Eastern Time) I called Asus’s hardware support line and talked to a guy name Jonathan, he setup a case number and entered in all my information but unfortunately I was at work and did not have access to the serial number. Jonathan told me just to call back when I got home and give them the case number and the product serial number. I was thinking to myself that was easy, I left work around 12pm and called Asus at around 12:38pm. I give them the case number and told them that I had the serial number now, the guy tells me that the first guy (Jonathan) does not know what he was doing and that this is not a support problem and that I needed to call the Asus E-Store. So now I’m hot and I call the E-Shore which say they don’t carry the longer AAFP cable and that I need to call the retailer. So I tell her that I have already contacted Newegg and that they don’t carry this cable. She then tells me to contact the support line again, this time when I call I get disconnected. At this time I have had enough of this BS and I’m about to call Newegg and send both my Asus ROG Maxius vii Hero and ROG Front back for a refund. Then I get a call and its Jonathan (The first rep I talked too), he apologizes for the problem and enters in the serial number and gets the cable sent out (Now that was easy).

About a week and a half later the longer AAFP cable arrives and I install it and boot the computer and as before installing the cable the only thing that works is the fan RPM read out and CPU/MB Temp read out. The audio volume and EQ does not show anything and does not work, also the fan controller is not show and does not work ether. At this time I also start having problem with the Asus AI Suite 3, preset Turbo shuts down all my fan and the only setting that works is full speed. I then rebooted my computer and go into the bio and set the fan speed and uninstall the Asus AI Suite 3 and everything seems to be working except the Front Base. I then start looking around online and find out that the bios needs to be updated on the motherboard and I also found the software update instructions. So I update the bio to the latest bio update (I think it was 904, I since updated to 1002). Then I uninstall the audio drivers and installed the audio drive from the Front Base driver page, I also ran the uninstaller/cleaner for the Asus AI Suite 3 and then reinstalled the AI Suite that was listed on the Front Base driver page. I then turn off and unplugged my computer and attached the USB Q-Connector to the ROG Front Base cable and plugged it into one of the USB 2.0 connectors. Then boot the computer up and installed the ROG Front Base Driver V1.01.06 (With ASUS ROG Connect Plus V1.00.24) for Windows. At this point everything on the front base was working including the volume\EQ and Fan Controller. I then shut down the computer and removed the USB Q-Connector and plugged the ROG Front Base cable into the ROG_EXT, then I rebooted the computer. Once I was in Windows (Windows 8.1 Pro) I started testing again but if I turned up the volume on the Front base nothing would happen, this also happens with the fan controller.

At this point I am highly disappointed:mad: with this product and I will not pay $17 to ship it back to you guys. I have included my system specs below:
• Intel Core i7-4790K
• ASUS MAXIMUS VII HERO LGA 1150 Intel Z97
• CORSAIR Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866
• CORSAIR AXi series AX860i 860W
• EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB Classified w/ EVGA ACX Cooler
• Corsair Obsidian 750D Black ATX Full Tower
• CORSAIR Hydro Series H105
• 2x Corsair Air Series SP120 High Performance Edition (For H105)
• 3x Corsair Air Series AF140 Quiet Edition (Front and Back Fan)
• 2x Corsair Air Series AF120 Performance Edition (Bottom Fans)
• Silverstone CPF01 3.94" PWM Fan Splitter Cable (Bottom Fans) – I removed this and I’m still having the same problem.

Any help would be great.
Matt

[Raja]

Hi Matt,

As a debug, if you have a spare HDD, it might be worth trying a dummy install from afresh and seeing if that cures the issues. If not will need to dig deeper.

-Raja

[MattL21]

Hey Raja,

I will see if I can find another drive and see if that fixes the problem.

I also forgot to add the Hard Drive I'm using: Samsung Electronics 840 EVO-Series 250GB

Thanks for the help.
Matt

[Raja]

Okay - let me know how it goes.

[Mobie]

i got the same problem with M7H and CPU frequency not work
i paid $75 just for showing me clock, fans rpm and cpu temp, WTH?:mad:

[MattL21]

I feel your pain Mobie, I am going to try and reinstall everything from scratch (OS and drivers) tonight and see if that works.

Matt

[MattL21]

Hey Raja,

I got it working with the dummy drive. I reinstalled the OS and only used the network driver from the disk that came with the motherboard, before I started the process I disconnected the AAFP, ROG_EXT, and the sata power cables to the front base. I then install all the mother drivers from the website except the Audio drivers. Then I went to the front base driver page and installed the audio drivers, Al suite 3 and I download but did not install the front base drivers. After all the driver were installed/downloaded I shutdown the computer and installed the USB Q-Connect to the ROG_EXT cable, I then plugged the ROG_EXT cable into a USB 2.0 header and I also connected the AAFP and Sata power cable. After that I boot the computer and installed the front base drivers, I then rebooted again. I then login to windows and tested the vol and fan controller and everything seemed to work. The last thing i did is shut down the computer and removed the USB Q-Connect and plugged the ROG_EXT cable into the the ROG_EXT on the motherboard and boot. At this point everything worked.

A few thing that need to be pointed out:

1. The volume, to get this to work you have to tap the big round button once adjust the volume to the level needed and tap the big round button again to except the change. I feel that when you turn the knob the volume should go up and down, the would reduce your steps from 3 to 1.

2. Why do we have to use the USB Q-Connect to update the software, the front base has a USB in it.

Matt

[Mobie]

do your front base show correct cpu frequency when booted in window?

[rolldog]

My ROG Front Base has been flaky ever since I upgraded my system, which was about 6 months ago. Sometimes, the CPU Frequency will read 0.88, sometimes it reads 3.5, when I overclock it, sometimes it's accurate and sometimes it's not. Like someone else mentioned, I have an expensive clock installed and it's taking up 2 of my 4 front 5 1/4" bays. I'm considering trashing it.

[MattL21]

Hey Mobie,

It sure did, I think my problem was mostly with the drivers. I will keep you update once I redo my OS and really test the front base out.

Matt