Asus dark hero startup issue ?

[karlosfandango]

Hi all
I have a Asus Crosshair VIII DarkHhero ...with an AMD 5900X , 32gb of Gskils ram

Had a few times over last few months since recieving board where the system wont power on.
You press power switch on case and nothing .
You press power button on motherboard ...nothing ....and its lit up white ...all rgb is working ( on when powered off )
If i turn off PSU and back then power it back on ...system boots fine.
It can then be fine for say 4 weeks ...then happen out the blue again.
Was ok with old motherboard....so only things that have changed is MB and CPU.

Tried reflashing bios back to earlier version ...no different.
Had new graphics card since last time so rules that out.
Tried taking ram sticks out ...no difference.

Seems starnge how can run for weeks without issue ( but dont use it every day )

Im using an EVGA supernova 850W PSU.

Not major issue as all have to do is power off PSU and all good again ...but got to be something wrong.
Asus say sounds like something tripping PSU protection ...will have to try unpluging 24 pin and 8 pin cables next time , then plug back in to see if motherboard or psu .

Any help most appreciated.
Karl

[DaBogo]

Hi,Â*

i got my asus dark hero on 08.12.2020 from Digitec in Switzerland.
The board was working until last correct pc shutdown 1 week ago.
I have custom build with 5900x, 4x8ddr4 gskill 3800mhz, asus strix lc rgb 360 aio, all drivers and bios up2date.

The issue is: nevermind if i press power button on case or on motherboard,
i hear click from powersupply fans turn on for 1cm and than nothing. i see rgb on the lc 360 aio (otherones are turned off) so i was
thinking its my Corsair HX850i psu.

I bought brand new PX-1000 Â*Seasonic PSU, also replaced the termal paste, connected everything back and same issue with brandÂ*
new power supply. Â*
Was there a V2 release from Dark Hero without this issue?
I‘m already looking since couple of days at msi x570s ace max as replacement since i believe i could probably just reconnect everything from dark hero to the new board and send this to rma. Was any reaction from Asus made to this thread?
****
* Â*Are there any updates regarding this issue?Â*
I was happy with performance and everything but this is not acceptable since after replacing the psu its more than obvious that its comming from the motherboard.

Any feedbacks are very appreciated.

Br
DaliÂ*

[Megascrypt]

DaBogo wrote:
Hi,Â*

i got my asus dark hero on 08.12.2020 from Digitec in Switzerland.
The board was working until last correct pc shutdown 1 week ago.
I have custom build with 5900x, 4x8ddr4 gskill 3800mhz, asus strix lc rgb 360 aio, all drivers and bios up2date.

The issue is: nevermind if i press power button on case or on motherboard,
i hear click from powersupply fans turn on for 1cm and than nothing. i see rgb on the lc 360 aio (otherones are turned off) so i was
thinking its my Corsair HX850i psu.

I bought brand new PX-1000 Â*Seasonic PSU, also replaced the termal paste, connected everything back and same issue with brandÂ*
new power supply. Â*
Was there a V2 release from Dark Hero without this issue?
I‘m already looking since couple of days at msi x570s ace max as replacement since i believe i could probably just reconnect everything from dark hero to the new board and send this to rma. Was any reaction from Asus made to this thread?
****
* Â*Are there any updates regarding this issue?Â*
I was happy with performance and everything but this is not acceptable since after replacing the psu its more than obvious that its comming from the motherboard.

Any feedbacks are very appreciated.

Br
DaliÂ*

This has been issue to so many other owners of Dark Hero and to date no one knows which batches were effected. I can only presume since yours was from 2020, you might have had that coming. We all would like to know when was their latest production date of these boards that were fixed shipped out to retailers.

Honestly, I've heard a lot of good things about MSI and since Asus gives everyone run around with no any sort of info I would go for it, otherwise, you like many of us might wait for nothing.

Good luck

[DaBogo]

Megascrypt wrote:
This has been issue to so many other owners of Dark Hero and to date no one knows which batches were effected. I can only presume since yours was from 2020, you might have had that coming. We all would like to know when was their latest production date of these boards that were fixed shipped out to retailers.

Honestly, I've heard a lot of good things about MSI and since Asus gives everyone run around with no any sort of info I would go for it, otherwise, you like many of us might wait for nothing.

Good luck

Thanks mate.
Well if i consider that this issue is still not so old
and maybe Asus is still analyzing the production
numbers and so on in order to find out which boards are impacted
then it would make sense to make an official statement later when
everything is confirmed.

I could also imagine that this board was so much pre-ordered and ordered
even in small Switzerland only at the same shop i bought it, people were
waiting 3/4months to get it. Maybe production was speeded up, some bad parts came on boards
or maybe a incompatibility issues when some bios settings are used and so on.Â*
Since my pc doesnt start at all, i cannot help at this point 🙂 haha.
Â*Â*Â*
That means it depends how much people report directly here
and even more how much boards get replacement local and asus never
correct be informed about.

But it would also be a great move to reach out to resellers and
inform them about a possible issue or make an official callout to users
to report this directly to an „dedicated“ email address if someone runs into this.

It would be great if the issue can be identified and Dark Hero gets a Rev 2.0.
I have opened a rma ticket in Switzerland and have ordered a new dark hero.Â*
Â*Lets see if i will run into the same issue again. The reason for that isÂ*
that i‘m running 4x8ddr4 gskill at 3800mhz cl14
which is only supported by asus. Strix 570 E Wifi 2 was an option
until i saw how cmos clear works and that was a no go.
Â*Â*
Thanks for the feedback! Â*

[DaBogo]

I have just picked up my new Asus Dark Hero. The package looks same but some labels are different.Â*
There is a windows 11 ready sticker, the serial & check numbers are complete different and i see manufacturing date is December 2021.
Â*
I hope i will have time this weekend to replace the previous dark hero and see
if there are some differences. Basically i should also do a clean windows install
switching from 10 to 11 home but i‘m far too lazy to install everything again i believe
but who knows 🙂

I was very happy with win 10 home performance as long my desktop was working.
I will keep you up2date and also update you about the feedback from my local shop.Â*

Â*

[Megascrypt]

BearerOfVictory wrote:
Hey guys, it's me again. This time I might have some good news to provide!

Since the startup issue was really affecting me more than I wanted (it was getting stressfull to bend under my desk every day or so, wait a few seconds for the LEDs to be cut off and then press the switch again), I kept looking online for possible solutions, since the issue in my case seemed to be a bit random and not specifically hardware (like I said in my previous post, it got worse after the recent Windows Updates). I found the LinusTechTips site and people there were also discussing this exact same problem with the Dark Hero, which means literally the majority of customers with this Motherboard are experiencing the same nightmare. Somewhere in the comments, someone mentioned they managed to get rid of the issue by activating the ErP (S4+S5) option in BIOS. Since this is something I haven't tried already, I gave it a shot and I'm one of those people who gets extremely anxious and intimidated whenever the BIOS screen shows up... 😄

Guys, let me tell you, for now it seems like the startup problem is solved. I can't say if this is going to be a permanent solution, but the PC booted fine from the power button for 4 days in a row already. The ErP essentially turns off ALL the power from your machine, which means USBs, external devices and also Motherboard LEDs (including the Start button) will be completely off. Personally speaking, I don't really need the LEDs on while I sleep, nor I use the USB ports to charge my stuff. If the MB LEDs are turned off, the power button is supposed to work. If the LEDs and the Start button are on, the Dark Hero glitches out and fails to read the input of the power button, until the power is reset via PSU. This is still unacceptable considering how much this component costs (and my PC is brand new too, already RMAd it once for faulty RAM. I couldn't stand the thought of doing it again for the MB since the shop's policy states I have to deliver the entire PC there and leave it for who knows how long until they're done with the replacement and testing), a similar issue should not occur. Still, since the nice RGB lights are useless at night for me, I was more than willing to give them up on shutdown.

Before opening a RMA ticket or replacing the MB with a different brand at your cost, I would suggest to try this if you haven't already, especially if your system works fine the entire time the system is running.

Note: I do not use Sleep mode and haven't tested it with Hibernate yet, so I can only confirm this works with normal shutdown.

I'm glad you got that part out of the way, having to deal with issue(s) that hides and can't be directly pinpoint can be big headache.

ErP S4+S5 does not shuts everything off on your system, what it actually does, it puts your PC into deep sleep and leaving your RAM (depending on one thing) with small hybrid file to keep things just enough to be alive.

I have used ErP since x79 and I used to had issue with either sleep or start up I don't remember, Its has been a long time, but ever since in every PC I always enable ErP S4+S5, but here is something that might help....

When you enable ErP S4+S5 go to Power Settings and disable Hybrid Sleep under Sleep mode, so instead of hybrid file that normally would be stored in HDD/SSD which many people don't realize, it will redirect and store that in RAM, that will prevent few things.. 1. It wont use your SSD and 2. potentially prevent your OS from having sleep and even start up issues.

[Megascrypt]

Nice that you got your new board, hopefully it works as it should, "fingers crossed"
Production date pretty much 2022..good, lest hope Asus new what was the problem before that and you have nice trouble free board.
Please let us know how it works
Good luck

[DaBogo]

Megascrypt wrote:
Nice that you got your new board, hopefully it works as it should, "fingers crossed"
Production date pretty much 2022..good, lest hope Asus new what was the problem before that and you have nice trouble free board.
Please let us know how it works
Good luck

Thanks mate.Â*
Well i got a new one because it was in stock so i could make the order
at 04:30am and have picked it up 7/8hours later.
As soon the new board has been tested including all system functions
and so on, i will drive to the shop and let the technical stuff there to test
it. I dont know exactly how long they will take to do so but it should be fast i guess.

Ps: i just saw that on the new board i see manufactured date 12.2021
but there is nothing about manufactured date on the first one i have preordered Nov 2020 and picked up on 08.12.2020.

I have also did a fast comparing and could not find any different information or specs change. But yes i hope that new boards which are now
windows 11 ready will not have this issue „finger crossed“ as you said 🙂

For me its really important to find out what happened because maybe i was using some bios settings which are maybe to risky
and that means even it was my fault i can only avoid running into a next issue with same board if i know whats wrong and specially how the fault was triggered. I work day in day out with hardware (network) and for me its
a huge pain to have a mainboard which was working perfect before the last shutdown, no whea, no events on windows, no issues at all… and next day just stopped 🙂 that why i need a technical explanation 😂.

What is the status with your mainboard?
Any progress? updates? Â*

[Megascrypt]

How long did you had that board before you started having this problem, did you overclock your CPU. Even the most insignificant change on the system you might have made can lead to potential source of your issue, but even then, any change in either Bios or setting elsewhere should not render your PC this way.

Bottom like is, Its definitely hardware flaw first then, certain setting speeding things up to show the board fault. It would be nice to know what started this behaviour of your system. Anything you find out please share here.

FYI. I don't know if you remember or even heard EVGA 3090 FTW3. When they first came out, at first everything was all good, then one by one every so often users reported their cards died they called "red light of death" well.... there was a lot of speculations, e.g. "you using wrong PSU" or other BS because after month or 2 some users still had no issues and I was one of the guys with 3 replacements and yet, red light of death.

After about 6 months some guys would brag about their cards still running great, but they have been told, wait because you will be next, they were laughing and guess what, a year later the same person who was all bragging said, "today my card died" no kidding .

EVGA didn't make announcement until almost 1.5 years later that they know what was wrong with their cards.

So, what Im saying Asus maybe didn't say anything, especially what happen to their Hero Z690 , but they did fix, so we hope what was causing all this nonsense.

Keep ups posted

[Megascrypt]

Please keep us posted and Good Luck

[DaBogo]

Megascrypt wrote:
Please keep us posted and Good Luck

02:49am. Previous dark hero board, from End Nov / Start Dec 2020 replaced with new one manufacturing date 12.2021 and everythingÂ*
is working again. System performance seem better or at least my system is really really smooth. i have also got today Noctua NT-H2 thermal paste and did a refresh for the cpu.Â*

Â*i just was not expecting to startup with previous Bios settings like on my last dark hero. but everything is there. i will double check since i see that some power options are different from windows but bios seem to be pretty same. Maybe this is normal but i didnt know that :)Â*

So: We now def can say that my dark hero was the issue. I have also checked close if i can Â*find some damaged parts or bad smell like when something was burned or whatever but NOTHING… The board looks great. i believe this should be checked. i wouldnt even mind to pay the transport costs and send it directly to asus technical team so they can use my board for troubleshooting. Â*