Crosshair VIII Dark Hero - Randomly hardlocks

[D3hum4niz3d]

Hello,

I own two Crosshair Dark Hero boards (and a Strix X570-e that has never let me down) and both have the same two issues.

The issues being random hardlocking (requires powercycling the PSU for the system to get back up), which happened more frequently as I ran overclocked memory and a static noise when moving cursor on the right audio channel of the motherboard audio header. Note: the hardlocking was also happening when running completely stock settings.

Setup is powered by a Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 750W PSU, GPU is a Strix 5700XT.

The first board, I purchased originally in January 2021 and all was good with that board until I actually tried running XMP with a Samsung B-Die kit (HX432C16PB3K2 - Arguably garbage tier, but I didn't know any better) and a 3100, which was a placeholder for my current CPU, a 5900X. It would sporadically hardlock with XMP enabled. I went as far as RMA'ing it and the same stuff kept happening. Then, I went with a completely different kit, with Hynix DJR (F4-4000C18Q32GVK) and it still did the same thing. I later tried both CPU's and RAM kits and crosschecked, and it still kept happening. I gave the board for an RMA at my retailer, and they sent it to an ASUS repair center in the Czech Republic - The note was that there was no issue found. Since then, it kept repeating more often - even a couple times a day.

Then I switched back to an older motherboard, namely a Strix X570-e that never any issues. I even ran my manual RAM OC on that board with no issues at all and it never hardlocked! Not only that, there was no issue with static noise when moving the cursor on the right audio channel. Ran for a month on this setup and was really annoyed by the PCH fan whine, but whatever.

Then I purchased at an outlet another Dark Hero for crosstesting - and first thing I noticed, is that the electical noise on the right audio channel is still present. Still, I said to myself, it will probably not matter. I proceeded to set up the RAM OC and everything worked just fine with no hiccups for a month.

Until this morning. I left the PC in sleep mode, and what do I wake up to? Hardlocked with orange light and 00 Qcode.

This wouldn't be an issue for me, if the only thing I would be doing on this machine was bull****ting around in Cyberbug or whatever - but I'm actually also using it for school / work.

Please, someone help me here. I'm really so done with all of this.

Kind regards,
Matt / D3

[STARRAIN_ROG]

Hi Hedius,
Is your pc also auto restart and no boot with qcode 00? Can you boot it again after press the reset button or have to switch PSU off and on?
Could you please check if the issue still occurs on bios 4201 with bios all optimized defaults setting(no OC)?
Thank you.

[Hedius]

STARRAIN@ROG wrote:
Hi Hedius,
Is your pc also auto restart and no boot with qcode 00? Can you boot it again after press the reset button or have to switch PSU off and on?
Could you please check if the issue still occurs on bios 4201 with bios all optimized defaults setting(no OC)?
Thank you.

Hi,

I would not call it a restart.

What happens is that the Q-Code switches to 00 And the system freezes. No GPU output nothing.

The reset button does not work in this case. Which confuses me. Because my experience with unstable overclock/CPUs/RAM etc. is that the system resets and performs a POST again.

The only way to reset the system is to remove power and then perform a cold boot again. I have never observed that behavior with the rampage boards I had before.


I can try to test this with optimized defaults. But I am only randomly running into this issue. So can take weeks until I can smth about that...

[STARRAIN_ROG]

Hi Hedius,
Thank you for your reply.
Please share us the result with optimized defaults.
If you have tried downgrading to 4006, did you have the same issue on it?
Thank you.

[STARRAIN_ROG]

Hi Megascrypt,
Did you test 3 of CROSSHAIR VIII DARK HERO motherboards at the same time or test them one by one and with the some components(like CPU, RAM, graphics card, drive disks)?
If reverted to previous bios but the problem persisted, most likely it was not bios related.
If you would like to update to 4201 but still has BSOD with bios all default setting(no OC), we would suggest to cross check other components as well.
Thank you.

[Megascrypt]

STARRAIN@ROG wrote:
Hi Megascrypt,
Did you test 3 of CROSSHAIR VIII DARK HERO motherboards at the same time or test them one by one and with the some components(like CPU, RAM, graphics card, drive disks)?
If reverted to previous bios but the problem persisted, most likely it was not bios related.
If you would like to update to 4201 but still has BSOD with bios all default setting(no OC), we would suggest to cross check other components as well.
Thank you.

Hello,
I thought I have made clear in my above post that I have tested all 3 boards separately with the same components, I even stated intervals of 1- to 2 days between Bios updates and the outcome...

If reverted to previous bios but the problem persisted, most likely it was not bios related.

I have already said that 1rst board

right after update to 4201 upon reboot problem of BSOD's started

and The second board came with Bios 4006 and this time I run for 2 days without issues so I thought I would try updating to 4201.

This time I didn't have BSOD's, but the PC would again randomly restart without any errors, even after flashing back to 4006 still had random restarts on idle and under load and that was after fully clearing CMOS as well.

BIos 4201 brakes the board or wherever in on the board that just waiting to be triggered and

This time I am on 3rd board that came again with Bios 4006 and I didn't even bother updating and frankly, I am skeptical

How much more clear can I make it.

With this 3rd board Its been a 3 weeks now with 4006 and its solid, but I can bet, if I update to 4201 that will be the end of it as you know it.
So.. as you can see, Its not the RAM, CPU or other components on the board, otherwise, I would have the same issue already.

I asked you about the board(s) issue and potentially suspected batch or serial # of the effected units and I was hoping you could shine a little light on it, but again, no word and obviously there is an issue that Asus avoiding to answer.

Thank you

[STARRAIN_ROG]

Hi Megascrypt,
How often did you have the BSOD or restart issue when running Cinebench R23 on bios 4201 with bios all default settings(no OC)? for example, run Cinebench R23 one hour a day, and it would have BSOD or restart every day(or in three days)?
May I have the following information?
- the serial number of the motherboards you had(1st one and 2nd one) and have(3rd one)
- the brand and model name of your ram, graphics card, PSU and OS drive
(Please check the specific model name of ram such as G.SKILL F4-4600C18D-16GTRG.)
- OS version and OS build
- graphics driver version
Thank you.

[Megascrypt]

STARRAIN@ROG wrote:
Hi Megascrypt,
How often did you have the BSOD or restart issue when running Cinebench R23 on bios 4201 with bios all default settings(no OC)? for example, run Cinebench R23 one hour a day, and it would have BSOD or restart every day(or in three days)?
May I have the following information?
- the serial number of the motherboards you had(1st one and 2nd one) and have(3rd one)
- the brand and model name of your ram, graphics card, PSU and OS drive
(Please check the specific model name of ram such as G.SKILL F4-4600C18D-16GTRG.)
- OS version and OS build
- graphics driver version
Thank you.

Hello There,

I will try to answer your questions and give you as much details as I can regarding my experience with Crosshair VIII Hero Dark and Bios 4201
I will also post here the serial # of the previous boards since they are no longer in my possession and I will PM you serial # of my current board.

When I received my first board Serial No: MCM0KS043079F9B It came with Bios 3801 and If I remember correctly things were working good, I was able to go to Bios and reset all settings to "Optimized Defaults" and then change few things that I always do e.g. ErP S4+S5 and enabled D.O.C.P Standard. I run R23 few times 4-5 x 10min and it seems OK.

The same day, few hours later I updated to Bios 4201 not knowing what was coming and right after reboot I went to bios trying to set the same mentioned settings just to be faced with BSOD after reboot. At that point I couldn't get to desktop, all I was getting BSOD's, but ultimately after few hard reboots and clearing CMOS I end up going to desktop, but wen I was running R23 my PC would randomly restart, even on idle.

Second board Serial No: N3M0KS037785JCE came with Bios 4006 and I think I kept that board for 3 days leaving the Bios 4006 and again, changing only the mentioned above settings and the board was running fine. I run R23, did rendering and other things till I decided to update to the bios 4201. After the update the same problems started, PC would randomly restart, even on idle, If I went to Bios and touched anything, the smallest setting, upon reboot I would get BSOD and flashing back to Bios 4006 wouldn't do anything, keep in mind I also did full clear CMOS, that made no difference, the Bios 4201 did something irreversible that could not be fixed.

The 3rd board which I have send you serial # via PM is working fine and it has been rock solid for 3 weeks. I have put that board through some very heavy work loads, light loads and even left on idle all day, no sign of problems, but Its on bios 4006 and as I said, I don't bother updating it as I feel that this might trigger something again.

I might be paranoid now, but can you blame me, unless the previous boards were already defective by production flaw and the bios 4201 just brought the issues to the surface and that might explain a lot, but that's why I asked if you could tell by serial # or production date if the particular board might be still effected or during later production wherever issue there was got fixed.

Windows 10 Pro
Version 21H1
OS build 19043.2006

ROG Strix RTX 3090 (NVIDIA Drivers 516.94)
Seasonic PRIME TX-1000, 80+ Titanium
CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 64GB (4 x 16GB) Model CMK64GX4M4B3200C16
Samsung 870 EVO 1TB (OS)

Thank you

[STARRAIN_ROG]

Hi Megascrypt,
Thank you for your reply.
Did you get BSOD or restart issue every time you ran R23 for only once on bios 4021?
For CORSAIR ram, could you please help to take a photo like this, so that we can check the version?

May I also have the serial number of your ROG Strix RTX 3090 via pm?
Thank you.

[Megascrypt]

Hello STARRAIN@ROG,

After the update to Bios 4201, the BSOD's and restarts were very random, could have been between 2,4 or 5 runs of R23, but again, the restarts would happen even on idle and they were random as well.

I don't know how relevant RAM or GPU is to what not only me, but many other users dealing with and as we speak, I'm running that setup for over 3 weeks now and its rock solid on Bios 4006, but as you requested, I have sent you via-PM both serials, for RAM and GPU.

Thank you

[D3hum4niz3d]

Megascrypt wrote:
Hello STARRAIN@ROG,

After the update to Bios 4201, the BSOD's and restarts were very random, could have been between 2,4 or 5 runs of R23, but again, the restarts would happen even on idle and they were random as well.

I don't know how relevant RAM or GPU is to what not only me, but many other users dealing with and as we speak, I'm running that setup for over 3 weeks now and its rock solid on Bios 4006, but as you requested, I have sent you via-PM both serials, for RAM and GPU.

Thank you

It's most likely a faulty ceramic capacitor on the memory circuit. I'll be giving one of my dark hero boards to a technician (has all the necessary diagnostic tools for this job) and will update accordingly with what they find.