I had been running my system (i7-7700k, Maximus IX Apex) with no issues at all, until I updated the bios. Something clearly went wrong, tech support thought possibly because I jumped from an old version to the newest without updating incrementally.
In any case, after updating the bios, the system wouldn't post at all and would show either of the two following Q-codes:
D0 = cpu initialization error
09 = PCH initialization after microcode loading
I switched to the second bios on the motherboard assuming that the system would be fine on the other bios.
The system WOULD start, however, after attempting to save the bios (without making changes) it wouldn't post and again would show either of the two Q-codes above. It was very odd, because it would consistently boot and get into windows if I just exited the bios without saving, but as soon as I'd try to save and exit, one of the codes would show on the motherboard.
ASUS told me to RMA the board which I did. Fast forward to today... I put the system all together with the brand new motherboard and.... the exact same thing is happening.
Is it actually possible to damage the CPU in some way by pushing a bios update to the motherboard?
Does anyone else have any ideas of what could possibly be the issue?
I don't have a spare CPU or motherboard I can test with, so I'm not sure exactly how to proceed at this point.
