Problem with a new board

[hdtvnut]

(New to me anyway) I bought a second-hand MXI Extreme thru EB, and on my bench, it seems normal in BIOS, recognizes my sata ssd drive w/W10 and mouse/keyboard, but when booting W10, I get to the scenic page and the cursor doesn't appear. Q code A0. Any suggestions appreciated.

[Ch3vr0n]

Did you insert that boot drive from a different board model? Cause it may be that windows doesn't properly recognise all hardware to succesfully login. A0 is the "everything ok at the board level" Q-code

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?89694-Q-CODE-A0-error-and-les-device-on
https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?18686-Asus-maximus-v-gene-q-code-a0

At that point everything is down to to the OS

[hdtvnut]

Thanks; you answered my question: what "IDE initialization is started" meant. I think I can assume the board is all right. However, the box is missing the Dimm_2 adapter/heat sink and the Wifi antennas.

[Ch3vr0n]

it's not "missing" anything. You bought it used. Meaning you got what you paid for. It's very likely the original owner is using the antennae him/herself (but it's not really THAT good. It's only 2x2) and the dimm.2 module. You'll have to contact asus about that.

Though honestly i wouldn't bother too much with the boards native antenna. Hasn't changed in 2 chipsets. It's still the same as it was on my Z170.

at home using wired connection over powergrid, i couldn't reach more than 100Mbps. So i figured why not try the board's antenae (for my M11F) that knocked it up to a 170Mbps. I had recently gotten faster internet (300Mbps, ISP capable of giga down, if you pay for it) but i wasn't getting it over wifi. I know my NetGear XR500 router is capable of it. so i bought the asus PCE-AC88U PCI-e card. Which is a 4x4 wifi antennae. It's not cheap but it does what you pay for. using that one instead of the native board's antennae i peak out at 290Mbps (which is near the maximum possible my current internet package allows)

If i were to pay for gigabit, i'm pretty sure i'd get it with that combination of router & wifi card