Intel RSTe bios won't load anymore What to do?

[M76]

I have an X79 Extreme4, and it worked well until a few days ago, when I decided to replace the VGA in my computer. After that I noticed that the Intel RSTe Bios no longer loads at post. This means the RSTe GUI in windows doesn't work either. I can still access my RAID volume but it's hanging in the air with no information on status.
I tried updating to the latest BIOS version, but it didn't help.

I noticed that if I disable the integrated Asmedia controller then RSTe does load. The problem is that I have my boot drive connected to the ASmedia controller, so it must be bootable. But this was no problem before I replaced my VGA. So how to get the addon ROM to load again?

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Re: Intel RSTe bios won't load anymore What to do?

Interesting problem, I'm not sure exactly what happened but I can tell you what it sounds like.

Your PC specs say you have BIOS version 1.90, is that still true after the BIOS update you mentioned? What BIOS do you have now?

You mentioned you use the Intel RSTe RAID/AHCI driver, which is the standard RAID driver for X79 boards. All other newer Intel PC chipsets/boards use the IRST RAID/AHCI driver. I'm not saying RSTe is bad or IRST is better, just stating the fact about X79 boards.

Most if not all X79 boards have a BIOS update that allows them to use the usual IRST RAID driver. There is a BIOS option that selects the use of RSTe or IRST, do you have that option in your BIOS now?

Over a year ago, when Intel released IRST version 11.6 (might be 11.5 or 11.7), and the board's SATA mode was set to RAID, and the board had an ASMedia or Marvell secondary SATA chipset that was enabled and had a drive connected to it, the Windows IRST UI would refuse to run. That happened to me and many others, there was at least one thread about it in Intel's forums, I talked about it with others in the Intel SSD forum. This sounds exactly like the problem you are having. I can't recall if the IRST utility that can be started during POST (what you called the RSTe Bios) was also affected by this issue, since I normally used the IRST Windows UI. We were sure that the problem was caused by the IRST driver, since changing to the previous version would fix the problem. This problem happened on all mother boards, no one seemed immune from it. If I disabled the ASMedia SATA chip in the BIOS, the IRST Windows UI would run fine.

Since then, new IRST versions were released, the 12... versions and now up to 13.1. I'm not sure if any of these versions fixed this problem, since I gave up trying to use the ASMedia SATA chip on several mother boards I use. Plus when I started using Windows 8 last year, the ASMedia SATA driver would not even allow the PC to boot. Both these problems may have been solved by now, but I haven't bothered to check.

The latest version of RSTe that Intel has available to download is 3.6.0.1093, that is newer than the one on your board's download page:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Sea...90&FamilyId=42

This download page also has a separate RSTe System Management Utility for Windows, that sounds like the RSTe Window UI, but I'm not sure.

So what happened? Why the VGA change would cause this does not make sense. IMO, something else also changed. Did you clear the BIOS at that time?

Did RSTe get updated on your PC by you or automatically? I've never heard of this problem with RSTe, but if it happens with IRST, why not RSTe?

Or are you using IRST now? Check Programs and Features or the Device Manager entry Storage Controllers to verify which driver and version you have.

Given the new BIOS version you have, check the setting for RSTe or IRST. You may have done all or some of this, I just don't know.

[M76]

Re: Intel RSTe bios won't load anymore What to do?

No, the 1.90 version was long ago, now I have the latest version from 2014 February.

The setting in the bios is avaialable and is set to RSTe. So you say I should set in to IRST? I remember it was set to RSTe before.

I also had the problem a year ago, I was one to post about about it here. But it was solved later with a new version.

Now this seems to be the same issue back again.

[M76]

Re: Intel RSTe bios won't load anymore What to do?

If I don't connect anything to one of the Asmedia controllers, then the RSTe bios loads normally, and the gui works in windows as well.

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Re: Intel RSTe bios won't load anymore What to do?

If I don't connect anything to one of the Asmedia controllers, then the RSTe bios loads normally, and the gui works in windows as well.

Oh great, RSTe has this problem too now. Exactly the same as I described about the earlier IRST driver.

I did not say to set it to IRST, I was trying to find out what you had it set to now. You would need to check the manual to see how you load the IRST driver, since you have RSTe now, IF you changed to IRST.

This is an Intel driver problem, not an ASRock problem. Try the new RSTe driver from Intel in the link I posted above, or change to IRST and load the IRST driver. I cannot guarantee that either of these will fix the problem.

Since you no longer have BIOS 1.90, did you also update the drivers, INF files, and any ASRock utilities you use that are listed in the 3.20 update? Yes I know you're using 3.70, and I'm still asking the same question.

Having your boot drive on the ASMedia controller is risky, since it is not as stable and dependable as the Intel controller. But you have no choice since your Intel ports are all used by your RAID 5 volume. I don't even try to use the ASMedia ports with Windows 8, and my board has four of them.