Problems with ASRock Z97M-ITX/AC LGA 1150

[mjermyn]

Hello,

I've installed Windows Home 32 and then a second fresh install with Windows Home 64. Both times seeing the same issue. First install I accidentally brushed the reset button on a freshly installed setup. I noticed the boot process altered when I selected "load windows normally" from the menu and subsequent resets caused the boot up to operate differently. Some minor but significant to the second install - I saw the video card lose connection briefly just before it displayed credentials and then the keyboard wouldn't work for a second or two. Then once logged in it took 45 seconds for the wi-fi to setup - this would lock up all other operations. I've got an Oculus Rift so was more focused on getting that to work and found the 32 bit Windows was causing issues so installed 64 the following day.

Second install worked very well. Oculus camera now working, all loading extremely quickly. Setup fast boot, OS loading in 5 seconds or less. Once logged in wi-fi would load in about 2-3 seconds at most and I was able to launch applications from that point.

However, I began messing around with my overclocking applications and locked up the system which forced a hard reset. The system again behaved erratically at this point and wouldn't load windows or allow me into bios, it just showed the AS Rock logo and then stalled. The third reset attempt took me back into bios which reset the board and got me back into windows. It was then I noticed similar behavior to my first install. The video card would lose signal for a second, then login info would come up but I wouldn't be able to login in for 2-3 seconds. Then once in, wi-fi was back to the 45 second issue I encountered with the first install.

Both instances were definitely caused by a hard reset of the system. With the second setup I've played around with msconfig and stopped a lot of the startup applications thinking they might be the root cause and preventing wi-fi from enabling but this did nothing to speed up the loading process.

Wondering if flashing the motherboard would resolve some of this, but it appears I'm current on software and looking at ASRock's site 1.1 appears to be the only firmware release available.
I've already contacted ASRock and they said it was a faulty board from my description from the first install. Had the second install not worked really well prior to me hard resetting I'd agree with this response, now wondering if there's an obvious issue I've overlooked??

Thanks!

System: Windows 7 Home 64bit. Intel i7-4790K, ASRock Z97M-ITX/AC, ADATA 128GB SataIII SSD, 600W PSU, EVGA GeForce GTX 970, Team Vulcan 16GB RAM DDR3 1600, WD 1TB HDD, Core V1 case.

[parsec]

Re: Problems with ASRock Z97M-ITX/AC LGA 1150

Your description of your experience with that board is rather complex, with multiple OS installations and different usage scenarios, so it is very difficult to pin point anything in particular.

The multiple restarts and lock ups when you over clocked were caused by a failed OC, and the Boot Failure Guard setting in the BIOS finally resetting the OC to stock settings and stopping the boot process with that OC after three boot attempts, three being the default setting. Otherwise without BFG it would have continued endlessly until you cleared the BIOS/CMOS manually.

You cannot expect identical POST and boot behavior when something goes wrong, and that does not indicate something is wrong with the board. If you had Windows Update and driver updates set to automatically run, which is the default setting, you likely had updates or drivers being installed, which may have been interrupted when you pressed Reset. Many things are happening with a new installation in this scenario, and the start up/boot time will be variable for multiple reasons.

If you've ever installed video drivers, you should know that they will cause the display to go dark or blink and flash, which they even warn you will happen during the installation. I've seen different POST and OS boot displays depending upon the video source, onboard or different video cards.

A new OS installation with automatic updates will take some time before it settles down to a standard start up behavior, whatever that ends up being given your hardware setup and configuration. "New" IMO means less than a week old, and any time you add new software or hardware, startup behavior can change again.

Expecting a wireless Internet connection to be as consistent as a wired one is not being realistic. Wireless connectivity varies depending on so many factors, and I would never judge the operation of my other hardware with a wireless connection as its basis. My wireless signal strength alone varies from day to day, or hour to hour, depending upon the weather, load on the router, antenna orientation, and things I'm sure I'm unaware of.

Your board is not really made for over clocking. It has a four phase VRM design without a heat sink, so anything besides a mild OC will be a challenge due to the added factor of the CPU power source not being something you can ignore.

[- wardog -]

Re: Problems with ASRock Z97M-ITX/AC LGA 1150

I don't rightly see this as a BIOS issue. BFG preformed it's intended purpose.

I'd might maybe be looking towards your statement of "messing around with my overclocking applications" to check that they didn't alter or set a procedure that's causing this. I see you did the msconfig check, but ......