Motherboards BIOS or Windows issue?

Hi chaps,

Not sure if this is going to be an obvious error but I'm somewhat puzzled and a little desperate. I recently got an Asus P8B75-M LX (as labelled on the actual board, box, documents and checked vs the Asus site for physical layout) which upon entering the BIOS was listed as a P8B75-M LE.

Confused, I tried to update the BIOS in a number of ways as it wasn't showing my RAM as 1600MHz, but 1300MHz, but all efforts to load the LX BIOS update came back as failing the security check. I checked the installed BIOS version against both of those boards on the Asus site and only the LE had that particular revision, so I reasoned that somehow the incorrect BIOS had been applied.

I then tried to install an LE update, which went through fine but when I rebooted, Windows failed to start and the BIOS was showing the RAM as 8GB at 0MHz. Changing settings and rebooting resulted in no difference but Windows tried to repair itself and failed.

So I now have an LX board with an LE BIOS, RAM running at 0 MHz and Windows failing to load. I've tried the Win 8 recovery options but no joy; no LX BIOS will load and no settings will save in the current BIOS.

Put simply - WTF? And how to fix?

Cheers in advance for any assistance...

 

Update: Just tried flashing back to an older BIOS but it won't allow that.

I didn't think there was a way to restore to factory BIOS but am I wrong in that belief?

 

Have you tried clearing the cmos? Remove the battery too and try it. I would never have thought you could load the bios from another model of mobo. Strange that.....

 

No, I didn't actually, only because I didn't think clearing CMOS would reset back to original BIOS.

Here's something interesting though - I tried reflashing to the latest version and then went into the BIOS/UEFI to check the settings but this time checked everything. Turns out the flash must have reset the system to IDE instead of AHCI, because changing this back means I can now get into Windows again. RAM still runs at 0 MHz according to UEFI though, which is odd.

Funny thing is, I don't really know what fixed this since I didn't have the option at setup to select AHCI even though I was looking for it, so I assumed Win 8 in all its wisdom had recognised the SSD and set it automatically. Only seeing it as IDE just now made me think it had been changed with the flash but I've no real proof.

Might have to chalk this one up to luck but I have offered a prayer of thanks and am now going to stop fiddling with the bl00dy thing.

 

Windows 8 will not automatically set it into AHCI or IDE mode. The BIOS now (99% of the time) defaults to AHCI.

Your RAM running at 0MHz is most likely a misread number in the BIOS which is nothing to really worry about. It can't be running at 0MHz, it's not possible.

 

Yeah, that 0 MHz does seem weird (but then so does running an LE BIOS on an LX board).

The other knock-on though (it seems) is that whenever AC power is removed by either unplugging or switching the PSU off, as opposed to just powering down the PC, the Asus MemOK! kicks back in on next boot and requires you to enter setup to "confirm and save settings" even though nothing has changed.

It's as if it does a check of the RAM, sees it was at 0 MHz (or 1600?) then changes something that isn't obvious in the UEFI since it still reads 0 MHz, and boots anyway. If anyone knows how I can stop it doing that, I'll be chuffed.

 

I think switching to AHCI mode would have fixed it. That would normally cause windows to blue screen or fail to boot.

 

I would say there's something wrong with the board. It's running the wrong BIOS for a start.

 

Can you try and RMA the board if possible? I agree with the others.. it shouldn't run the wrong BIOS and such..

 

Yeah, agreed - very odd. It did raise a warning flag but I needed it into a build and out of the door, so since it was working, I refused to fiddle with it any more.

Downside is, it was ebay but new (and new owner made aware), so no RMA possible. On that side note - I have had Patriot stuff from ebay before that needed RMAing and that was the most painless, trouble-free exchange ever. Asus on the other hand, point-blank refused to RMA a genuine board that I'd lost the receipt for in a move. And made me jump through hoops before saying no anyway. Going to steer as clear of Asus as I can from now on - that's three strikes for them in the last month alone.

Aaaaaanywaaayyy, I'll obviously support the build with that board in for the future, but reckon it'll have to stay running that BIOS. Very odd.