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Asus Rampage IV Extreme wont POST all of a sudden, debug code #01

RamGuy
Level 7
Greetings,

I figured that I should create my own thread for the problems I'm facing with the Asus Rampage IV Extreme instead of re-using older threads which may or may not relate to the same issues.


Let me start of by telling you about my system specifications, what I have done since I got the system up and running and for how long I have been successfully running it.


System specifications are as follows:
Chassis: Lian-Li PC-B25FWB
Power Supply: Antec TruePower Quattro 1200W (TPQ-1200 OC)
CPU: Intel Core i7-3960X @ C1 Stepping
Motherboard: Asus Rampage IV Extreme @ BIOS 1101
RAM: Corsair Dominator 2133MHz @ 9-11-10-27 @ 1.5 V (4x 4GiB) (CMT16GX3M4X2133C9)
Graphics card: Zotac GeForce GTX 580 @ Reference design
Audio card: Creative Titanium HD
Network card: Intel Pro/1000 ET Dual NIC Server
Hard drives:
2x Intel X25-M 80GB Gen2 in RAID0 on the Intel X79 southbridge RAID-controller
2x Western Digital Black Edition 2TB in RAID1 on the Intel X79 southbridge RAID-controller
Optical drive: Sony / NEC Optirac AD-7240S DVD-RW
Additional:
1x PCI-E FireWire 800 controller card
1x Corsair Hydro 100 closed CPU water cooling



So there you have it all. Now lets get more into what was going on before my system malfunctioned, what I have tried in order to get it up and going again!

I bought my Asus Rampage IV Extreme, Intel Core i7-3960X, Corsair H100 and the Corsair CMT16GX3M4X2133C9 kit back in February 2012 and all the other components like the chassis, network card, controller cards, graphics card, power supply and hard drives was brought along from my previous LGA1366 build consisting of a Asus Rampage III Extreme motherboard, Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU cooler and a set of Corsair Dominator GT 1600MHz @ 7-7-7-20 @ 1.65V (3x 2GiB) RAM.


The first few days after I got the LGA2011 build up and running I was just running every thing on stock / auto settings in the BIOS besides enabling RAID on the onboard southbridge controller. I had a really hard time getting Windows 8 Consumer Preview 64-bit to run on the Rampage IV Extreme with RAID enabled on my SSD RAID0 setup and when I finally managed to get it up and running I got random "dpc_watchdog_voilation" bluescreens-of-death daily so I just gave up the whole idea of testing Windows 8 Consumer Preview 64-bit on this system.

Then it was back to "good old" Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit and after getting everything up and running, and after making sure there was no "dpc_watchdog_voilation" nonsense going on with the Windows 7 64-bit installation I started updating the motherboard BIOS and tempering with the BIOS settings. I didn't end up doing much really, besides enabling RAID and tweak my fan settings I just followed what seemed to be everyones recommendation of simply setting the overclock of my Intel Core i7-3960X to 4.8GHz and simply run everything else on AUTO settings. I did also enable XMP profile on the RAM.

Then I ran Prime95 for about 20 hours without any heat nor stabilisation errors, I ran Intel Burn Test for 99 loops, ran memtest86+ for about 10 hours, I did also run Furmark no the graphics card just to make sure my settings seemed stable for 24/7 usage and as nothing failed I considered it to be stable.


I ran these settings all since late February up until the 10Th of April 2012. When I got home from work I noticed that my system had halted and I had received a "system_service_expection" bluescreen-of-death from Windows 7 64-bit which hadn't auto-rebooted like it should. I had no other option other than force rebooting my system and this is where things started to get rough.


Upon next boot I noticed that my system wouldn't POST. It would start, the fans would regulate themselves down a notch after the first few seconds but nothing happened, nothing showed on my monitor, nothing. I tried once more, I tried to shut down the system and have it off for a few hours then try booting it again but still nothing.



This is where my troubleshooting starts, and here is what I have been trying in order to get my system back up and running.

First I head over to my site of choice in these kinds of situations, Xtremesystems.org and head over to the forum and locate the Rampage IV Extreme thread and checks if someone else have had the same issue. It appeared that nobody had so I wrote down my problem and started the plain old regular routine of:

#1: Clearing the CMOS, which didn't help one bit. And at this stage I noticed the debug poster showing code #01, so I went over to XtremeSystems.org and wrote that my Rampage IV Extreme displays debug code #01 and one member believed this to be related to CPU INIT.

#2: I then decide to check both the CPU and the CPU socket on the motherboard to see if I can find anything fuzzy but after de-assembling the Corsair Hydro 100 water cooling in order to take a closer look at things there was no signs of any dust, bent pins in the CPU socket or anything that should provide any problems. And how should some dust manage to get between the CPU and the CPU socket while the system is running, the CPU is securely fitted into the socket with a water-block mounted and sealed to it? Considering the system had been running perfectly for about one month it didn't make any sense that such a problem could occur out of the blue. So I remount the CPU and re-attach the Corsair Hydro 100 water-cooling and give it another try, again without any luck. It's the very same debug #01 without POST.

I have taken some pictures of the CPU and the CPU socket which you can take a look at here: (use link for higher resolution, sorry for my shaking hands making the pictures out of focus)



#3: Now I take everything back to basic, I de-assembling my entire system and start to test things one at a time. From now on I only use the bare essentials needed in order to get the system to POST. That includes my Rampage IV Extreme motherboard, the Intel i7-3960X CPU, one stick of the Corsair Dominator 2133MHz RAM, my Zotac GeForce GTX 580 graphics card and of course the Antec TruePower Quattro 1200 power supply. I tested the RAM on my girlfriends LGA1366 system and ran memtest86+ for a few hours and they all seem to be fine, I tested the GTX 580 and ran Furmark for a while and no problems there either, I also tested the power supply with our power supply tester that I got at work and everything works perfectly. The only thing I'm not able to verify is the CPU and the motherboard as I have no other LGA2011 motherboard nor CPU to test with neither at home nor at work.

You can use the link above to see all my Rampage IV Extreme troubleshooting pictures, and here are some of the different components I used while troubleshooting:




#4: One thing you should note is the fact that I had the CMOS Battery removed over night the day before I started this troubleshooting, so I have indeed tried to remove the battery without any luck and I have also tried having it detached for a greater period of time without any luck either. I did also try clearing the CMOS and switch between BIOS1 and BIOS2 while the battery was removed and I tried booting without the battery attached and it all resulted in the very same no POST with debug code #01 on the debug poster.


#5: First I tried to simply boot the system with one one stick of RAM, the CPU and the graphics card attached to see if this made any difference. Shockingly it did not, still faced with no POST and debug code #01.

#6: Now I simply tried switching from BIOS1 over to BIOS2, with same results.

#7: Clearing CMOS on both BIOS1 and BIOS2 didn't change anything either.
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13 REPLIES 13

RamGuy
Level 7
#8: I got a recommendation from a member over at kingpincooling.com where it seems like several members have had their Rampage IV Extreme going haywire the past few weeks and one member managed to get his system back up by simply removing one BIOS chip (yes the chip itself). So I remove BIOS chip from BIOS1 and now the system wont fire up at all, it will just shut it self down after 1-2 seconds and repeat this over and over. So I change to BIOS2 while having BIOS chip from BIOS1 removed and this actually resulted in the debug poster displaying code #98 instead of #01 but there was still no POST, nothing on my monitor or anything. I tried clearing CMOS again but still nothing and when I reinserted the BIOS chip for BIOS1 we were all back to debug code #01 again. Repeated the whole BIOS chip from BIOS2 with exact same results.

#9: Perhaps both BIOS1 and BIOS2 has become completely corrupt for some inexplicable reason? Lets try the BIOS flashback feature! I download the latest 1202 BIOS of the ASUS FTP-site, unpack it onto a FAT32 formatted Corsair Flash Voyager Mini 32GB, rename the ROM to R4E.ROM and insert the memory stick into the white USB-port. First I thought the whole flashback process didn't work, I couldn't get the BIOS LED's on the motherboard to blink while I hold the BIOS flashback button while powering on the system. Then I figured the system actually had to be in standby while using the flashback feature (this should have been much better described in the manual, the manual says nothing about you have to rename the ROM nor does it say anything about the system having to be in standby mode...) so now the BIOS LED's finally started to blink and I had read somewhere on the ROG-forums that some BIOS updates would also update the ROG Connect firmware or something in those lines so it might be a good idea to wait fem minutes after the BIOS updating is finished just to make sure every other process is finished as well. I had great hopes after successfully using the BIOS flashback feature but I was still meat with no POST and the same debug code #01 on my next try to boot the system.

#10: Now there wasn't much left to try. I decided to go and grab the OC Key just to see if that might show me something I didn't already know. I hook the OC Key onto the motherboard and into my GTX 580 and try to boot again. Now it doesn't show anything on the debug poster and all I could gather from the monitor was this:


In other words, nothing. I tried rebooting and now I suddenly got debug code #00 for the very first time and the OC Key provide some numbers but nothing that could help me much:



#11: Unhooking the OC KEY and gave the system one last try, back to the debug code #01 without POST.



I guess there isn't much left for me to try out? My biggest concern right now is to figure whether it's the CPU or the motherboard that's faulty and need to be RMA'ed. I know that CPU's malfunction is very seldom, and when it occurs it's normally do the fact that it's several years old or t's been over-volted into oblivion. Neither of these are valid points in my situation as the CPU voltage has always been set to AUTO and it's temperatures has never gone above 65 degrees Celsius, neither is it old.

So the only solution is to RMA the motherboard I guess? If so I will run into another problem, I have lost (most likely trashed) the plastic protector covering the CPU socket on the motherboard making it risky sending or moving it anywhere without the CPU installed considering how easily the pins are moved out of position and I know from experience once you've messed with the CPU socket pins you can forget all about RMA.

HiVizMan
Level 40
For protection what I would suggest is taping a piece or rigid plastic to the CPU latching plate. The bit that holds the CPU down. I used perspex if I recall and some duct tape. Took photos of the socket showing the pins to be perfect and the plastic protector on the latching plate. RMA was not a problem. When they sent me the board back there was two extra socket protectors in the box. So the guy at the RMA department must have a sense of humour.

OK to the dead board.

If you take one BIOS chip out make sure it is not the BIOS you are trying to boot to. What I did was swap them around and that way my board came back to life. My board still will not switch between BIOS using the button but that is not a problem as it is easy to switch them by hand.

Good luck with the RMA.
To help us help you - please provide as much information about your system and the problem as possible.

8_Pack
Level 12
Just noticed your pic trouble shooting with one stick shows the single stick incorrectly placed it needs to be in the furthest socket from the CPU. Try this, nothing to loose.

Didn't make any difference, sadly there isn't any RMA procedures here in Norway other than bringing the motherboard back to where I bought it and we don't seem to be getting our hands on new Rampage IV Extreme motherboards before the end of the month at the earliest...

Might it be possible to bring the motherboard to other Asus retailers for quicker RMA? I'm not really sure how the Norwegian RMA of Asus motherboards really work in situations where the retails store you've bought the board from don't have any in stock and don't expect to receive one in the first couple of weeks upon order.

HiVizMan
Level 40
Same in the UK you have to take back to the retailer you bought it from.
To help us help you - please provide as much information about your system and the problem as possible.

What to do if the retail store / company where I bought the motherboard is no longer available?

Surly there must be some other way to RMA the motherboard if the retailer I've bought it from no longer exists? It's not like the warranty disappears even-though the retailer might.

HiVizMan
Level 40
Nope it does not - um I have no idea who in Norway you would talk to.

http://www.asus.no/ is there no contact numbers here?
To help us help you - please provide as much information about your system and the problem as possible.

Not much help but I'm noticing your build is similar to mine, rampage 4 extreme, corsair dominator ram, asus GTX 570 vid cards. My problem is this system is brand new and I cannot get it to boot at all. Nothing come onto the screen at all, various led codes depending on how I have the SATA's hooked up, but mainly sits on a2 I believe, hoping my board is not toast 😞