Ashtr1x_86 wrote:
Hi, this is my first post here and ironically I have to reply to an issue thread.

Well, I bought an Apex, the ASUS QC is so bad that almost like 4 mobos have their edges paint chipping off exposing the board traces. Some boards were having that to a huge extent. Finally got one board which did not have this issue. Some boards had DIMM slots plastic with hazy finish too (whitish residue which won't go away even after wiping with Alchohol pads)

Ultimately I was fine with what I got finally with 10900K, 3090FE, C16 GSkill 4000MHz 32GB kit, Liquid Freezer II 360, and code 99, massive failure and disappointment. I tried BIOS FlashBack to 1202, did not work. BIOS slot changed no dice. The QLED light stuck at Yellow/Green always. I thought ODD SATA drive might be causing but after disconnecting that also got the same issue. All fans spin up perfectly fine, the AIO liquid also flowed through first time too. All brand new components. I bought PS/2 KB+M for my Windows 7 installation, tried them instead of USB and vice versa nothing worked. Oh I had 2x 980 Pros connected through DIMM.2, removed it and tried also did not work.

Not sure what ASUS is doing for QC, really painful because no other board has 8X SATA ports with External SATA controller (helps with ODD Windows 7) which allows all drives plus 2x M.2 SSDs also work, Z590 ACE has all good stuff esp the AL backplate, Thunderbolt 4, Native USB 2.0 ports (for Windows 7). And solid HW but the 6X SATA on that board doesn't allow to run 2x NVMe SSDs with all SATA occupied. Plus despite that other thread you started on the ALC4080 issues (Thanks for that thread) I followed it all the way to the end, still was going with this board because of the feature set it has relative to the 10th gen performance, DIMM slot performance, etc.

Not sure if this is something new that ASUS screwed up or just insane bad luck.

Did you get it resolved ? I sent it back though it was in return period, almost expired the 30 day return.

Rocket Scientist wrote:
Hi. I didn't found any solution yet. I have this particular board only for 5 days. But in my case it might be a BIOS flaw because DIMM.2 slot works fine with BIOS 1301 and below versions. Only BIOS 1402 (latest) have this boot problem.
I think if it was something wrong with DIMM.2 slot or DIMM.2 module then it wouldn't work with previous BIOS versions too. Right now I'm using 1301. Samsung 980 Pro is installed into motherboard Nvme slot M.2_1 (1st one under CPU socket) and Goodram Nvme is installed into DIMM.2_1 module slot.
I really don't know what to say in your situation. Is your board can boot with both Samsungs installed into board Nvme slots?
I have open support thread related to this issue. You can track it if you want, and even post your problem there too.
https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?129387-Z590-Maximus-13-Apex-no-boot-with-latest-BIOS-(code...