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Maximus VI Formula fails to boot sata device!

OneShootDown
Level 7
hi guys,
i am new here and i hope i am posting this on right place...

hardware:
4770k
xfx pro series 850w
(no gpu at the moment, waiting for r9 290x)
samsung 840 120gb ssd
seagate barracuda 1tb (fresh out of the box)
asus dvd burner 24x
corsair h100i
asus maximus vi formula z87
corsair vengeance ddr3 1600mhz 2x4gb

i recently had a MSI Gaming G45 z87 board which i "destroyed". because of that, i had to get a new motherboard, and i wanted something really premium which would last at least 3 weeks 😄

at monday, i recieved my motherboar (maximus vi formula) and after doing a unboxing video, i decided to put it in my rig, which was 2 weeks old 😛
everything seemed to be ok, i mean it booted up and i could enter bios etc., so i shut it down and continued to install it into my cooler master haf xb case. when i took it to my room to boot into windows, it just didnt want to do so. i was so exited because it just looks so sexy when it get some "electricity".

i dunno where to begin with explaining the problem, but;
this is whats happening:
i press the power button, and after 1 sec or so it beeps one time and i see the asus logo on my screen. then after 20 seconds or so; it just shouts itself off and restarts this process... its kind'a restarting loop...
when i clear the cmos, i am able to boot into bios, and select the booting device (my ssd, from previous z87 (msi) build) and save exit the bios, it sometimes boots into the ssd and comes all the way to those little colorful dots moving around (windows logo) and it just stops, aka black screen, and motherboard restarts. sometimes it doesnt do that at all.. after asus logo (with the text at the bottom telling me to press f2 or delete to enter setup/bios), it looks like it boots my ssd but it just goes black and motherboard resets itself.

i have discovered few things while messing with this issue over almost 2 days in strech:
when i unplug my 1tb hdd, i am able to enter bios or press f6, f8, f10 etc. but when i plug it in, it just starts a restarting loop without allowing to do something... i tested other hdd's (both 2.5 and 3.5 inches, both with os and without os installed on) which i have have lying around in my room, and all of them caused the same problem.

i tried to put my asus dvd burner/reader as primary boot drive; but when i insert a dvd (windows 7 ultimate cd) the same restarting loop happens (as like the hdds). but when i boot without cd in it, it allows me to get into bios and stuff.

when i plug a usb (16gb kingston - windows 7 bootable usb) into usb2 port back of the board (I/O port), i am able to boot into it if i either choose it as primary boot drive in bios, or pressing f6? (i dont remember it now :P) and selecting it.
it boots sometimes and just goes into reboot loop as mentioned above. (btw. it wont boot anymore, i mean it boots but before it gathers together those required windows files, motherboard restarts). when i press f8 while the asus logo is on the screen, i can manage to get in to windows advanced options menu (same happens when i try to boot from ssd, windows 7 ultimate on it). from there, i try to boot into safe mode and it loads drivers etc and stops at disk.sys and motherboard restarts.
when i first tried to boot from usb, i was able to get into the windows 7 installer setup thing, but i cant do that anymore.

as far as i know:
you just have to plug in your hdd to sata port and plug the power in.
then either use usb or dvd to boot windows 7 installation setup thing, and then either do clean or "dirty" os installation, then boot into os and install drivers etc.

here is what i have done to fix it:
clear cmos
unplug the battery for 1 hour
hold the cmos button for 10 mins
test other hdd's
tried usb and odd to install/boot - did not fix but managed to see other screens (windows 7 setup screen)
tweak the bios a billion times
test ram one by one and run memtest
confirm cpu working
tried both integrated gpu and dedicated gpu
plug only in the power button pins, cpu 8 pin + cpu fan (stock cooler), motherboard 24 pin, 1 stick ram - able to boot into bios
spent over 26 hours reading articles online, about windows, asus motherboards, linux etc etc etc
tried different sata and power cables for hdd's
tried to power up the motherboard while lying on the motherboard box
i have used anti static wrist wrap in the entire building and troubleshooting process
successfully flash the board to latest bios
used different sata ports, both as media and notmal 6gb ones, but same thing happens.
bios only detects ssd and asus dvd burner and not empty hdds...
yes my mouse and keyboard are plug and play (usb)
yes i hate my life 😞

can anybody give me any advice for what to do next? because i am thinking of RMA it

i am so annoyed and angry, because i have waited for this board over 2 weeks and now it doesnt work. thanks to msi's service here in norway, i have now been without a desktop gaming rig for about 2 months. i am expecting better costumer service from asus, but i gotta wait and see if this is going to happen or not.
my room looks so messy now, and my mom keeps on telling me to throw my computer out and clean the room 😛
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20 REPLIES 20

HiVizMan
Level 40
Not sure how to tell you this but I wonder if your CPU is toast. I have a CPU that will not see any SATA hard ware at all. Exactly what you are seeing. When you try to install OS via a USB stick (have you tried this) do you get a BSOD or some NTFS read error?

Do you have access to another CPU to test on?
To help us help you - please provide as much information about your system and the problem as possible.

OneShootDown
Level 7
I dont have any right now. btw. i have already requested to return this board back. i will be purchasing a new one so i dont stay without a motherboard meanwhile.
how do you know that the cpu is "toast"? i mean how do i check this? by testing it on another rig?
when i goto bios, i can see it running well... 28 degrees (h100i) at 3.5 ghz and it tells me that it can go up to 3.9 ghz.
when i try to install os from usb stick: i either fall into a restarting loop (motherboard starts and i see the rog logo and under it there is a text telling me to press f2 or delete to enter bios, but no matter what i cant enter the bios) or if i have resettet cmos, i sometimes can boot into windows 7 installation setup thing, but again.... everything crashes and i am back at the beginning (rog logo).

i will be back here and write some updates... because i am now ordering a new motherboard (the same board). if it is not the motherboard which is failing, then this might happen again...
so wish me good luck guys

HiVizMan
Level 40
My CPU that would not pick up or read any hard drives was perfect in every other way, just the SATA controller was dead. I was lucky I had two other CPUs on the bench to swap with.

Let me know how the Motherboard RMA goes and sorry that you had this hassle.
To help us help you - please provide as much information about your system and the problem as possible.

HiVizMan wrote:
My CPU that would not pick up or read any hard drives was perfect in every other way, just the SATA controller was dead. I was lucky I had two other CPUs on the bench to swap with.

Let me know how the Motherboard RMA goes and sorry that you had this hassle.


is the sata controller controlled by cpu or the motherboard? i mean, is it in cpu or mobo?
hell yeah, i will be updating this thread as soon as i get the new board set up and running

OneShootDown wrote:
is the sata controller controlled by cpu or the motherboard?



The SATA controller is part of the PCH (platform controller hub), which is under the heatsink toward the lower right corner of the motherboard. It communicates with the CPU via the DMI bus.

If no drives are being seen by the CPU and the PCH is working fine (and everything is setup correctly), then it is because the DMI bus has a fault, not a "SATA controller on the CPU". There is no "SATA controller" on the CPU.

-Raja

Raja@ASUS wrote:
The SATA controller is part of the PCH (platform controller hub), which is under the heatsink toward the lower right corner of the motherboard. It communicates with the CPU via the DMI bus.

If no drives are being seen by the CPU and the PCH is working fine (and everything is setup correctly), then it is because the DMI bus has a fault, not a "SATA controller on the CPU". There is no "SATA controller" on the CPU.

-Raja


thank you for clarifying it Raja!
BUT: isnt this board supposed to be fully functioning out of the box? cuz i did hear somewhere, somebody saying: every maximus motherboard is tested and oc tested before it is packed in the box...
i really do not want to rma my cpu cuz i have had this cpu over 45 days so i cant return it straight back... it takes 2 weeks for the rma process to finish so i dont want to sit here with a motherboard without cpu...

since i had purchased this motherboard at this monday, they took it back without question... i already ordered a new motherboard (vi formula) so i will get the new board around tomorrow afternoon, and they told me that they will do a full refund for the board i gave back.

i will be back here and write how it is going with the new motherboard...

HiVizMan
Level 40
The CPU is the SATA controller.
To help us help you - please provide as much information about your system and the problem as possible.

OneShootDown
Level 7
Quick update:
i changed the sata settings to disabled instead of ahci/raid/ide and save & exit bios. this allowed me to successfully boot into windows 7 installation usb. when i continued the wn7 setup, i been asked to select where to install windows, but i couldt not see any hardrive or partitions... (obviously because sata ports is disabled).
i shotdown the pc and disconnected dvd drive and all the other hard drives that did not have RAW file system (disconnected all harddisk's with NTFS file system and dvd drive because these cause infinite reboot loop), had only my ssd connected (because the ssd was at frozen state anyway, and did go into bios and re-enabled the sata controllers and selected AHCI mode and save & exit bios.
now, i was able to boot the usb without any issues while sata settings set enabled and AHCI mode. unfortunately i could not install windows because the ssd was at frozen state.
restarted the system and entered bios and opened rog ssd secure erase, which i used yesterday and it made my ssd unusable, and tried to secure erase several times. the ssd was empty, but it was frozen. i wanted to get it out and after several times of doing secure erase, it magically came into usable stage.
i booted up win 7 from usb, and now i could see my ssd and was able to create partition.
i opened cmd, within win 7 installation usb, and ran DiskPart and made the disk: online, active and created partition primary. then i cleaned the whole disk with diskpart and gone back to the os install. it asked me to create a 100mb partition for os and i clicked yes, and it did create it 🙂
after that it asked me where to install win 7 and i selected the RAW (unformatted partition) partition and next install screen appeared AND within 0.5 sec the whole system restarted.

i wanted to know why this happened, and booted from the usb again:
started cmd - started diskpart - and wanted to format the RAW file system to NTFS so it would be pre-formatted and ready to install os for the windows 7 installer. but it looks like the motherboard doesnt like NTFS filesystems, because when i entered this (format fs=ntfs quick) command in diskpart, motherboard restarted itself.

so i guess we have digged deep enough and found what causes the problem:
"Motherboard do not want to read NTFS file systems trough (any, including asmedia ports) sata ports"
any advice how to fix this?

HiVizMan
Level 40
I am going to repeat myself, that is exactly what I had with one CPU.

I can not offer anything more RMA the CPU and the board to make sure which is not working.
To help us help you - please provide as much information about your system and the problem as possible.