cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

New Formula VI build won't boot

skrybe
Level 9
Just built a mostly new system;

i7-4770k
Team Vulcan 2400 16gb
Noctua NH-D14
Maximus Formula VI
Corsair Ax760i
Corsair Obsidian 900d

Existing parts;

Asus HD7970
Samsung 840 Evo 256gb SSD (boot with Win8)
Patriot Inferfo 240gb SSD
Western Digital 2tb HDD
LG BH16ns40 Blu ray writer
Asus VK266H LCD (via DVI)
Gigabyte Aivia keyboard
logitech g300 mouse
Logitech g930 wireless headphones

When I built the PC I assembled everything and booted and it did several reboots in fairly rapid succession (which I believe is tuning?) before arriving at the bios. I basically flipped through without changing anything from default apart from the boot device - I set the Samsung SSD as boot after the Bluray drive instead of the Patriot SSD. tried to save and exit and it said nothing had changed. Double checked and the boot order still said Samsung so I saved and exited again. Temps looked ok in bios - about 29 degrees. Ram was only set to 1333, but I figured I'd get the PC booting to windows, get drivers etc installed then tweak ram speed and timings.

After that the PC won't reboot. It gets stuck on A0 - IDE Initialization has started. Tried a couple reboots and happens each time. Tried unplugging various devices to eliminate issues. Removing all drives bar the Samsung gets me an AE - legacy boot event error instead. Removing the samsung as well gets a 99 - Super IO initializaton. And the boot device LED is lit up.

I also tried removing the Corsair Link that was plugged into onboard USB. Unplugging the mouse and headphones. SPDif cable and network cable. Same result error 99. I cannot get into the bios at all since that first time. I tried the DirectKey button (which I believe should put me to bios on next boot). I tried a CMOS clear, which resulted in several rapid reboots (the tuning again?) but still wouldn't show bios and hung at 99.

I don't have a HDMI cable to try plugging the monitor into the mobo instead of the vid card.

Any suggestions would be appreciated, because at the moment this feels like a lot of wasted time and money.
5,265 Views
10 REPLIES 10

skrybe
Level 9
Forgot to mention I tried with fast boot both off and on. I also tried the SSD connected to both the intel and asm sata plugs. No difference.

Also, tried with everything but the Corsair Link plugged in and it hangs on A2 - IDE Detect.

Tokens210
Level 10
Corsair link anything and Asus software causes issues but I'd think you should still get into something

As for the system I have the same board and CPU and A0 is what the board displays when its running, I'm playing a game as I'm typing this and the board displays A0

So my question and it may sound dumb but, when you try booting whatever way gives you the A0 did you then try to change inputs in our display, cause sometimes they'll think there's no connection and switching sometimes fixes ( example you try to boot and see A0, change the display to anything else then back, HDMI 1-2 or VGA back to HDMI or whatever setup you have, maybe even turn the monitor off and back on)
CoolerMaster HAF 932 Advanced/ Maximus VI Formula/ I7-4770K/Swiftech H320/ Corsair HX850/ G.Skill Trident X (2x8) 16gb 2400MHz/ 2x 840 EVO 120gb(Raid 0)/ WD 1TB HDD (Backup/Storage)/ EVGA GTX 1gb 560 TI/ Asus 12x bluray combo

Zka17
Level 16
A0 and A2 is meaning that BIOS is handing over the control to the OS…

You need to install an OS… do you have one?

If you're installing from a disk, then you need to set the booting to your optical drive, if you're installing from USB, then boot from USB...

skrybe
Level 9
Just to make things weirder... I tinkered with the PC for awhile last night, plugged things back in and tried rebooting with the system hanging at A2 each time and finally gave up and went to sleep. This morning I turned it on and BAM! Straight into the bios, where I set the Samsung as boot drive, another reboot and into Windows just fine. That just boggles the mind. Nothing changed from the last unsuccessful attempt last night yet it works.

Maybe Tokens210 has the answer... the only thing that would be different was the monitor got powered off last night when I gave up and shut everything down. Maybe all those hours I was pulling out my hair because all I had was a blank screen all it needed was a monitor off/on.

I'm going to update my current windows install with the new drivers for the Formula + try out the Asus software and Corsair link now and then run some benches. I'll post another update later.

Thanks guys.

skrybe
Level 9
Well, I've installed all the drivers and there are no devices in device manager with an ! anymore. A couple hiccups with drivers that wouldn't install, like the intel graphics drivers - I assume the graphics from the CPU is disabled since I have a discrete video card. Also had a hiccup after installing the Realtek drivers. It restarted automatically when the install was finished (no prompt which is rather annoying) and blue screened on reboot. A second reboot took awhile but windows loaded and seems fine.

The only major problem now is my Patriot SSD keeps disappearing from Windows. Some boots it appears, some boots it just isn't in device manager or file manager. It's attached to the Intel Sata ports (all the drives are). More tinkering to follow >_<

skrybe
Level 9
And success... Had to move the Patriot SSD to the ASMedia Sata ports for some reason but it detects and runs just fine on that... just not on the Intel ones. Installed all the Asus utils and since removed a few because they're a pain in the butt (sorry Asus).

Temps are sitting at 37 degrees in a room where the ambient is 30 degrees so that's good. Ran a bunch of benches and everything is faster, in some cases considerably, in others not so much. Nice little boost on the SSD performance and massive boost to USB over the Rampage Formula III + i7-950 I used to run. I'm thinking the front ports on the old system were USB2 not 3 like they were supposed to be. Aida, Novabench and 3dMark all showed decent improvements too.

Time to spend a few days trying different ram settings and OCing 🙂

Then it's just waiting for an Asus 290x OC (I'm waiting for stock to arrive).

Tokens210
Level 10
good to see you got everything figured out and running

the only reason i suggested turning the monitor on an off is cause i had one that used to do the same thing but only so often, apparently when i would restart the pc the monitors energy saver would either shut it off without me knowing or would require me to switch the input selected then back and it would work fine
CoolerMaster HAF 932 Advanced/ Maximus VI Formula/ I7-4770K/Swiftech H320/ Corsair HX850/ G.Skill Trident X (2x8) 16gb 2400MHz/ 2x 840 EVO 120gb(Raid 0)/ WD 1TB HDD (Backup/Storage)/ EVGA GTX 1gb 560 TI/ Asus 12x bluray combo

Same build was stable @ defaults 1333mhz ram & 3900 on CPU. Tested with a bunch of things and about 6 hours of gaming. Used the Asus one click and it rebooted a couple times and set the ram to 2400 (11-13-13-35 @ 1.65v - which is the rated speed of the ram) and CPU to 4200. That seemed fine, I was doing simple stuff (web, email and a couple benches) with no problems.

However I tried running Prime95 to double check stability and compare performance and it hangs the PC about halfway thru the benchmark. I also tried 3Dmark and it reboots during the first test. At the moment I'm waiting thru a Memtest86+ run to see how that goes. Its at 18% with no errors so far.

CPU temps were showing in mid 40s when the PC locked or rebooted so I don't think heat is the issue. And so far the memory seems ok. So I just got a CPU that hates OCing? Any tests you can suggest to help isolate exactly which component is the problem?

Tokens210
Level 10
Well all CPUs arnt equal, but most ppl here would probly suggest a manual over clock as opposed to the 4 way optimization

As for your prime test that may have been the issue, I believe the 4 way uses an adaptive voltage which a synthetic test like prime95 can add a multiplier too, so even tho u said the temps were OK somewhere else may have spiked to high as for the memtest, I believe zka usually suggests 4 full passes to know ur rams good

As for the CPU you won't actually know what one you have till you play with it, I'd be no help to you in the manual over clock department but there are many users here who could help ya out there
CoolerMaster HAF 932 Advanced/ Maximus VI Formula/ I7-4770K/Swiftech H320/ Corsair HX850/ G.Skill Trident X (2x8) 16gb 2400MHz/ 2x 840 EVO 120gb(Raid 0)/ WD 1TB HDD (Backup/Storage)/ EVGA GTX 1gb 560 TI/ Asus 12x bluray combo