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Lord_Simpson · ‎04-18-2016

Hi sorry for the long post ahead but info is useful right?

So... basically my pc had been working fine for over 6 months until about a week ago it auto updated to windows 10.

It seamed OK but I started to get really bad performance drops in games (90fps under win7 became under 30 in win10!) so after
trying a few other solutions I did a clean win10 install and all was fine for a day or 2.

I then started getting blue screens which after some research could have been either the memory or a bad driver.

The blue screens became more frequent until eventually the pc would no longer boot and I started getting Q53 (memory error) so since its a matched pair I assumed only one would be faulty but the board seamed really picky about which memory slot it would boot with and even when it did (CMOS cleared) I would either get to the boot logo with the "press f2 or del to go to setup" bit or the boot text bit with a "press f1 to setup" option.

In all cases I couldn't get into the setup and the pc would restart automatically after about a min.
This also slowly got worse stopping earlier and earlier with various Q codes (most CPU related), so my next guess was maybe the bios.

I downloaded the latest one (1604?) And did the USB flashback update feature.

After this the Q code now stays on 00 no matter what I do, I've tried using the flashback a couple more times as I assume the bios is corrupted but no result.

If I can find a different USB stick (only have the one) ill try that tonight.

I don't have access to any extra parts to test the components so I'll probably have to take the PC to a local repair shop to get them to locate which component is broken so I can RMA it

MOBO: ASUS ROG Maximus VIII Hero Intel Z170 (Socket 1151)
CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.50GHz (Skylake)
MEM: Corsair 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 Vengeance LPX 2133MHz
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 650W G2 Power Supply - 80PLUS Gold

vyras · ‎04-18-2016

Hi Lord Simpson,

Welcome to the forum.

Does your motherboard have the ability to switch BIOS? Does it have 2, just like the Maximus VIII Extreme? If yes, I would suggest, switching to the other one, removing all your RAM but 1 , and trying to boot your system. Hopefully it will POST correctly and not hang on the 00.

I would also suggest to test out your RAM sticks as well as your DIMM slots, and see which of them responds better and with which of them you get the less errors, given that you can move past the 00 Q code..

How did you use the flashback aftger you got the 00. Did you get into BIOS or is there an other way to update BIOS that I am not aware of?

When updating your BIOS I would suggest getting an empty USB stick, formatting it to FAT32 (actual format, not the quick one) downloading the BIOS drivers from the asus website and unzipping the *.cap file in the USB drive. After that remove and re-insert the USB on your computer to verity that the file can still be read, and then get into your BIOS and have it update.

When I updated my BIOS on my Maximus VIII Extreme, it would restart at least twice, and I would usually get a black screen saying "Bios is Updating" before it would boot successfully

Lord_Simpson · ‎04-18-2016

HI

The USB Flashback is a feature on the Hero that allows you to update the bios without booting the machine, just put a USB drive in the correct slot with the correctly named bios file and press a button next to the USB and it will flash the bios (the light blinks until finished) as such you don't need to be able to boot into BIOS..

http://event.asus.com/2012/mb/USB_BIOS_Flashback_GUIDE/

When I flashed the BIOS I did so on a fully formatted FAT32 stick with the BIOS file Named M8H.CAP. IT did something for ~10-15mins (the Flashback light was flashing) but the end result was the now constant '00' error.

vyras · ‎04-18-2016

Hi,

I would suggest trying to re-flash the BIOS using the latest version available version. I would assume that the 00 Q code appears due to the failed attempt to update BIOS. In the case you do not get any results using the latest BIOS version, use the one before that.

You should probably allow some more time for the flashing, not that it's needed, but just to make sure that it actually got stuck and it's not still working though the update process

vyras · ‎04-18-2016

Hi,

I would suggest trying to re-flash the BIOS using the latest version available version. I would assume that the 00 Q code appears due to the failed attempt to update BIOS. In the case you do not get any results using the latest BIOS version, use the one before that.

You should probably allow some more time for the flashing, not that it's needed, but just to make sure that it actually got stuck and it's not still working though the update process

00 Code after USB Flashback (and other issues)