Z77 OC Formula hung on boot and Cleared CMOS!

[Ken429]

Well, I've had my first strange experience with this MB. The system has been running for several weeks and until today whatever I did it accepted and ran with no issues! Today Friday the 13th, I turned it on and the system hung with an "A2" showing in the debug display. I turned the system off and restarted and it booted into Windows 8. Before Windows 8 came up I got a message saying something was being updated. I figured it was just "one of those things" that I came to expect with my overclocked Gigabyte boards. However, when I went into the BIOS to see if anything changed it was set to the factory defaults AND all my saved BIOS's were gone! Is this Normal ASRock behavior when the system hangs during the boot process? Should I have done something other than power off and restart when it hung?

The system was set to CPU Ratio = 45, BCLK = 100, XMP Setting = Profile 1, CPU Voltage = Offset Mode @ +.015, LLC = Level 3 with everything else at factor defaults. Like I said above it has been running with these settings for several weeks with no issues. It will run IBT for 10 passes successfully Prime95 for several hours with no issues.

[parsec]

Re: Z77 OC Formula hung on boot and Cleared CMOS!

That is strange, and what you described sounds like a UEFI/BIOS update had occurred. That is, when a BIOS update that changes one or more options is done, the previous profiles (your saved "BIOS's" I assume) are removed.

You sig lists 2.30 as your current BIOS version, which is the latest version, from 7/25/13. Which means you had no need for an update, not that BIOS updates are automatically done, unless your board has an option like that. More likely is a recovery/backup BIOS was applied, which your board has, but the question is why, assuming that happened. The recovery BIOS operation could remove all your BIOS profiles. The ASRock BIOS will automatically display the BIOS when there is a problem, or possibly after a recovery operation, but that does not seem to be what happened to you.

The A2 error is an "IDE detect" error, but it sounds like your PC booted fine eventually. Any of your drives having problems now?

I can't say your experience is normal behavior for all ASRock boards, it might be for yours in certain situations.

[Ken429]

Re: Z77 OC Formula hung on boot and Cleared CMOS!

No, I was not or have not been having problems with any of the drives on this system. Just curious, if the ASRock gods decided I needed to resort to the back up BIOS would it be the version that came with the MB? I have since updated to 2.30. The BIOS I have after the "episode" is 2.30. Also, since whatever happened cleared all my saved profiles, is there any way to back them up to an external device? Off on another tangent, I wonder if the GSkill 2400 memory could be an issue? I know that the GA-Z77X-UD5H MB I replaced had random problems where I would have to reset the BIOS to get it to boot. Several other people said they had similar issues with the faster memory. Maybe this BIOS has gone one step further and clears CMOS on it own?

[parsec]

Re: Z77 OC Formula hung on boot and Cleared CMOS!

You can backup your BIOS profiles with the "OC DNA" feature in the Formula Drive software.

The backup BIOS is the original version that came with the board, unless there is a method to update it. So there goes that theory...

I have no idea about the memory thing.

[Ken429]

Re: Z77 OC Formula hung on boot and Cleared CMOS!

Thanks for the help! I knew I saw it somewhere but still have the GA-Z77X-UD5H mentality, it has a similar feature built into the BIOS. The ASRock Formula Drive solution might be a better way to go about it since it uses the Operating System to handle the I/O. If the ASRock BIOS "clear feature" happens again I'll install some Mushin 1600-C8 memory and see if that makes the problem go away. How I got caught up in the 2400 memory is another story but for everything except a benchmark test I don't think the faster memory adds anything to the real world experience. Thanks again.