A Z170 Extreme6+ With a Z170 Extreme 4 Bios

No soldering req'd.

They're socketed and thus pull up and out, then carefully press the new ones back in.

Definitely has an Extreme6+.

Battery position relative to the cpu socket, and two cha fan headers right next to.

Odd thing is the silkscreened AMD and Crossfire logos .


RMA it or request two BIOS chips from ASRock now that you've documented it.

Given the OP's picture of the board, it is definitely a Z170 Extreme6+

After looking at the picture on the Z170 Extreme6+ product page on ASRock's website, they match perfectly in many major details I can see.

If you then look at the Z170 Extreme4's product page picture, IMO the Extreme4 board is not just a relabeled version of the Extreme6+.

First, the Z170 Extreme6+:





Second, the Z170 Extreme4:



Check some details on the "bottom" of each picture, really the right side of each board when mounted in a PC case.

The Extreme4 immediately above, has a CHA_FAN2 header next to the BIOS Select switch.

The Extreme6+ does not have the CHA_FAN2 header in that location.

Back to the Extreme4, we see a single piece, multi-SATA ports and SATA Express connector.

The Extreme6+ has that same connector, and four more SATA ports just to the right of that connector. The Extreme4 does not have four SATA ports in that location.

That's only a few of the MANY differences I see between the pictures of these two boards. I could go on and on, the Extreme4 has a four pin fan header where the Extreme6 has the four extra SATA ports. How could you do things like that with the same basic board?

Just look at the area around the battery in each board, very different. The Extreme6+ has two four pin fan headers next to the battery, and many small chips above and below the battery. The Extreme4 is relatively clean with very few parts around the battery, and no fan headers in that area. The location of the battery itself is different on each board.

So IMO we can say the two boards are different, and not just a relabel job.

Back to the main issue, the Extreme4 UEFI version in a Extreme6+ board. Given the evidence we have, the OP's two pictures, it seems the board was originally flashed with the Z170 Extreme4 UEFI version at the factory. Given the specs, the UEFI chips are the same size, but are wrong in the sense they have the wrong board's UEFI version.

And no, I have never seen this before.

I don't know how the manufacturing works, if pre-flashed UEFI chips are inserted in the board, or the board is actually flashed with a UEFI version with empty UEFI chips. Another question is how a board identifies itself, where is that information stored and can it be changed?

Regardless, I would suggest returning the board to the retailer. It might be hard to convince them that the situation you have exists, and is not something we can fix. I don't know if replacing the UEFI chips with an Extreme6+ UEFI version in each one will fix the problem. I do think that a board with the wrong firmware would be likely to not function correctly in several if not many aspects. I would personally not try a salvage it.

Another clue or indication of the factory problem: The stickers on the UEFI chips should say 2.40 on them, right? That is the UEFI version the board came with, right?

The Extreme6+ does not have a 2.40 UEFI version. The Extreme4 does. Check the BIOS download list of each board. Sometimes UEFI versions are removed from a board's list, so this check may not be 100% perfect in all cases. The dates of similar UEFI version numbers for each board are not close in their dates.

In the original post I mentioned he had tried the internet auto flash...it did and is now on the 3.20 for the Extreme 4

It's new, ordered 6 days ago and received 2 days ago.  I'm hoping AsRock will get back to me and it will be a simple reflash of the bios.  Aside from the fact that I don't want to tear my system back a part, I hate dealing with Newegg's RMA process and really don't wan to be without a board for the next several weeks.