Worst motherboard/company Ever

Thank you Aristoc, we do our best to help and it is wonderful to hear it is appreciated 

I keep coming back to this forum just to see what's new. I built my computer with a lot of very good help from the moderators in this forum alone. There was a few things I did not consider when I put my system together. So i couldn't have done it without them! It was on the X99M Killer and after 3 months everything is running very smoothly for me. I am very happy with the speed and response of my new PC (my first build) as well as the moderators. They are very professional.  I also received a quick response by email back from tech support when I needed it. So a big thank you to the moderators who helped here (including JZ). I would not hesitate with Asrock in the future. 

Edited by Aristoc - 06 Feb 2017 at 5:56am

Mjay87 wrote: Even with OS windows 7 ultimate INSTALLED ERROR A6 and error A2 are still on in mother board. I'll post a cpu-z screenshoot once I've installed OS later tonight.

I'm sorry that you don't understand some of the features of your board, particularly the Dr Debug display. It is used for other purposes besides displaying POST codes, meaning it stays on after POST completes successfully.

One of the POST Status Checker (PSC) LEDs, below the Power and Reset buttons at the bottom of the board, will light up if there is a POST failure.

If POST completes you can get into the BIOS or your OS, any POST codes that remain on the Dr Debug display, normally the SATA POST checks, the last things done in the POST process, are just left over and do not indicate any sort of problem.

Do you have a POST beep speaker connected to the board, and the POST beep option enabled in the BIOS? If you did, you would hear the single POST Ok beep.

The Menu button on the board when pressed will step through the various options that can be adjusted directly from the board using the + and - buttons on the board.

I realize the way the Dr Debug display works on the OC Formula boards is different than other ASRock boards, but those boards are not typical boards. Nothing you described about the Dr. Debug display is abnormal for an OC Formula board. I imagine support told you to turn it off since they were unable to explain it to you, or you did not understand their explanation.

Your CPU "bottle necking" problems, while not telling us much at all, is most likely caused by your board's Slow Mode switch being set to On. That switch is to the left of the Dr Debug display, and is normally set to the On position from the factory. That keeps the CPU running at its lowest speed, 800MHz. I don't know how many times I've had to tell OC Formula owners about this switch. If you have not downloaded and read the User Manual from your board's download page, you obviously need to do so:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z97%20OC%20Formula/?cat=Manual

I can't believe the various UEFI/BIOS clearing methods are not working, except the settings that will be override by the controls on the board, like the Slow Mode switch. I assume any BIOS clearing procedure, with the jumper or button, is being done with the PC shutdown, PSU turned off and disconnected from AC power.

Your 840 EVO obviously has the Samsung RAPID mode DRAM caching feature enabled, via the Samsung Magician software. It's not the board doing that, or anything related to the Dr Debug display. If you booted into Windows, POST passed fine, again those codes remain showing due to the nature of the display on the OC Formula boards. Simple as that.

At what point did you use the Easy Driver installer? I hope after Windows was installed, and you knew your Internet connection was working? If you had your network cable connected to the Atheros LAN input, it was not working until you installed its driver, Windows 7 does not have a built in compatible driver. I'm a surprised a PC builder with 15 years experience would use or trust any type of automated driver installer. I've never used it.

Why could you not use the drivers from your board's download page? I do that with each and every ASRock board I have.

For Intel boards, first you MUST run the chipset/INF file installer, the INF driver ver:10.1.1.9 file from your board's download page. This installs files that identifies your hardware, without it you will likely get a misidentified CPU. That is typical when the INF installation package was not run.

Next is the Intel Management Engine software, the Intel Management Engine driver ver:11.0.0.1158, from the same location:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z97%20OC%20Formula/?cat=Download&os=Win764

Sorry, but you're not dealing with a simple board here. If you assume you know how everything is or should be, you'll have problems, and you have.

Please provide a screenshot of the opening page, CPU tab, of CPU-z.




""those errors are for ide/SATA drives with none installed I get those errors"

That is the BIOS trying to hand off to the OS, and not finding a suitable bootable os, be it on a usb stick or HDD/SSD/ stating so.

Please, to test this for yourself, insert a bootable usb stick with a live linux, then configure your BIOS to boot from it. You will discover the A* errors disappear.

Or install an OS for the BIOS to hand off to





edit: OS, not OD


Edited by wardog - 05 Feb 2017 at 8:53am

Worst post I've ever seen. The post failed to illustrate the actual issue. There are so many dependencies listed, that it remains unclear how a single component can be blamed in such a way.

Edited by andre117 - 05 Feb 2017 at 7:24am