X99 BIOS Update

a_smart_imbecile wrote: Hello, Just updated my Fatal1ty X99 Professional Gaming i7 to the latest BIOS P1.60 and I'm having heavy system stuttering and mouse pointer lag while watching Amazon Video and Netflix on any browser, but other streaming services like YouTube and Twitch are fine. This happens only with the new BIOS (P1.60), the old one (P1.40) runs smoothly. Tried a different bunch of GPU drivers and browsers, but no luck. Temperatures are OK. I'm on Windows 10 version 1709 and gaming-wise I have no problem.

I "want' to say you need to thank Intel for that lovely, NOT!, Spectre/Meltdown BIOSes are.
Note: It is NOT Asrocks doing but instead Intels.

Search Google. You are not alone.

parsec wrote: Also, I'm glad that your "vintage" Vertex 2 SSD works fine. OCZ got a bad reputation being the beta tester for the Sandforce SSD controller, or I should say their customers were the testers. But everyone did not have problems with their products.

Funny you should mention that, one of my OCZ (non-Sandforce) Vertex 4's suddenly disappeared from the system / BIOS a little while back. Tried the usual power reset, nothing so decided to have a look inside. No green LED when power applied, metal cover discolored around the thermal pad similar to what you might see with high temperatures. When software was used to monitor and check SMART never remembered seeing any temperature that looked hot.

Anyway, after checking some components with a meter seemed there was a shorted capacitor presumably a filter transient cap for one of the memory supplies. Which one though, decided to power it on and do the feel test. The cap that burns the finger is the faulty one. Sure enough there was a real hot one, used some BFAI to remove it, checked with the meter again and looked a lot better. Connected to PC via USB and now detected. I guess I should replace it rather than leave it empty but given this capacitor had failed after 1637 hours (the equivalent of less than 70 days) most likely the other caps would be from the same batch and could also prematurely fail.

I post this so if someone else  experiences the same problem and didn't quite get around to backing up something on the disk then there may still be a chance of recovery.

Faulty capacitor removed (red arrow C162) however could easily be any of those others such as shown with green arrow.

 


Hope this might prove useful to someone.


Edited by CPL0 - 16 Feb 2017 at 7:56pm

janwillem_v wrote: Xaltar wrote: I wouldn't advise updating your BIOS to 3.0+ unless you are planning to upgrade your CPU to a Broadwell-EP. If your system is working well with 1.9 then stick with it. If you decided to upgrade your CPU at some later date you can update to the latest BIOS then.  Thank you for your anwser. The only problem I have with this version is that I cannot priortise my harddisks. Windows setup makes my M.2 primary, so when I install windows on my Vertex 2 it creates some small bootfiles on my m.2 drive.

Which is why you always install Windows with ONLY the target OS drive installed, or powered up, in the PC.

As you have seen, the Windows installer has a annoying habit of putting the boot/system partition on another drive, if it can find one during the installation.

Why MSoft does this, I don't know, and have stopped speculating about it long ago. This quirk of the Windows installer is fairly well known, and continues with Windows 10.

Once this happens with your Windows installation, you can fix it with your Windows installation media. You can remove the M.2 drive (cannot otherwise remove its power, right), boot from your Windows installation media, and select Repair. That will create the boot/system partition on your Vertex 2.

After you have booted the PC successfully from the Vertex 2, connect the M.2 drive again, and delete the boot/system partition on the M.2 drive.

If you would like to use the M.2 drive for Windows, we can tell you how to do that, depending upon which M.2 drive you have.

Did you say that an earlier UEFI/BIOS version allowed you to prioritize your drives in the Boot order, but the one you use now does not?

Also, I'm glad that your "vintage" Vertex 2 SSD works fine. OCZ got a bad reputation being the beta tester for the Sandforce SSD controller, or I should say their customers were the testers. But everyone did not have problems with their products.


Edited by parsec - 07 Oct 2016 at 8:56pm

I wouldn't advise updating your BIOS to 3.0+ unless you are planning to upgrade your CPU to a Broadwell-EP. If your system is working well with 1.9 then stick with it. If you decided to upgrade your CPU at some later date you can update to the latest BIOS then. 

Yep...

Edited by DStealth - 11 Sep 2016 at 10:16pm