Windows 10 needs some driver and BIOS updates...

I upgraded our Z77 Extreme6 system to Windows 10... and immediately began seeing intermittent reboots, very difficult to diagnose.

After a lot of effort, it appears that the D1 stops are due to outdated and incompatible binaries in the IRST (Intel Rapid Storage Technology) BIOS-embedded firmware, and the IRST drivers.

Windows 10 includes a default IRST (13.*) driver version... but it is not fully compatible with the very dated (11.2.*) version in the current BIOS.

ASRock has not bothered to provide up to date IRST drivers in quite some time... nor updated the BIOS firmware for IRST. This is now causing instability in systems upgraded to Windows 10.

On top of that, if I run the Windows Verifier.exe tool, the USBXHCI driver crashes 100% of the time... indicating a further problem with outdated code.

Please put some effort into making your motherboards properly compatible with Windows 10!

With Win10, we don't really get a choice on updates from MS.

Yes, mine was an in-place upgrade... from Win7. AFAIK, ASRock has a somewhat updated IRST driver for Win8.1 ... but even that isn't fully stable at this point.

MrPete wrote: I upgraded our Z77 Extreme6 system to Windows 10... and immediately began seeing intermittent reboots, very difficult to diagnose. After a lot of effort, it appears that the D1 stops are due to outdated and incompatible binaries in the IRST (Intel Rapid Storage Technology) BIOS-embedded firmware, and the IRST drivers. Windows 10 includes a default IRST (13.*) driver version... but it is not fully compatible with the very dated (11.2.*) version in the current BIOS. ASRock has not bothered to provide up to date IRST drivers in quite some time... nor updated the BIOS firmware for IRST. This is now causing instability in systems upgraded to Windows 10. On top of that, if I run the Windows Verifier.exe tool, the USBXHCI driver crashes 100% of the time... indicating a further problem with outdated code. Please put some effort into making your motherboards properly compatible with Windows 10!

If you did an upgrade installation of Windows 10 from an earlier version, and you are a PC builder, those two don't go together. Upgrade Win 10 installation are for those that simply use PCs, and let Windows install their drivers and software. I wouldn't use (and don't use) an upgrade installation in one of my PCs, only clean installs with the network cables disconnected so no updates can be done until my drivers of choice (and compatibility) are installed. Plus driver updates are disabled, which is done with a Custom, not Express, Windows installation.

Contrary to popular belief, newer versions of IRST are not perfectly compatible with older chipsets, like the Z77. That chipset does not support the features found in IRST 14 version, not to mention 15. Updating the IRST Option ROM is not a fix for this, the chipset is the limitation. Earlier chipsets were not that different, so the newer IRST versions did not cause problems.

Did you know that IRST 11.2 is considered the fastest version of IRST ever released? If you check Samsung SSD specification documents, their benchmark results are done using IRST 11.2.

What do newer versions of IRST do for you, or any older chipset board? Features that are dependent on hardware changes in the chipset that don't exist in Z77 won't be activated by new software or Option ROMs. What Intel SATA mode are you using, AHCI or RAID?

I have Windows 10 installed (new, not upgrade) in my ASRock Z77 Extreme4 board, and I don't see any instabilities with IRST 13 versions. The 7 series chipsets were listed as compatible with IRST 13 version, and if they are not listed in the Readme files, then they are not compatible. I'm using the Beta UEFI version for that board that has NVMe support. Some versions of the IRST driver and Windows utility will not install on any chipset board if you use an NVMe SSD. IRST 14 (for Z170 boards) provides RAID for PCIe NVMe SSDs, without using the NVMe SSD's NVMe driver.

Have you ever looked at the Release Notes on the Intel IRST driver download page? The Known Issues list at the end of the file is what I want you to see. Over 80 known issues. Those are only the ones reported to and accepted by Intel. I've seen multiple officially released versions of IRST later removed by Intel due to major problems. IRST 11.7 was one of the worst.

Are you aware that the USBXHCI driver is the USB 3.1 driver? Yes, Windows 10 uses that driver for all the USB ports on Z170 systems. Why it uses it for the Z77 chipset, I don't know. Have you installed later INF files that will install on Z77 boards, but seem to indicate to the USB driver installer that the board is newer than Z77?

It seems Intel and MSoft aren't on the same page when it comes to driver compatibility and installation limitations. But that becomes the mother board manufacture's fault?




Edited by parsec - 26 Nov 2016 at 12:27pm