20 minute wait for boot Z97

I have a Z97 Extreme 4 board which is probably just out of warranty. For about a year, it's had an issue where if the power at the wall switch was off, you have to wait about 20 minutes before it would boot. I thought this was a power supply issue. Since it was always running from a UPS, it hardly ever bothered me. I've moved studio and the UPS battery failed. So I started running directly from the wall. Since the power to the entire studio gets turned off when it's not in use, this became a real problem. So I purchased a new power supply; then a new enclosure and it's still the same. The rig is about 2 years old. This is normally when I would upgrade, selling the old mainboard, CPU and memory as one unit. Now I can't do that. It's disappointing because I really like this motherboard but it's put me off buying ASROCK again. Is this common on motherboards and can anyone guess what it would be - that it needs power to be on the board for 20 minutes before it will boot? I'm running in legacy BIOS mode but it's not the battery and I've flashed the BIOS a few times. I know all component manufacturers can have issues but I purchased this board because the components were supposedly top shelf. I'm in Australia and if the board is irreparable, I'd also like it to be disposed of properly. Thanks for any suggestions.

troutstudio wrote: I have a Z97 Extreme 4 board which is probably just out of warranty. For about a year, it's had an issue where if the power at the wall switch was off, you have to wait about 20 minutes before it would boot. I thought this was a power supply issue. Since it was always running from a UPS, it hardly ever bothered me. I've moved studio and the UPS battery failed. So I started running directly from the wall. Since the power to the entire studio gets turned off when it's not in use, this became a real problem. So I purchased a new power supply; then a new enclosure and it's still the same. The rig is about 2 years old. This is normally when I would upgrade, selling the old mainboard, CPU and memory as one unit. Now I can't do that. It's disappointing because I really like this motherboard but it's put me off buying ASROCK again. Is this common on motherboards and can anyone guess what it would be - that it needs power to be on the board for 20 minutes before it will boot? I'm running in legacy BIOS mode but it's not the battery and I've flashed the BIOS a few times. I know all component manufacturers can have issues but I purchased this board because the components were supposedly top shelf. I'm in Australia and if the board is irreparable, I'd also like it to be disposed of properly. Thanks for any suggestions.

Sorry but I don't quite understand what you mean by "... wait about 20 minutes before it would boot".

Does that mean it takes 20 minutes to boot, from pressing the power switch on the PC case switch?

It seems you mean the PC won't start for 20 minutes after power is applied to the PC, correct?

I've never heard of this happening in a post in the forum, or experienced this myself. I remove power to my several PCs with ASRock boards to work on them occasionally, and they start instantly after power is applied to the PSU.

Questions, when you apply power to the PC, do you see the small LEDs next to the network input jack light up, if you use a wired connection? They should light up after a few seconds.

This board has dual BIOS chips, each chip has an LED indicating which one is active and one of them is on whenever power is applied to the board. The BIOS chips are along the lower right side of the board, which is where the BIOS LEDs are located. Do you see a small, red LED on it that area?

Your board has a power switch on the board itself, on the lower right hand corner. Did you ever try to power up the board via that switch? There is also a Reset switch next to the Power switch, and both switches should be illuminated when power is applied to the board. Are they lit up?

Yes that's correct. If I shut down the computer and leave the power on at the mains, it will start normally the next day. If the power is turned off at the wall socket, pressing the on switch at the front panel or on the motherboard does nothing for about 20 minutes.

During this period, there are no lights at all on the board. However there is a light on the LAN connection and the Steinberg USB key shows a red led.

troutstudio wrote: Yes that's correct. If I shut down the computer and leave the power on at the mains, it will start normally the next day. If the power is turned off at the wall socket, pressing the on switch at the front panel or on the motherboard does nothing for about 20 minutes. During this period, there are no lights at all on the board. However there is a light on the LAN connection and the Steinberg USB key shows a red led.

If you've tried a new PSU, and a new PC case, then it sounds like the board itself has a problem.

The LAN and USB use 5V power, but that leaves 12V and 3.3V, the 12V being most significant. Or the circuitry that is used to detect when the power button on the PC case is pressed has a problem.

Usually problems with faults when power is removed is caused by a bad capacitor. The capacitor won't hold a charge or function normally, and it takes time when power is applied for the bad capacitor to wake up or begin functioning at least semi-normally.

There are hundreds of electrical components on a mother board, and all it takes is one of them to go bad and cause problems like you have, or cause the board to completely fail. One thing you can try is to not shut off power to the PC when you shut it down, which might help bring the capacitor back to life, if that is really the problem. Otherwise, if you can RMA the board, get it repaired, or get it replaced under warranty in your country, would be the best thing to do.

I'm sorry about your experience with ASRock support, although I don't know whom you were in contact with, technical support or the RMA/Repair department.

Both Intel 8 and 9 series chipset boards (Z87 or Z97 for example) will work with your Haswell CPU. I have no idea what stock, if any, of these boards your retailer will have available.

Just keep the PSU on after you shutdown or put the PC into Sleep mode. Only the +5V standby power supply is active under those circumstances, and will use no more than 3 Watts of power from the PSU, normally less, and barely more than that from the AC power.