- Joined
- Aug 2, 2012
Here's the scoop: I ordered a Crosshair V from Geeks. The refurbished unit with full retail package (supposedly) was $149. I am leery of anything refurbished of course, but Geeks has been in business for a long time and I have read many people have good experiences with them. Thus far that has not been the case for me. Right after I ordered it last Monday (7-31?), the page said "out of stock" . I suspect they were actually out of stock when they accepted my order and had to wait until they had another one to send me. They delayed shipping it for 3 or 4 days, I got an E-mail last Friday saying they finally shipped it. When I received it Tuesday and unpackaged it the one thing that was missing was the MANUAL! No biggie I thought and downloaded the .pdf manual. When I examined the board, there were two things that I noticed. First, there was a small dent on a shiny badge that appears to have no ill effects, and the second thing I noticed was that the VRM/NB heatsink was misaligned . Specifically there is a piece that slides in a connects the two heatsinks together and it protrudes farther from one side . When I rocked it back and forth it did not feel like it was making good contact. I tried to realign this, even pulling off the heatsink and discovered that the NB had something resembling Silly Putty gooped on the chip, with none actually where it is supposed to be. I cleaned it and applied some real TP. I was unable to get the alignment problem fixed, it felt like the heatpipe was going to bend, so I gave up and re-mounted the unit. It seemed to feel right after this so I proceeded to assemble the new rig, along with a new Thermaltake W2 PRO watercooler and a new NZXT case.
I got it all together with my FX-4170 and the rest of the pieces from my current rig, plugged it in and NOTHING. The board would power up, all fans would spin, but not a blink on the monitor, and no beeps at all. I then of course checked all connections and card slots, everything was perfect. I had heard about the BIOS issues with FX CPUs, so I was prepared and stuck my 555 in and got the same thing. NOTHING. I then examined the board very carefully, and noticed that the BIOS chip was not quite sitting right in its socket. I stuck my finger on it with the board powered up and the BIOS chip was so hot it nearly burned me. I decided to pull it and I discovered that several of the pins had been bent over on to each other, obviously shorting everything out. It looked like a Caveman had pounded it into the socket with a rock. Undaunted, I then proceeded to carefully straighten out the severely bent pins on the DIP and of course one of them fluttered away like a dandelion petal.....
Still hopeful, I saw that the stub might actually be long enough to make contact in the socket, so I re-inserted it. When I fired up the rig again I got a chirp and the ASUS screen appeared , but pressing delete or F1 did nothing, and then got to this:
The part you cant see because of the flash says the EC data or files are corrupted. Do you think the chips is ruined or can it be flashed with a correct BIOS? I already have the correct BIOS on a USB, tried the ROG connect deal, but nothing happened. I have not found exact instructions as to how that is supposed to work, so I tried holding the ROG Connect switch to the "ON" position for 30 seconds and then switching it back while powered up. Also tried it power off. Nothing. Am I doing something wrong? IF I decide to keep this board, I will get a new one eventually, but right now I am really trying to figure out whether to keep this mobo or not. I have read about people getting free new BIOS chips from ASUS due to the wonk FX BIOS issue, do you think they will send me one even though I did not purchase it "new"? Has anyone gone through this process?
Edit to add: When I took this picture, I was trying a ps/2 keyboard, and it says no keyboard, when I try a USB keyboard it shows up, but still does not enter BIOS when delete or F1 are pressed.
I got it all together with my FX-4170 and the rest of the pieces from my current rig, plugged it in and NOTHING. The board would power up, all fans would spin, but not a blink on the monitor, and no beeps at all. I then of course checked all connections and card slots, everything was perfect. I had heard about the BIOS issues with FX CPUs, so I was prepared and stuck my 555 in and got the same thing. NOTHING. I then examined the board very carefully, and noticed that the BIOS chip was not quite sitting right in its socket. I stuck my finger on it with the board powered up and the BIOS chip was so hot it nearly burned me. I decided to pull it and I discovered that several of the pins had been bent over on to each other, obviously shorting everything out. It looked like a Caveman had pounded it into the socket with a rock. Undaunted, I then proceeded to carefully straighten out the severely bent pins on the DIP and of course one of them fluttered away like a dandelion petal.....
Still hopeful, I saw that the stub might actually be long enough to make contact in the socket, so I re-inserted it. When I fired up the rig again I got a chirp and the ASUS screen appeared , but pressing delete or F1 did nothing, and then got to this:
The part you cant see because of the flash says the EC data or files are corrupted. Do you think the chips is ruined or can it be flashed with a correct BIOS? I already have the correct BIOS on a USB, tried the ROG connect deal, but nothing happened. I have not found exact instructions as to how that is supposed to work, so I tried holding the ROG Connect switch to the "ON" position for 30 seconds and then switching it back while powered up. Also tried it power off. Nothing. Am I doing something wrong? IF I decide to keep this board, I will get a new one eventually, but right now I am really trying to figure out whether to keep this mobo or not. I have read about people getting free new BIOS chips from ASUS due to the wonk FX BIOS issue, do you think they will send me one even though I did not purchase it "new"? Has anyone gone through this process?
Edit to add: When I took this picture, I was trying a ps/2 keyboard, and it says no keyboard, when I try a USB keyboard it shows up, but still does not enter BIOS when delete or F1 are pressed.
Last edited:
