UEFI Crashing When Trying to Enter BIOS

Question

I have a AMD FX8150 Processor in a ASUS Sabertooth 990FX Motherboard with (4) 4GB PNY DDR3 1866 Memory for a total of 16GB. I also have (2) Sapphire 6870 1GB GDDR5 PCI E 2.1 X16 Video Cards that I am going to Crossfire, but they didn't come with the bridge, so I've ordered it. I'm using a PCI X1 Sound Blaster Sound Card and PCI X1 Highpoint Rocketraid RAID Controller in the other (2) PCI X 2.1 X16 slots, since the Video Cards cover the other slots. For Drives, I have LG DVD-RW, LG BluRay RW, (4) WD Harddrives, and (4) WD Harddrives in the RAID.

After POST, if I hit DEL to enter UEFI BIOS the cursor blinks twice, and goes solid and hangs up the computer and on the motherboard the "BOOT_DEVICE_LED" light goes solid RED and I have to restart. I was trying to get into it because I already had Windows on the boot drive, but it's from another processor and board, so I wanted to boot from DVD and not HD.

So here's what I did to test against...Removed one Video card and removed the RAID card, disconnected all drives except main boot drive and DVD RW. I believe I also removed 3 sticks of Memory. Reset CMOS. Plugged in the Speaker to hear for beeps to determine any failures against the manual. RMAed the board, no dice there either.

So, the board can't be faulty, because I'm on the 2nd one now. The processor is rated for the board and the memory is at the maximum speed allowed by the board/CPU. Video cards are designed for the whole system, and the video works, so....

I did manage to get windows installed, but putting in a blank drive, but I still can't get into BIOS. My worries are if that's one thing that is wrong, what else might be? Plus, it's a freaking nuisance. Any thoughts? Thanks all!!!

Answer 1

Ok, I have a solution on my own, but I don't understand why. I had ordered another MB for a different tower, and along with it PNY DDR3 1333 memory, same size 4GB sticks for a total of 16GB. I pulled all of the 1866 sticks out, and put in one 1333, and prayed to the computer gods, and the UEFI BIOS came up fine. I shut down, installed the other 3 sticks and restarted. Everything works with UEFI BIOS now. And a feature called "system information", a tab on ASUS Suite II now loads instead of crashing while in Windows.

However, the MB and CPU are rated for up to 1866 memory. So I don't know why the BIOS would crash under that memory, but work under the 1333 memory. I wonder if I can still use the 1866 after I make all of the BIOS changes that I need to, because I don't know of a way to configure the BIOS to allow for the 1866 to be used. I tried changing the Frequency in BIOS from AUTO to 1866, and that didn't work. This BIOS has WAY more features then the old Legacy ones did, so I have no clue what I am doing in it. It will suck if I have to RMA the 1866 and take the 15% restock fee, when the board says it should work. And calling ASUS support is like talking to a typical user on what a Motherboard is and what it does for the PC. But, oh well.

So I guess there's your answer folks. Apparently, memory is fickle! I find this annoying, but at least there's a solution. Hope my misery helps someone else!!! Happy computing!