Problems with my Asrock Pro3 Gen3 Bios

[TroubleShooter]

Greetings everyone,
in recent months I noticed a rapid decrease in my PC´s performance but couldn´t really Pin-Point what the issue was exactly…
Until last week that is…

I looked into the Windows Task-Manager only to be greeted with 16GB of Ram
(But have 4x8GB sticks of ram installed…)
In the Bios I then see I have only 2 out of 4 sticks installed
A1=Empty
A2=8GB
B1=Empty
B2=8GB

Ok so I wanted to try and change my Ram settings, and noticed XMP settings are completely missing!
I also can no longer set my Multiplicator or Ram Timings…

Afterwards I googled a bit and came across this Thread:
Z77 Extreme 4 + 3570k stuck Multipliers
And thought this sounds pretty much like the Problems I have currently (minus the ram issue)

So…
could a botched Bios update be at fault here? (cause I did one after modding my Bios a few months back)
I tried reflashing the Modded and Stock bios files from Asrock Website, but it never seems to have tried to update ME again…
So hope somebody can help me here.

Below is my Stock Bios taken with FPTw64

stock2.31b.rar (2.98 MB)

[TroubleShooter]

Heres also some ME screens and FD.bin if that helps

fd.rar (308 Bytes)

[Lost_N_BIOS]

Please edit your posts if you need to add more info and no one has replied yet, thanks

I’ve not seen anyone mention loss of memory slots before due to this, however, maybe they only had two sticks installed when this issue occurred for them, or maybe they never noticed?
Also, usually when what you linked happens, you cannot get MEInfo to run, due to ME FW is corrupted, however sometimes it’s messed up and doesn’t look like it, so hard to say.

Normally, if you are missing memory slots this is due to need to reset memory, clean it’s contacts, or you have bent CPU socket pins.
When is the last time you removed your CPU? If you remove it now to look be very careful, and take some images for me to check out, take those in a bright lit room (not with flash), from a few different angles from the side (not straight down into the socket)

Also, this can be caused by incorrect or lack of voltages, the loss of channels I mean. With 2x4GB even, auto voltage is not going to work for Vtt, so with 4x8GB you are going to have to raise this manually (1.2-1.35 is good place to try)
Of course, also manually set the correct memory voltage. What speed are you trying to run those at? Check with CPU-z in the SPD tab, do you see XMP profile (NOT SPD profile), if not then your memory kits do not have XMP profiles programmed into them.
Sometimes there is too many profiles, so CPU-z may not be able to show them all. Check with HWINFO64 too, in the little CPU-z like window you should see XMP in the memory profiles on the right side, if not, go into the big window and expand items down to a single memory stick and scroll down toward bottom to see XMP profiles, if they are there.

Tonight, I will give you info to reflash the ME FW properly, don’t try anything about this until then, it’s currently not corrupted so lets keep it that way so you can flash it without having to order a flash programmer

* Edit @TroubleShooter - I notice ME FW version is updated vs what came in that BIOS, how did you update it, and did you use the the cleanup guide to transfer settings from your original BIOS download/ME FW to the new stock ME FW, or did you just flash in the stock ME FW updated version?
You may need CH341A + U Type Flat IC extractor (BIOS is in socket on this model, correct?) Sometimes when I’ve seen this (Well the above linked issue with multi/memory speeds), BIOS and ME FW looked fine, reflashed fine, nothing changed until BIOS was fully redone with programmer.
But, we can try reflashing ME FW and see if it helps, once you answer the above for me.

[TroubleShooter]

Hey there!
Sorry for the double Post, I thought it would get too cluttered putting everything in a single Post,
but I will better myself from here on out!.

I did the “FTPw64.exe -bios -d stockbios.bin” that you mentioned in the other Thread
Z77 Extreme 4 + 3570k stuck multipliers
and afterwards booted with setup_var shell into Bios to enable this
[GUIDE] Grub Fix Intel FPT Error 280 or 368 - BIOS Lock Asus/Other Mod BIOS Flash
and last but not least I used the linked me.bin from the other Thread to flash my IME to a new version with this command:
Z77 Extreme 4 + 3570k stuck multipliers
"fwupdlcl -f me.bin"

However I didn´t do any of the steps mentioned here
[Guide] Clean Dumped Intel Engine (CS)ME/(CS)TXE Regions with Data Initialization
as I simply didn´t know it was necessary to do…

I can also give you my setup_irf file where you can see this Part
"OneOf Prompt: “Channel A DIMM Control”, Help: “Enable or disable dimms on channel A.”, QuestionFlags: 0x10, QuestionId: 474, VarStoreId: 1, VarStoreOffset: 0x1FD, Flags: 0x10, MinMaxData: [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]
OneOfOption Option: “Enable Both DIMMS” Value: 0
OneOfOption Option: “Disable DIMM0” Value: 1
OneOfOption Option: “Disable DIMM1” Value: 2
OneOfOption Option: “Disable Both DIMMS” Value: 3
End “
” OneOf Prompt: “Channel B DIMM Control”, Help: “Enable or disable dimms on Channel B.”, QuestionFlags: 0x10, QuestionId: 475, VarStoreId: 1, VarStoreOffset: 0x1FE, Flags: 0x10, MinMaxData: [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]
OneOfOption Option: “Enable Both DIMMS” Value: 0
OneOfOption Option: “Disable DIMM0” Value: 1
OneOfOption Option: “Disable DIMM1” Value: 2
OneOfOption Option: “Disable Both DIMMS” Value: 3
End "

What surprises me there is the VarStoreID : 1 which DISABLES DIMM0, so maybe that is the reason why 1 DIMM on each channel is disabled?


Edit: About the CPU, well I have this PC now for 7 Years, and in all the Time only like 3 Times removed the CPU.
Last Time was about a Week ago when I noticed the RAM Problems and read about Bent Pins.
But can Pins really bent when you never touched your CPU in all those Years and only did a Bios Upgrade?.
When I removed it last Week I didn´t notice any bent Pins, but I can do a full check again later today.

Edit2: Here some of the Screenshots you suggested in attachment
Also noticeably is that any thirdparty programm seems to see the Sticks, but just not full Capacity (i.e. If I put 2 sticks in A1 and B1 everything works, same with A2 and B2, but as soon as I put one or two more in, only the first two get recognized by the Bios)
Also switching the sticks around didn´t fix the issue, as all sticks seem to work fine.

File_DXE_driver_Setup_Setup IFR.txt (1.09 MB)