ASRock Z97 Extreme6

[hey00]

I finally (15 months later) got around to duplicating it in linux mint. In the mean time, lm-sensors has released a new version, and I just upgraded to kernel 3.16. I'm not sure which of those are necessary, but all I had to do to get it to work was compile and install lm-sensors from source, (the one in the repo might work too), and then ran modprobe nct6775 as root. Then sensors showed the monitoring chip with all the fan speeds and voltages and stuff. To get it to stick, I added the modprobe line to /etc/init.d/lm-sensors.

Still no luck on finding and installing a firmware upgrade for the SATA chips. Anybody else have any ideas, or something specific that worked? I've tried a couple of firmware files, but all of the installs failed.

I can confirm the sensors. I am on Mint 17 Qiana, kernel 3.16.0-31, with the lm-sensors from the repository (1:3.3.4-2ubuntu1). Using "modprobe nct6775" is all that was needed for the sensors to work (I confirm only coretemp works without the module loaded). I suspect that there are some problems or inaccurate readings, though, but I think it's probably not related to that board specifically:

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Physical id 0:  +33.0?C  (high = +80.0?C, crit = +100.0?C)
Core 0:         +33.0?C  (high = +80.0?C, crit = +100.0?C)
Core 1:         +29.0?C  (high = +80.0?C, crit = +100.0?C)
Core 2:         +29.0?C  (high = +80.0?C, crit = +100.0?C)
Core 3:         +32.0?C  (high = +80.0?C, crit = +100.0?C)

nct6791-isa-0290
Adapter: ISA adapter
in0:                    +0.89 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +1.74 V)
in1:                    +1.68 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in2:                    +3.31 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in3:                    +3.31 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in4:                    +1.02 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in5:                    +1.01 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in6:                    +0.00 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in7:                    +3.47 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in8:                    +3.31 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in9:                    +1.01 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in10:                   +0.00 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)
in11:                   +1.00 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in12:                   +0.73 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in13:                   +0.82 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
in14:                   +0.22 V  (min =  +0.00 V, max =  +0.00 V)  ALARM
fan1:                     0 RPM  (min =    0 RPM)
fan2:                  1108 RPM  (min =    0 RPM)
fan3:                     0 RPM  (min =    0 RPM)
fan4:                     0 RPM  (min =    0 RPM)
fan5:                     0 RPM  (min =    0 RPM)
fan6:                     0 RPM
SYSTIN:                 +33.0?C  (high =  +0.0?C, hyst =  +0.0?C)  ALARM  sensor = thermistor
CPUTIN:                 +84.0?C  (high = +80.0?C, hyst = +75.0?C)  sensor = thermistor
AUXTIN0:               +127.5?C    sensor = thermistor
AUXTIN1:               -128.0?C    sensor = thermistor
AUXTIN2:                +26.0?C    sensor = thermistor
AUXTIN3:               +102.0?C    sensor = thermistor
PECI Agent 0:           +32.0?C  (high = +80.0?C, hyst = +75.0?C)
                                 (crit = +100.0?C)
PCH_CHIP_CPU_MAX_TEMP:   +0.0?C  
PCH_CHIP_TEMP:           +0.0?C  
PCH_CPU_TEMP:            +0.0?C  
intrusion0:            ALARM
intrusion1:            ALARM
beep_enable:           disabled

Thanks for the findings.

[squigish]

I've got this board, and I've successfully managed to get lm-sensors to recognize the fan control hardware on xubuntu 14.04. I don't remember the details of what I did, but I plan on duplicating it in Linux Mint, so maybe I'll write something up then.

looking forward to seeing that. wanted this, haven't found the time to dig into it, happy to let you show us how.

I finally (15 months later) got around to duplicating it in linux mint. In the mean time, lm-sensors has released a new version, and I just upgraded to kernel 3.16. I'm not sure which of those are necessary, but all I had to do to get it to work was compile and install lm-sensors from source, (the one in the repo might work too), and then ran modprobe nct6775 as root. Then sensors showed the monitoring chip with all the fan speeds and voltages and stuff. To get it to stick, I added the modprobe line to /etc/init.d/lm-sensors.

Still no luck on finding and installing a firmware upgrade for the SATA chips. Anybody else have any ideas, or something specific that worked? I've tried a couple of firmware files, but all of the installs failed.

[squigish]

I still haven't gotten the ASMedia controllers to work. However, I can boot if they are enabled but have no drives connected, and then I can hotplug drives.

I did notice something interesting. lspci thinks that the controllers are ASM1062. But the motherboard manual thinks they're ASM1061 (which is also what's etched on the face of the chips). Any ideas about how I could go about getting my system to recognize the controller correctly?

[Fraoch]

Well I decided to try BIOS 1.40.

I had my old drive still formatted GPT and I tried to boot from it. It worked! There's an outdated UUID reference and it dropped me to an initramfs shell, but it booted all the same. It did nothing before, just something about not finding any bootable devices, that I should replace or insert one and press any key.

I still wouldn't try GPT again, but it might work now.

[Fraoch]

They just released BIOS 1.40 two days ago. Anyone try it?

I notice something interesting about it:

"Update MAC OS GUID"

Interesting because it may address a big issue I've worked on for two days with this board. I formatted my original / drive GPT (aka GUID) on my old motherboard and when I switched it over to this one I had no end of trouble booting from it. There was really nothing I could do to boot from it, it just refused to boot no matter what setting I tried.

I finally formatted my new drive MBR, installed LM 17 on it, and managed to rsync over all the files from the original drive. dd didn't work because it formatted the new drive GPT as well. Lots of failed attempts along the way...

My problem is solved now, no way in h*ll I'll be formatting GPT again, but this BIOS might have addressed it.

Has anyone been able to boot a GPT-formatted drive with this board, and if not, have you tried the new BIOS?

[Fraoch]

Which firmware version did it ship with? 1.30?

Mine shipped with 1.30. There's a sticker applied to both BIOS chips, "P1.30".

[squigish]

It was a dos flash tool to update it. Therefore i used FreeDOS to do so. It only updated the Asmedia part - which did not detect my external USB 3 HD with Asmedia chipset before, after the flash it worked but i could only boot Linux from it. The USB 3 controller still did not run with standard Win 8 drivers. Via/NEC chips do not require extra Win 8 drivers but the firmware did not list em as boot device. I have got one board that can boot with a NEC based USB 3 (2 port) expansion card but not my Asus one. Basically everything works what i want but with the wrong system

This board has ASMedia controllers for both USB3 and SATA. Are you talking about the USB3 controllers, or the SATA ones?

[squigish]

Oh, I forgot to mention... I did attempt to update the BIOS, but the shipped version was the most up to date one... I did NOT update any other firmware and I didn't have to download any drivers or anything manually. Whatever CentOS installed during the OS install works.

Which firmware version did it ship with? 1.30?

[uwsublime]

So I've completed most of my setup with this board and all seems to be working fine. I am running CentOS 7 and I have all 10 of the SATA ports in use. 1 SSD, 1 BDROM, and 8 SATA II/III drives. Bootup is fast and everything is working so far. I am currently setting the drives up into the raid configuration that I want and have not yet had any time to test speeds or anything to the different controllers.

Oh, I forgot to mention... I did attempt to update the BIOS, but the shipped version was the most up to date one... I did NOT update any other firmware and I didn't have to download any drivers or anything manually. Whatever CentOS installed during the OS install works.

[Kano]

I spent a good part of my day working on this, without much to show for it. I did start another thread at the ASRock support forum at TweakTown.



Even if I had an updated firmware file, how would I go about flashing it?

It was a dos flash tool to update it. Therefore i used FreeDOS to do so. It only updated the Asmedia part - which did not detect my external USB 3 HD with Asmedia chipset before, after the flash it worked but i could only boot Linux from it. The USB 3 controller still did not run with standard Win 8 drivers. Via/NEC chips do not require extra Win 8 drivers but the firmware did not list em as boot device. I have got one board that can boot with a NEC based USB 3 (2 port) expansion card but not my Asus one. Basically everything works what i want but with the wrong system