QLED Issue ASUS Sabertooth Z170

Hi Guys,

Right, I have just built a new gaming rig with the following components:

Coolermaster Storm Stryker White Full Tower
ASUS Sabertooth Z170 Mark 1
i7 6700k
MSI GTX 980 TI Seahawk
2x8GB Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR4 3200 CL16
Corsair H100i GTX
Corsair RM750i Modular PSU
256GB Samsung Evo 850 M.2 SSD
1TB Samsung Evo 850 SATA6G SSD
4TB WD Green SATA6G HDD
2x Aerocool Deadsilence 120mm FDB Fans (replacing the corsair fans that came with the H100i)
27" ASUS ROG Swift G-sync Gaming Monitor 2560 x 1440
Corsair Schimitar RGB Gaming mouse
Corsair K95 RGB Cherry MX Red Mechanical Keyboard

So got the rig built fired it up installed win7 ultimate 64 no issues so got to work installing drivers and such installed 3dmark to do some benchmarking all fine no issues running sweet, running cool and looking cool.

Was on another site I use for overclocking info and spotted thread dedicated to sabertooth owners of any model of sabertooth board. So goes to the last post on thread and noticed a couple of posts from a guys who also has the Sabertooth Z170 and had been having issues where all the QLED lights on his board were staying lit up. Now according to the motherboard manual this indicates a fault with regards vga cpu dram and boot device.

Now this guy said he hadnt had any issues with the board posting, no beeping, nothing other than the QLED's being on to indicate any issues, so he contacted ASUS support and an ASUS tech said that the QLED's should not be on and that his board was faulty and that he needed to RMA it. So he did got the replacement back and exactly the same issue QLED's all staying on no issues with the system not working etc, etc. The following is a link to the thread: http://www.overclock.net/t/1585124/asus-z170-sabertooth-m1

So back to my build, after reading his post I found that my board is exactly the same I just hadnt noticed as my GFX card covers 3 of the 4 lights so not easily noticeable, and like this guy I have had no issues or beeping indicating any problems with any of my components. I have also updated the BIOS to the latest (1602) didnt have any issues everything still working fine.

Now after the BIOS update I went in and checked the settings and found under the monitor tab in advanced settings the option to turn QLED on/off (it was set to on) so i turned it to off, which the description by the way states that "when set to off the QLED resets to default behaviour", and so saved the settings and restarted and hey presto the QLED's all came on upon initial powering up and then switched off after POST, which as far as I am led to believe is essentially how the QLED's are meant to work yes or no?

So what do I do? Should I contact ASUS and see what they say, or wait and see how i get on with the board? My main conecrn is if I RMA the board and the same thing happens with my replacement (as it did with the aforementioned post I happened upon that alerted me to this issue) then wouldnt that indicate that its a compatibility issue with one of my other components? Im also wondering if its just a lack of power somehow as I thought that the 750w supply would be enough but the motherboard manual states a minimum of 350w and the GFX card 250 which is 600 but the GFX card can use upto 350/360w under load which would then mean 700W leaving me with very little headroom.

This is my very first Intel build always been on a tight budget and went down the AMD route so my Intel experience is limited, but also my first really high end build and first foray into trying out watercooling.

Speaking of watercooling at the moment I have my h100i fans controlled via corsair link but the GFX card fan is just on a chassis header, is it possible to put the 2 h100i fans onto a chassis header? i currently have the pump for the h100i plugged into the cpu fan header as it states to do in the h100i manual although the board does have a specific waterpump header on the board.

So could i put the pump connector for the h100i into the waterpump header on board and use the cpu fan and cpu optional fan for the 2 h100i fans? This would then allow me to control everything via AI:Suite3.

Hope that I have explained enough the issue, any help would be much appreciated as I cant decide what to do.

Thanks in advance

Stakker1

@romirez

Hi buddy its all good misread the bios description for when the QLED setting is left to on when on it keeps the QLED's on after post when off the QLED's revert to normal working status. What gets me is why the original post that got me considering whether or not I had a problem, in it the guy was told by an ASUS tech to RMA the board... do they not now how their own boards work? Anyways all good I figured it out no issues here.

Stakker1

Hi Guys,

Right, I have just built a new gaming rig with the following components:

Coolermaster Storm Stryker White Full Tower
ASUS Sabertooth Z170 Mark 1
i7 6700k
MSI GTX 980 TI Seahawk
2x8GB Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR4 3200 CL16
Corsair H100i GTX
Corsair RM750i Modular PSU
256GB Samsung Evo 850 M.2 SSD
1TB Samsung Evo 850 SATA6G SSD
4TB WD Green SATA6G HDD
2x Aerocool Deadsilence 120mm FDB Fans (replacing the corsair fans that came with the H100i)
27" ASUS ROG Swift G-sync Gaming Monitor 2560 x 1440
Corsair Schimitar RGB Gaming mouse
Corsair K95 RGB Cherry MX Red Mechanical Keyboard

So got the rig built fired it up installed win7 ultimate 64 no issues so got to work installing drivers and such installed 3dmark to do some benchmarking all fine no issues running sweet, running cool and looking cool.

Was on another site I use for overclocking info and spotted thread dedicated to sabertooth owners of any model of sabertooth board. So goes to the last post on thread and noticed a couple of posts from a guys who also has the Sabertooth Z170 and had been having issues where all the QLED lights on his board were staying lit up. Now according to the motherboard manual this indicates a fault with regards vga cpu dram and boot device.

Now this guy said he hadnt had any issues with the board posting, no beeping, nothing other than the QLED's being on to indicate any issues, so he contacted ASUS support and an ASUS tech said that the QLED's should not be on and that his board was faulty and that he needed to RMA it. So he did got the replacement back and exactly the same issue QLED's all staying on no issues with the system not working etc, etc. The following is a link to the thread: http://www.overclock.net/t/1585124/asus-z170-sabertooth-m1

So back to my build, after reading his post I found that my board is exactly the same I just hadnt noticed as my GFX card covers 3 of the 4 lights so not easily noticeable, and like this guy I have had no issues or beeping indicating any problems with any of my components. I have also updated the BIOS to the latest (1602) didnt have any issues everything still working fine.

Now after the BIOS update I went in and checked the settings and found under the monitor tab in advanced settings the option to turn QLED on/off (it was set to on) so i turned it to off, which the description by the way states that "when set to off the QLED resets to default behaviour", and so saved the settings and restarted and hey presto the QLED's all came on upon initial powering up and then switched off after POST, which as far as I am led to believe is essentially how the QLED's are meant to work yes or no?

So what do I do? Should I contact ASUS and see what they say, or wait and see how i get on with the board? My main conecrn is if I RMA the board and the same thing happens with my replacement (as it did with the aforementioned post I happened upon that alerted me to this issue) then wouldnt that indicate that its a compatibility issue with one of my other components? Im also wondering if its just a lack of power somehow as I thought that the 750w supply would be enough but the motherboard manual states a minimum of 350w and the GFX card 250 which is 600 but the GFX card can use upto 350/360w under load which would then mean 700W leaving me with very little headroom.

This is my very first Intel build always been on a tight budget and went down the AMD route so my Intel experience is limited, but also my first really high end build and first foray into trying out watercooling.

Speaking of watercooling at the moment I have my h100i fans controlled via corsair link but the GFX card fan is just on a chassis header, is it possible to put the 2 h100i fans onto a chassis header? i currently have the pump for the h100i plugged into the cpu fan header as it states to do in the h100i manual although the board does have a specific waterpump header on the board.

So could i put the pump connector for the h100i into the waterpump header on board and use the cpu fan and cpu optional fan for the 2 h100i fans? This would then allow me to control everything via AI:Suite3.

Hope that I have explained enough the issue, any help would be much appreciated as I cant decide what to do.

Thanks in advance

Stakker1

@romirez

Hi buddy its all good misread the bios description for when the QLED setting is left to on when on it keeps the QLED's on after post when off the QLED's revert to normal working status. What gets me is why the original post that got me considering whether or not I had a problem, in it the guy was told by an ASUS tech to RMA the board... do they not now how their own boards work? Anyways all good I figured it out no issues here.

Stakker1