ASRock Z97 Anniversary LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: In a world of "1337 h4xor gaming motherboards" that cost a few hundred dollars, its nice to see asrock has kept it real with a nice z97 board at a decent price point! I don't see a reason to overpay when this board allows me to play any of the latest games on max settings. It is stable as a rock, an asrock.

I'm on Windows 8.1 Professional 64bit and my CPU is an Intel 4690k overclocked to 4.6ghz on hyper 212 air cooling

Cons: None, I'd buy it again if it were stolen from my case.

Overall Review: None

Pros: 6 SATA slots, simple OC options.

Cons: Would not load Windows or Windows Setup out of the box if All Cores was activated in BIOS. C3/C6 had to be disabled to enable Dual-core.

Overall Review: Used with: Intel G3258, TeamDark 4x2GB ram, Crucial BX100 SSD

Ok, I had Newegg delete my original 1 star rating so I could write this update.

In summary, I paired this mobo with an Intel G3258 Haswell processor (dual core). Sticking with just the manufacturer's defaults (dual core enabled), I'd BSOD as soon as Windows setup started. Every viable alternative was explored (CMOS flashing, updating BIOS, using different RAM/HDD/video card, SATA cables, etc.) Same result, BSODs galore.

To ensure the G3258 wasn't bad, I ran Prime95 off the universal boot cd at bootup (so no Windows necessary) for 12 hrs. MemTest was run for a combined 20 hours on both sticks.

Everything passed, but allowing it to boot normally still resulted in BSODs (bad_pool_header or irq_not_less_than etc.) at the Windows loading point.

However, I learned if I forced single core mode in BIOS, everything would work fine. Installed Windows 7, ran Prime95 fine, etc. But reenabling dual-core would again BSOD upon Windows boot.

Now convinced I had to return this, I wrote that earlier 1 star review even as I continued to test different BIOS settings before giving up. And lo and behold, disabling C-states C3 and C6 allowed dual core to boot!!

I normally don't OC something until I know it works in its default state, but since C-states are sometimes disabled anyway for OCing, I guess no harm's done. However, I've read reviews by people with this exact hardware setup that had things work with the default settings... so there is still definitely something wrong underneath.

So... TLDR, default BIOS settings refused to boot a dual-core processor unless single-core was forced. Disabling C3/C6 states allowed it to run in its intended dual-core mode.

Note this was a Win 7 install, not Win 10 (I'm aware of that Win 10 dual core thing with G3258s).