Z270 Apex + 7600K driving me mad

[Masterchief79]

Hello guys, 

I have some weird behavior going on between my 7600K and my Asus Z270 Apex and hope some of you can help. The history looks like this: I used the board and CPU with SS at first and achieved around 5.9-6GHz at 1,65V iirc. Everything worked fine. Then I switched to CPU@water and used my SS to bench legacy GPUs. The CPU used to run at about 5.3-5,55GHz at up to 1.475V on water. Did that many times and the board never missed a beat. Two weeks after one of those sessions I went to turn it on again and only got a "00" post code. Tried everything, didn't work. 

Next, I sent the CPU to caseking for RMA thinking I fried it somehow and they told me it worked fine. Got it back, still "00". 

Thinking my board has to be the culprit, I removed all the insulation and prepared that for RMA.

Today, I got a G3900 for flashing another board to Kaby BIOS, tested that on my Apex just for fun, and it booted right up! So after some testing, the board still works perfectly fine, as long as I use the G3900. 

So, TLDR, my 7600K works according to caseking, and my Apex works with the G3900. Apex+7600K just don't seem to work together, albeit doing so previously for nearly a year. I didn't change anything, I didn't to any BIOS modding or 8700K/9900K conversion. Any ideas? Any help is much appreciated.

Chatting with GTI Jason about this, he suggested it might be a Intel Management Engine issue. My version is 11.8.50.3399 on BIOS 1203.

[techjesse]

Good to hear your MoBo and CPU is still good

Mine was doing great till I ran Ln2 and I got this.....who ever heard of post code 0d? The 7600k may be dead, but my APEX Z270 may not.....:(

[Masterchief79]

Isn't "0d" what you get when you enter BIOS? Like, when POST is complete but the board doesn't go to boot right away but is either in BIOS or throwing an error like no CPU fan speed detected or something like that? If you're not getting a POST, I would suggest looking at the GPU maybe, because the board itself seems to (nearly) complete the POST. This is purely out of memory though. 

[techjesse]

I've tried differed ram and gpu's, reflashed the BIOS ... The i5 7600k may be dead......the board may be fine, I'll see if I can find a good i7 7700k,  I even tried to flash the BIOS for my i7 8086k but a no go So I found APEX X and it Rocks.

[techjesse]

Hey Masterchief79, How you doing with your Apex z270 MoBo?

I have Good News... I got my Maximus IX Apex z270 MoBo rocking a i3 7350k   The board is working great Ln2 on my "to do list" lol