Right, this is weird! I've now tried Asrock's original bios 2.10 version together with ALL of the posted ACER mods (inc. the 2 you suggested). All have had the same outcome as previously described 'post' issues - once a complete Shutdown is performed the system will power up briefly and then immediately off again. This continues until I reset the bios and power off at the wall. Powering back on then allows me to re-configure bios settings and get into Windows. One thing I have noticed is that when I try to simply Restart to attempt an INSTANT FLASH I am unabe to press F6. It appears that the system freezes if the USB is connected at boot. Also, a popup warning appears on Asrock's download site saying: 1. To support Intel's 3rd Gen (Ivy Bridge) CPU. Corresponding bios, drivers and AXTU updates required. 2. After updating bios, please press any key to restart your system. At this moment, please do not remove the USB flash until Intel ME F/W update finished. 3. After you finish updating bios, please reboot your system. 4. Please only flash newer versions of bios in the future. These instructions seem a little confusing to me and I am only able to try the updates suggested after reverting to version 1.70 (WIN) of the bios which once again enables the INSTANT FLASH facility. I really would value your further input as I have my doubts as to whether Asrock's original 2.10 bios update file is flawless. I look forward to your views on this. Thanks again.
For Asrock's MoBo ? add. 3 SLP modules already are in original bios, so, we just replaced empty pubkey&marker with a Acer's Slic 2.1 content (phoenixtool and mmtool were used)
I've sent a message to Asrock's technical support site and they have said that they will look into it. Fingers crossed. I hope this won't beat you - I'm sure it won't really! Thanks again.