BIOS Problems with RYZEN & AM4 X370 Platform???

[Spike76]

I am in process of doing a new build and want to utilize the new AMD RYZEN and a AM4 X370 motherboard...However while doing research and reading reviews, I see that there have been "MAJOR" issues with BIOS and stability across all of the major motherboard manufactures (IE) ASUS, MSI, GIGABYTE, ASROCK, ETC... Some of which have resulted in a "Bricked" motherboard, which often has to be RMA'd... Any input, thoughts or suggestions???

[Zando_]

Get an ASRick Tiachi. It's one of the best X370 boards. And as a whole, the X370 platform is pretty stable. It's jut Ryzen is bleeding edge tech, so they're continually making it more and more stable. 

[hadouken317]

Howdy!

 

There were definitely some growing pains at first. Some lasting longer than others. But currently AGESA 1.0.0.6 has helped tremendously for RAM stability at speeds higher than JEDEC rated 2133MHz DDR4. For instance, I attempted the Ryzen 7 1700X and a Ryzen 5 1600 on the ASUS PRIME B350M-A/CSM. Neither would get my G.Skill Trident Z RGB DDR4-3000mhz to run at above 2133mhz. I then proceeded to test a Ryzen 5 1600 on an ASROCK AB350M Pro4. Both of these MicroATX B350 motherboards had issues not just with the memory, but with seemingly bricking every time I attempted to make a slight adjustment in BIOS to CPU or RAM clocks.

 

Moving forward I got my hands on X370. I purchased the Gigabyte Aorus AX370 Gaming-K5 because the most recent beta BIOS is running with the latest AGESA 1.0.0.6 version from AMD. The RAM clocks at 2993MHz (which according to what I'm reading online this is what 3000mhz DDR4 runs at with Ryzen boards) without issue.

 

 

I WILL SAY. In my own case, being that it's a beta BIOS is likely the reason, but there are instabilities. At times when I'm pushing too hard of an overclock of the Ryzen 5 1600 on my board it refuses to post, and does a power cycle loop during post attempts until I switch off my ATX power supply. Something odd as far as this goes is that I have come to realize - simply removing the CMOS battery and removing all power from the equation rarely works unless you're keeping CMOS unplugged for at least 5 minutes.

[Spike76]

Do you guys think that they will iron out the problem they have with all 4 memory slots hitting 3200? Kinda reminds me of the issue with the FX processor, where you could only populate 2 bays if you want to use xmp or overclock the ram...

[Guest]

11 hours ago, Spike76 said:

Do you guys think that they will iron out the problem they have with all 4 memory slots hitting 3200? Kinda reminds me of the issue with the FX processor, where you could only populate 2 bays if you want to use xmp or overclock the ram...

High RAM speed is not a requirement for any PC. Even Intel doesn't garantee anything above 2400Mhz (Z270).

[DrMikeNZ]

12 hours ago, Spike76 said:

Do you guys think that they will iron out the problem they have with all 4 memory slots hitting 3200? Kinda reminds me of the issue with the FX processor, where you could only populate 2 bays if you want to use xmp or overclock the ram...

The CPU's memory controller is too weak to reliably handle the stress of being overclocked that far with 4 memory slots. BIOS updates won't be able to help much further. You would need a miracle with the silicon lottery or a refined CPU fabrication process.

If you really need to use 4 memory slots, you are likely running high memory applications which aren't going to get much benefit from increased RAM speed anyway.

 

Most of Ryzen's stability issues have been resolved, although I still wouldn't consider the platform to be stable enough for critical systems or important business scenarios.

The platform is a lot of fun for people who enjoy spreadsheets and long iterative trial and error diagnostics during overclocking and bench-marking. I hope Threadripper will also be this much fun.