A message to all AMD peeps with Gigabyte X470 or lower

[Turtle Rig]

I will try and make this short.  I got my bro a Ryzen Gigabyte X470 Gaming Ultra and 2700x with Trident Z RGB 32GB 3200Mhz ram kit.  Everything went well on install and it booted up instantly on first shot which was great.  Only thing is his memory was set to 2133Mhz so I go fine no biggie well change it in the BIOS.  Well he tried and tried and told me he tried 49 times to get the darn 2133 to 3200Mhz and he couldn't.  So we got Easy Tune for him and once again 2133Mhz was highlighted out only xmp and disable and both didn't work.  Went to BIOS and his looked different then some other guys on utube.  Anyhow after suffering this bs.  Last night finally we got ballz to install giga BIOS , but not latest one as you need to start from lowetst then moeve up he was F3 then F31 then F40 then F41.  So we flashed  3 times to get to newest BIOS and walaaaaa that did the tricks,, now he was able to put 3200Mhz and this bs was over.

 

I remember my old mans 9900k build wiht Gigabyte Elite and the ram was already on 3200Mhz.  So ya amd boards are picky.  Also BIOS updating is crucial if your having memory speed issues.  Any way all is good now as I said and I wanted to tell the LTT peeps about this.  Thank you

[5x5]

So your PSA is update your firmware?...

 

I mean, that's important on any system, Intel, AMD or ARM - you need firmware updates to avoid performance, stability and security issues. This is something everyone should be doing.

[RGProductions]

Ram and ram speed issues are common on every platform. For example, my old skylake i5 6500 rig could not get my 2400mhz ram to 2400mhz no matter what it was stuck at 2133. My "new" amd build, even on a really old bios, could get my 2666 mhz ram to 3600 easily. Your one experience with one board and one ram kit does not dictate the norm. 

[Metallus97]

ok... why do you need to upgrade in steps? Never heard this before. But this goes to show why my first action with a new mobo is always to upgrade the BIOS.

The old saying dont update BIOS until something doesn't work is bs in my mind

[Turtle Rig]

Just now, Metallus97 said:

ok... why do you need to upgrade in steps? Never heard this before. But this goes to show why my first action with a new mobo is always to upgrade the BIOS.

The old saying dont update BIOS until something doesn't work is bs in my mind

Oh because the Gigabyte page with the BIOS had a red font saying you must install F40 before you can install F41.  So instantly I gave him F40 and the BIOS said it dont work so he couldn't flash.  THen I gave him the F31 BIOS and it worked it flashed,, then I gave himt F40 and that worked and then F41 and that worked.  You cant just go from Say F3 or F31 to F41 ,, gigabyte says it in red you must first install F40 before F41.  As I said the F40 flash the BIOS gave a error and didnt flash but going to F30 flash then f40 worked and finally F41 flash and now his BIOS looked different and he fixed the RAM in a minute it was soo easy.  I find it sad you need to first off install one at a time until you reach latest one, also the fact you have to do this in his case just to get the RAM to 3200Mhz and what not.

[5x5]

1 minute ago, Turtle Rig said:

Oh because the Gigabyte page with the BIOS had a red font saying you must install F40 before you can install F41.  So instantly I gave him F40 and the BIOS said it dont work so he couldn't flash.  THen I gave him the F31 BIOS and it worked it flashed,, then I gave himt F40 and that worked and then F41 and that worked.  You cant just go from Say F3 or F31 to F41 ,, gigabyte says it in red you must first install F40 before F41.  As I said the F40 flash the BIOS gave a error and didnt flash but going to F30 flash then f40 worked and finally F41 flash and now his BIOS looked different and he fixed the RAM in a minute it was soo easy.  I find it sad you need to first off install one at a time until you reach latest one, also the fact you have to do this in his case just to get the RAM to 3200Mhz and what not.

That's not really true for every manufacturer - you can flash directly on many boards. Again, like someone else already told you, one experience with one board is not the be-all-end-all of system building.

[Turtle Rig]

Just now, 5x5 said:

That's not really true for every manufacturer - you can flash directly on many boards. Again, like someone else already told you, one experience with one board is not the be-all-end-all of system building.

NO NO you right I messed up should have put Gigabyte on the title I will do so now.  My bad.

[Otto_iii]

I am computer dumby but isn't the issue there that some of the older AM4 supporting boards have a smaller BIOS chip so they get all picky about updating in one go, as there isn't enough room to instantly update everything at once?

[RGProductions]

Just now, Otto_iii said:

I am computer dumby but isn't the issue there that some of the older AM4 supporting boards have a smaller BIOS chip so they get all picky about updating in one go, as there isn't enough room to instantly update everything at once?

sort of, some bios stuff is just overall a little bit wack, I've had to do incremental updates on all sorts of different boards. 

[ch3w2oy]

And you wanted to bash AMD? Lol. 

[Turtle Rig]

1 minute ago, ch3w2oy said:

And you wanted to bash AMD? Lol. 

Def just upset.  AMD powns so does Intel.. I have nothing against AMD,  Im just speaking about recent experiences how Intel discovers the 3200Mhz on a Elite mobo yet cant on the AMD side of things.

[Turtle Rig]

But all is well so AMD is great.  Gigabyte BIOS flashing is shady tho.  How we had to move up one by one,, SHeeeez just take the latest one and flash it over. sighs

[paulmohr]

I have never seen one where you had to install every previous bios version like that. On some they do say you need at least XX bios number in order to flash the new one though. Like you can't have a super old bios version and just throw the newest on there. I have no idea why not though. I have never ignored their advice and tried it honestly. I don't want to risk bricking my motherboard because I wanted to buck the system lol. Its not like it is an incredibly hard thing to flash the bios a few times. What normally won't do is re flash my bios just because a new one comes out if everything is working. If it works I am not messing with it. Same thing with updating drivers on stuff.