Gigabyte A320M-S2H Warning - severe throttling caused by VRM temps

[y3llowduk]

Hi All, Thought some would find this interesting. Might help someone with seemingly unknown throttling issues.

 

Stock 2700x on a Gigabyte A320M-S2H, severe throttling after only a few seconds at 100% load. CPU temps are fine but upon further investigation the VRM's are causing the throttling - rapidly hitting 126c.

 

How common is this sort of thing? This is outright misleading... a motherboard should surely be able to maintain base clocks on a 100% stock CPU? A general consumer would just think they have a dodgy CPU, unless they know what a VRM is and have an infrared thermometer...

 

Even with a fan directly aiming onto the VRM's, it still throttles!

[SorryBella]

5 minutes ago, y3llowduk said:

a motherboard should surely be able to maintain base clocks on a 100% stock CPU?

"If it boots it sells."

-Motherboard manufacturer, in the topic of budget motherboards.

 

 

[HanZie82]

Its pretty common if you put the motherboard on a box and not put a fan to it.
Motherboard manufacterers (especialy gaming style) think you will put it in a case with at least some airflow.

 

Plus they are capable of about 150C

Also your laser is on the choke, the actual VRM is that little thing beneath it.

 

Disclaimer

The Choke and the MOSFET (the thing beneath it) are together with the capacitor the VRM.

[y3llowduk]

3 minutes ago, HanZie82 said:

Its pretty common if you put the motherboard on a box and not put a fan to it.
Motherboard manufacterers (especialy gaming style) think you will put it in a case with at least some airflow.

 

Plus they are capable of about 150C

Also your laser is on the choke, the actual VRM is that little thing beneath it.

 

Disclaimer

The Choke and the MOSFET (the thing beneath it) are together with the capacitor the VRM.

Thanks for clarifying the components... RE the airflow situation though, is still throttles WITH a fan sitting directly on top, that's the main issue. Gigashyte.

[Levent]

Pretty sure that motherboard wont handle a 105W cpu at full blast. I got a B450M S2H (pretty much same motherboard with a tiny heatsink on the cpu vrm) and with a R3 3100 being overclocked whatever voltage I throw at it, and how much I cool the CPU down, motherboard cant provide more than 100W.

[HanZie82]

5 minutes ago, y3llowduk said:

Thanks for clarifying the components... RE the airflow situation though, is still throttles WITH a fan sitting directly on top, that's the main issue. Gigashyte.

When i had my mobo on the box, the Chokes where indeed boiling hot. And a fan wouldnt cool them down.

Shut system down, let it cool. Then turned it on with some air over the chokes, they never got hot to the touch anymore.

[mariushm]

The infrared beam (red point) isn't where the temperature is actually measured it's maybe 1cm lower, probably reading the surface of the power stages/mosfets.

 

The board assumes you're gonna make a budget / office system and use the stock cooler that comes with Ryzen process, and all these stock coolers push air down onto the motherboard, providing some cooling to those mosfets and inductors.

Your problem is that you use a cooler with horizontal fins and with a fan that pushes air horizontally towards the outside of the case, so minimal air flow goes down towards the VRM section.

 

The inductors aren't that sensitive, they can probably go to 150-180c, but it's not a good idea to be that hot. 

The mosfets/power stages are good up to 150c but again, not a good idea to have them so hot.

In time the circuit board will be damaged by temperatures higher than 100-110c so that's why most manufacturers will try to keep the temperatures below 100c 

 

You have an easy fix ... get some double sided thermal tape and some ram / vga heatsinks and mount them on top of the VRMs (the chips under the inductors, below your red pointer)

example : https://www.amazon.com/Awxlumv-Heatsink-Thermal-Conductive-Aluminum/dp/B08QM84KPZ/

another example : https://www.amazon.com/Easycargo-Heatsink-25x25x10mm-conductive-25mmx25mmx10mm/dp/B07D4F1F8R/

 

[genexis_x]

16 minutes ago, y3llowduk said:

a motherboard should surely be able to maintain base clocks on a 100% stock CPU?

Nope.

 

I'm not surprised that the VRM throttled. Who pair 8 cores with A320M...

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

The S2H is the cheapest board produced by Gigabyte, you are not meant to pair high-end CPUs with bottom-of-the-barrel motherboards. This is not an unexpected result.

16 minutes ago, HanZie82 said:

Its pretty common if you put the motherboard on a box and not put a fan to it.

Motherboard manufacterers (especialy gaming style) think you will put it in a case with at least some airflow.

Not true. This is a very cheap board paired with a power-hungry CPU. This is not a common occurrence at all. A sensible paring of CPU and VRM has no such issues.

16 minutes ago, HanZie82 said:

Also your laser is on the choke, the actual VRM is that little thing beneath it.

The choke is part of the VRM... OP should be measuring the temperature of the mosfets, which are the "little thing"s you mentioned.

12 minutes ago, y3llowduk said:

that's the main issue. Gigashyte.

False. Plenty of other manufactures offer very low cost boards like this one. I think the motherboard market is improved by having low cost boards available for people with low cost CPUs, and low budgets. Not having those options available would not be better.

[Freakwise]

10 minutes ago, y3llowduk said:

Thanks for clarifying the components... RE the airflow situation though, is still throttles WITH a fan sitting directly on top, that's the main issue. Gigashyte.

without a heatsink on the mosfet itself the area where the airflow can help temperature/dissipate the heat is effectively the mosfet package itself and if look one of them it's pretty small and thus it doesn't help much 

Edited August 30, 2021 by Freakwise

[y3llowduk]

1 minute ago, Levent said:

Pretty sure that motherboard wont handle a 105W cpu at full blast. I got a B450M S2H (pretty much same motherboard with a tiny heatsink on the cpu vrm) and with a R3 3100 being overclocked whatever voltage I throw at it, and how much I cool the CPU down, motherboard cant provide more than 100W.

100W is incredibly weak. If it can't maintain base clocks on a stock CPU which is on their supported CPU list, I'd argue it's misleading customers...

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

2 minutes ago, y3llowduk said:

100W is incredibly weak. If it can't maintain base clocks on a stock CPU which is on their supported CPU list, I'd argue it's misleading customers...

I agree that Gigabyte and others should include a "max recommended TDP" spec, but I do not believe that Gigabyte mislead you.

[y3llowduk]

1 minute ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

The S2H is the cheapest board produced by Gigabyte, your are not meant to pair high-end CPUs with bottom-of-the-barrel motherboards. This is not an unexpected result.

Not true. This is a very cheap board paired with a power-hungry CPU. This is not a common occurrence at all. A sensible paring of CPU and VRM has no such issues.

The choke is part of the VRM... OP should be measuring is the temperature of the mosfets, which are the "little thing"s you mentioned.

False. Plenty of other manufactures offer very low cost boards like this one. I think the motherboard market is improved by having low cost boards available for people with low cost CPUs, and low budgets. Not having those options available would not be better.

I agree, it's a poor pairing. I was just tinkering. However, If the CPU is on the supported CPU list, it should be able to at least run it at base clocks. If not, then Gigabyte and others are being outright misleading with their products. We're not talking about a light throttle either... we're looking at constant spikes down to 0.5GHz. Oh and as mentioned, it was still throttling with a fan placed directly over the top... granted not as badly but still.

[Levent]

Just now, y3llowduk said:

100W is incredibly weak. If it can't maintain base clocks on a stock CPU which is on their supported CPU list, I'd argue it's misleading customers...

It is not, expecting that much out of a $60 (or $25 used) motherboard is expecting too much. 

[y3llowduk]

Just now, Levent said:

It is not, expecting that much out of a $60 (or $25 used) motherboard is expecting too much. 

Expecting it to run a completely stock, "supported" CPU at base clocks is an unreasonable expectation?

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

1 minute ago, y3llowduk said:

Expecting it to run a completely stock, "supported" CPU at base clocks is an unreasonable expectation?

Yup.

[Levent]

Just now, y3llowduk said:

Expecting it to run a completely stock, "supported" CPU at base clocks is an unreasonable expectation?

Yes, because your argument is invalid. The same page for supported CPUs clearly show 3950X, which for sure you cant even run at stock clocks on that board.

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-A320M-S2H-rev-1x/support#support-cpu

[HanZie82]

4 minutes ago, Levent said:

It is not, expecting that much out of a $60 (or $25 used) motherboard is expecting too much. 

 

3 minutes ago, y3llowduk said:

Expecting it to run a completely stock, "supported" CPU at base clocks is an unreasonable expectation?

Gotta say i agree with the supported part, it clearly isn't...
That constitutes a lie. afaik.

 

1 minute ago, Levent said:

Yes, because your argument is invalid. The same page for supported CPUs clearly show 3950X, which for sure you cant even run at stock clocks on that board.

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-A320M-S2H-rev-1x/support#support-cpu

Please explain what is invalid?
No disagreement (yet ) But i really want to know.
If its on the supported list for that motherboard? Or what am i missing.

[Levent]

Just now, HanZie82 said:

 

Gotta say i agree with the supported part, it clearly isn't...
That constitutes a lie. afaik.

CPU runs on that motherboard doesnt it? Yes? then its supported, if it throttles down under load because VRMs arent upto the task doesnt make it unsupported.

[y3llowduk]

The main issue here is for a consumer that doesn't 

Just now, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

Yup.

So lying about supported CPU's is fine? Right.

[HanZie82]

1 minute ago, Levent said:

CPU runs on that motherboard doesnt it? Yes? then its supported, if it throttles down under load because VRMs arent upto the task doesnt make it unsupported.

Got it, so running at all is supported.

Running as its supposed to, is just a gamble?

 

I totally get your point, but isnt this something we should fight against.
Cus this shouldnt be the case. imho

[mariushm]

Dude, supported  means it works you have a working computer, you can do stuff.

unsupported would mean not even starting up, black screen, nada.

 

Yeah, it throttles, but it works.

 

Gigabyte can't do anything against stupidity, you have the wrong kind of cooler (not blowing down onto the board) and even the fan you have is not installed the proper way (you take warm air from the video card and blow it through fins and towards the top of the case)

 

[y3llowduk]

This all boils down to your definition of "supported" here  Another thing is... I'm fairly certain there is an AMD "spec" given out which outlines a minimum base performance for mobo manufacturers so that they don't make AMD look bad... because lets be honest, your average consumer would probably blame the CPU for this issue. 

[y3llowduk]

1 minute ago, mariushm said:

Dude, supported  means it works you have a working computer, you can do stuff.

unsupported would mean not even starting up, black screen, nada.

 

Yeah, it throttles, but it works.

 

Gigabyte can't do anything against stupidity, you have the wrong kind of cooler (not blowing down onto the board) and even the fan you have is not installed the proper way (you take warm air from the video card and blow it through fins and towards the top of the case)

 

please read my original post, it still throttles with a fan placed DIRECTLY on top of the VRM & choke components.

[y3llowduk]

6 minutes ago, Levent said:

CPU runs on that motherboard doesnt it? Yes? then its supported, if it throttles down under load because VRMs arent upto the task doesnt make it unsupported.

"aren't up to the task"... aka.... not really supported right?