Help with AMD EXPO

[Sev717]

I'm a first time PC builder who has recently just built his first PC, and while looking up what to do after I finished, I found everyone recommending me to turn on XMP. I did a little more research, and I found that EXPO is better than XMP for amd cpus, so I opted to turn that on rather than XMP. However, once I turned it on and rebooted, my motherboard showed a solid orange light. Eventually, it did start up with EXPO enabled, but frankly, the orange light stresses me out, and it comes back every time i shut down and start up my PC again. It also takes a good 3-5 minutes to boot up every time. 

 

Is this expected, normal? If not, what could the issue be and how do I fix it? I currently have it turned off because I'd prefer to avoid the mini heart attack I get every time I start up my PC. PC gurus help 

 

MoBo: MAG tomahawk b650 wifi

CPU: amd ryzen 7 7700x

Ram: corsair vengeance ddr5 32gb rgb cl30 6000mhz

(I don't know if these are all the relevant parts, if there's anything else just let me know.)

[Dedayog]

4 minutes ago, Sev717 said:

I'm a first time PC builder who has recently just built his first PC, and while looking up what to do after I finished, I found everyone recommending me to turn on XMP. I did a little more research, and I found that EXPO is better than XMP for amd cpus, so I opted to turn that on rather than XMP. However, once I turned it on and rebooted, my motherboard showed a solid orange light. Eventually, it did start up with EXPO enabled, but frankly, the orange light stresses me out, and it comes back every time i shut down and start up my PC again. It also takes a good 3-5 minutes to boot up every time. 

 

Is this expected, normal? If not, what could the issue be and how do I fix it? I currently have it turned off because I'd prefer to avoid the mini heart attack I get every time I start up my PC. PC gurus help 

 

MoBo: MAG tomahawk b650 wifi

CPU: amd ryzen 7 7700x

Ram: corsair vengeance ddr5 32gb rgb cl30 6000mhz

(I don't know if these are all the relevant parts, if there's anything else just let me know.)

EXPO is just AMD's name for the same thing XMP does.

 

Memory training can happen in the beginning (and randomly it seems), but 3-5 minutes is a long time.  There is a Memory Context setting in the BIOS you can check to help, but the most up to date BIOS speeds things up too.

 

 

[Sev717]

15 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

EXPO is just AMD's name for the same thing XMP does.

 

Memory training can happen in the beginning (and randomly it seems), but 3-5 minutes is a long time.  There is a Memory Context setting in the BIOS you can check to help, but the most up to date BIOS speeds things up too.

 

 

Thanks, and what about the orange light? According to a quick google search, this means some ram issue. Any way to stop that from happening... every time?

[RONOTHAN##]

6 minutes ago, Sev717 said:

Thanks, and what about the orange light? According to a quick google search, this means some ram issue. Any way to stop that from happening... every time?

That's just saying that the memory is training. The way the debug LEDs work is the light up during each part of the POST procedure, so when it's initializing the CPU the CPU LED lights up, when the RAM is initializing (training) the RAM LED lights up, when the GPU is initializing the GPU LED lights up, and when the boot device is initializing the BOOT LED lights up. Then, if for whatever reason it gets stuck and won't boot up during the POST procedure, the LED will stay lit and you know what is probably the issue. 

 

Updating the BIOS is a good idea, it's only the initial couple of BIOS revisions where memory training should take 3-5 minutes (current BIOS revisions should be 30 seconds to a minute at most), and those initial BIOS revisions have issues with killing the CPUs. 

[Sev717]

29 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

EXPO is just AMD's name for the same thing XMP does.

 

Memory training can happen in the beginning (and randomly it seems), but 3-5 minutes is a long time.  There is a Memory Context setting in the BIOS you can check to help, but the most up to date BIOS speeds things up too.

 

 

Also, I looked into MCR a little bit following your reply, and I have a question. People are saying that MCR should be used in conjunction with PowerDown or you'll get bsods, but what the heck is PowerDown?

[Sev717]

9 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

That's just saying that the memory is training. The way the debug LEDs work is the light up during each part of the POST procedure, so when it's initializing the CPU the CPU LED lights up, when the RAM is initializing (training) the RAM LED lights up, when the GPU is initializing the GPU LED lights up, and when the boot device is initializing the BOOT LED lights up. Then, if for whatever reason it gets stuck and won't boot up during the POST procedure, the LED will stay lit and you know what is probably the issue. 

 

Updating the BIOS is a good idea, it's only the initial couple of BIOS revisions where memory training should take 3-5 minutes (current BIOS revisions should be 30 seconds to a minute at most), and those initial BIOS revisions have issues with killing the CPUs. 

I will get right on that. I don't have a u32gb stick laying around, so I'll get one as soon as possible and update my bios. Also it's storming outside currently, wouldn't want a random power outage to kill my mobo..

[RONOTHAN##]

14 minutes ago, Sev717 said:

People are saying that MCR should be used in conjunction with PowerDown or you'll get bsods

Having messed around with it, I haven't really noticed anything like that. 

 

15 minutes ago, Sev717 said:

but what the heck is PowerDown?

It's an idle state for the RAM. If it's enabled, your RAM will go to sleep under low load conditions. Disabling it in theory gives better performance, but in practice the difference is rather minimal. 

[Dedayog]

57 minutes ago, Sev717 said:

Also, I looked into MCR a little bit following your reply, and I have a question. People are saying that MCR should be used in conjunction with PowerDown or you'll get bsods, but what the heck is PowerDown?

Yeah, no.  PowerDown is what?

 

I use MCR and have no issues at all, not on my 7700X nor my 7800X3D.

[Sev717]

2 hours ago, Dedayog said:

Yeah, no.  PowerDown is what?

 

I use MCR and have no issues at all, not on my 7700X nor my 7800X3D.

Couldn't tell you, I'll just assume its not that important then.

[Sev717]

3 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Having messed around with it, I haven't really noticed anything like that. 

 

It's an idle state for the RAM. If it's enabled, your RAM will go to sleep under low load conditions. Disabling it in theory gives better performance, but in practice the difference is rather minimal. 

ah, got it, thanks

[Sev717]

On 6/26/2024 at 8:58 PM, Dedayog said:

EXPO is just AMD's name for the same thing XMP does.

 

Memory training can happen in the beginning (and randomly it seems), but 3-5 minutes is a long time.  There is a Memory Context setting in the BIOS you can check to help, but the most up to date BIOS speeds things up too.

 

 

I updated my BIOS, and my reboot times went from ~5 minutes to just over 1:30 minute on the first and 1:10 on the second reboot, which im perfectly fine with. Thanks for the help!