I just bought X470D4U with Ryzen 5 3600X and Predator HyperX DDR4 3200 ram.
The stickers on motherboard indicate bios version 3.30 and BMC version 1.90.
Unfortunately the ram I ordered is incompatible (the board is showing 3B error code, tried pushing it firmy etc). Before I order RAM replacement I need to be sure the board itself is fine.
The thing that bothers me is that BMC never comes up - when the RAM is onboard dr debug shows the error code. When the RAM is completely absent no dr. debug code. But in both scenarios BMC hearbeat led never pulses or lights up and bmc lan interface is blinking it’s led, but never gets any DHCP address. Connecting VGA monitor also does not show any signs of life.
Will BMC boot up fine when I install proper RAM or should I RMA the board itself?
Will BMC boot up fine when I install proper RAM or should I RMA the board itself?
The BMC should come up regardless of whether RAM is present or not. How are you verifying that it is not booting up? It should show up in your DHCP server after connecting to the IPMI lan port and switching the PSU on.
If you didn’t try this configuration already: Put one stick in the A1 slot only and check.
re-seat the CPU (although the BMC should work without it too)
Do you have different sticks to check if the board can boot at all?
If you manage to boot either the BIOS or the IPMI then you can try fixing another by cross-flashing. (It could save you potentially time-consuming RMA)
Thanks for reply!
I tried all stick configurations. During each configuration I have to take off the heatsink from stock AMD cpu, because the fan obstructs RAM slot
Unfortunately I have no other DDR4 ram here.
I verified lack of boot in two ways:
no VGA output
IPMI LAN is connected and it does not get any DHCP lease from my pfsense. I can see that the management lan blinks once ~1-2s, but even after a quarter no DHCP lease is present.
Can I try booting the board completely without CPU?
Thanks - tried that still no luck.
I tried today with different ram sticks (still not in QVL) - ir-x2666d464l16s/16gdc (good ram). Still the same - no matter which slot, no matter is single or two sticks - 3B error.
Just to clarify - Dr. Debug initially shows error 33, 7A (no info in the manual about this one…) and sticks to 3B for some time and then some countdown occurs. I rechecked cpu a couple of times (error 33…) - could it be that there is a problem with CPU? Or should I settle on the last error displayed by dr. debug??
dr debug codes thread: List of Dr Debug BIOS Codes
The fact that you see some codes is not a problem by itself - mobo is just telling you what it is doing at a given moment. The last code before reboot/shutdown is usually valuable.
But if for example you see a repeating set of codes while booting then that could be memory training trying to get ram to work. It will try a few times and give up at some point. Do you see something like that?
The countdown is for the IPMI. If you connect power and try to switch the host on immedietely before IPMI has a chance to start then by default the BIOS will wait for a while for the IPMI, then it should continue. Does the countdown go to zero? If yes then it should time-out and continue boot procedure (indication that IPMI is not booting correctly). If it doesn’t go to zero then I would guess that IPMI managed to boot and you should see dhcp traffic. (if you have a switch then you can check if there are dhcp discover packets going out)
could it be that there is a problem with CPU?
I would say low chances but at this point there isn’t much more things to consider - other than the BIOS version. but if the sticker on the chip says 3.30 then I would be inclined to believe it.
I would guess following causes in order of most to least likely:
Bad board (my for example works but QVL dimms produce consistent ECC errors when running at 2400 while being fine on 2666)
Bad BIOS - the sticker is lying - and there is an older version there (if IPMI booted then you could re-flash it quite easily)
Bad RAM
Bad CPU
Other very unlikely guess: some kind of very lucky short caused by a loose screw behind the board (basically try on a cardboard box???)
Man, you saved me so much pain with this post! Thanks a lot! I received QVL ram and landed on 3B again. But thanks to you I waited for BMC to timeout and sure enough the mobo booted I build a FreeDos usb stick and flashed the hell out of BMC and it seems the board is alive! I’ve never been so happy to see bios in my life
There is an option in the bios for the countdown - ‘wait for the BMC’ I think - you can disable it and the board should start right away. +There is an option for ‘inventory’ in the bios as well - if you have further issues with the BMC then try disabling that.
But it’s a shame that Asrock did not resolve broken BMCs yet. Reports about them being non-functioning out-of the box go quite a while back. But if you have access to the Host system then Asrock support can actually be of help (if the BMC is still not-working)
Yep, the experience was horrifying BMC is working, board is booting - I’m setting up nfs share to run some memtest. I had to reapply new thermal paste on cpu - this Ryzen is cold - at idle is 27C
I used disable countdown already when I was preparing flash usb drive, thanks for mentioning that
Is there any good resource about BIOS settings? What is worth tweaking? Should I disable Inventory in BMC or if everything is working ok I can ignore this?
aside from the official documentation? not really. google and this thread I guess.
I like to enable SoL to get easy over-the-lan serial debugging - full output in case of kernel panic (needs a setup available for example on arch-wiki)
In the BMC - disable the virtual media drives if you don’t need them or at least lower their cont - I think there are 5 of few types. Myself and others in this thread reported that some usb-sticks were undetectable for booting without changing this
ctrl+f ‘inventory’ in this thread - read those posts and decide for yourself
Got a problem with lm-sensors - the cpu temperature is 10 C lower with lm-sensors in comparision to ipmi sensor or BMC. Is this normal? How can this be fixed?
One more question - the manual claims operating temperature for motherboard is below 40C - does this mean ambient temperature has to be lower or the readings from motherboard tempearature sensor have to be lower than this value?
AFAIK most of Zen cpus don’t report real temperature but one with an offset. Some diagnostics tools just relay what the cpu is saying and some remove the offset to show ‘real’ reading. You are seeing that difference.
I feel like I am losing my mind with this motherboard. I cannot get both M.2 drives to show up at the same time in the BIOS. My goal is to run them in RAID 1 so have a 1-to-1 backup of my VMs. However I can only get one to show up at a time. If I take the left one out, the right shows up in BIOS (sometimes). If I take the right one out, the left shows up in BIOS (sometimes). If both drives are in, only one will show up in BIOS. I tried booting to both Windows 10 and UnRaid, both will only show one of the drives. The IPMI storage page shows both of them all the time.
I also have issues with the RAM only going to 2133, but I can live with that as long as I can get the RAID working properly.
I am using a 3800x, two WD blue NVMe 500GB drives, and two 16GB 3600MHz DDR4 non-ecc DIMMS (but they run at 2133)
Please help me with this storage problem, I created a ticket with ASROCKRACK support, but I am awaiting response.
I build a FreeDos usb stick and flashed the hell out of BMC and it seems the board is alive! I’ve never been so happy to see bios in my life 
BMC is working, board is booting - I’m setting up nfs share to run some memtest. I had to reapply new thermal paste on cpu - this Ryzen is cold - at idle is 27C 
