ASUS PRIME X370-PRO BIOS update

@sceps

indeed for the temp I am impressed too by the noctua, I hesitated for the bigger one but this one already bearly left just enough room for the RAM installation :slight_smile:

As for stability, as stated earlier in this thread I realized during my initial testing, that ryzen POST test were very sensitive, so instead of booting once and passing as much tests as possible to assess stability… I rather boot 5 to 10 times (soft and hard) BEFORE I do any other test.
This time it did not pass 5 consecutive boot cycles without a problem with the SPD overclock memory setting at 3000Mhz (even with cas at 16 instead of 15) hence the not-rock-stable status

Honnestly this methodology saves me quite some testing time and once passed it I never ( again on this platform) left me experiencing any instability in normal usage.

KR

Domi

@dominiquew If rebooting is as sensitive as stress testing, might as well save time that way. Clever.

Still impressed by ~30C temp at 20C ambient, or +10C, on an overclocked 1700X with an air cooler. How fast are your cpu/case fans spinning?

@sceps

My fan settings are more agressive than the original because thermic headroom is essential to ryzen overclocking:

CPU Q-Fan Control [PWM Mode]
CPU Fan Smoothing Up/Down Time [0 sec]
CPU Fan Speed Lower Limit [200 RPM]
CPU Fan Profile [Manual]
CPU Upper Temperature [58]
CPU Fan Max. Duty Cycle (%) [100]
CPU Middle Temperature [25]
CPU Fan Middle. Duty Cycle (%) [20]
CPU Lower Temperature [20]
CPU Fan Min. Duty Cycle (%) [20]
AIO_PUMP/W_PUMP+ Control [Disabled]
Chassis Fan 1 Q-Fan Control [DC Mode]
Chassis Fan 1 Q-Fan Source [CPU]
Chassis Fan 1 Smoothing Up/Down Time [0 sec]
Chassis Fan 1 Speed Low Limit [600 RPM]
Chassis Fan 1 Profile [Manual]
Chassis Fan 1 Upper Temperature [58]
Chassis Fan 1 Max. Duty Cycle (%) [100]
Chassis Fan 1 Middle Temperature [33]
Chassis Fan 1 Middle. Duty Cycle (%) [60]
Chassis Fan 1 Lower Temperature [27]
Chassis Fan 1 Min. Duty Cycle (%) [60]
Allow Fan Stop [Disabled]
Chassis Fan 2 Q-Fan Control [DC Mode]
Chassis Fan 2 Q-Fan Source [CPU]
Chassis Fan 2 Smoothing Up/Down Time [0 sec]
Chassis Fan 2 Speed Low Limit [600 RPM]
Chassis Fan 2 Profile [Manual]
Chassis Fan 2 Upper Temperature [55]
Chassis Fan 2 Max. Duty Cycle (%) [100]
Chassis Fan 2 Middle Temperature [36]
Chassis Fan 2 Middle. Duty Cycle (%) [60]
Chassis Fan 2 Lower Temperature [24]
Chassis Fan 2 Min. Duty Cycle (%) [60]
Allow Fan Stop [Disabled]

I have put fans and (CPU) temp on the same tab in Ksysguard for the graphs

with busy system ( 2 windows VM checking for windows update)

and now running the update

at low activity, the CPU fan will go as low as 350rpm with variations following the CPU temp up to 800rpm, the non-pwm chassis fan do not go under 770 RPM

Actually the fan speed variations are a bit audible, but the noise level is still quite acceptable

I will add the idle graph when the updates are finished :older_man:

there we go, just finished, shut down the VM and the system is nicely settling down

and completelly idle

KR

Domi

Well it’s been a while, but after getting some hard locks and memory errors on 4011 I checked the ASUS page and behold! A new BIOS version!

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/SocketAM4/PRIME_X370-PRO/PRIME-X370-PRO-ASUS-4012.zip

Reddit threads on the version:

Top notch notes as usual:

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Indeed. By the way if you have a 1000-series Ryzen and are having issues with 4011 and 4012 proves not to be helping, maybe backtracking to 4008 is worth a shot on the account of 4011 introducing updates that might not be of any real benefit except for the 2000-series.
Having tweaked a lot of memory subtimings on 4008 I am going to wait a while before trying any new BIOS anyway.

I just don’t have the patience for subtimings. It still feels like a black art that takes days to sort through and I just don’t want to put that kind of time into it for the relative increase in performance.

Still no 3200MHz on 4 sticks of Hynix though. :man_shrugging:

I’ve had no issues since I posted the original post here but this last update was the first I could select 3000 mHz and leave the rest set to Auto and it will boot.

Ran a quick Cinibench and got a few points lower so I went back to the DOCP/XMP and lowered the voltage to 1.3 rather than the profile’s 1.4 and all is good. See my original post for system specs.

Ok,

Did the update, no major issue, ram still not stable at 3000MHz, even with tuning.
Not sure about performance gain, it is warmer than usual so not ideal to compare… not worse

I’ll be brief, it Works !

Domi

Ok some more news,

Still stable, but now I have undervolted the CPU to (1.31250V => )1.31875 so that the base temperature is lower and it gives me additional headroom.

Difficult to objectively mesure though as ambient is always above 22.4°c this summer, but certainly won at least 1°C concistently .

I previously did some undervolt test, but with this BIOS it is stable.

The gain is a snappier machine, and interrestingly a quicker boot time

Domi

Interesting observation today. Every major Windows 10 update changes the power plan back to [Windows] Balanced from AMD Ryzen Balanced which pisses me off by itself for the PIA of having to change it back but there’s actually verifiable performance degradation I hadn’t noticed.

Yesterday I encoded video not knowing Windows had changed it to it’s generic balanced plan and the temp was steadily 78 C , voltage 1.3 and fans full blast (over 2K for CPU and 1300+ for case fans. (CPU was 3.4 GHz across all cores, I only overclock memory) Unfortunately I didn’t take screenshots but I’m sure of it as I stare at the specs as the encoding runs.

Now after changing the power plan back to AMD Ryzen balanced and nothing else different including the encoding codec here are the stats below, note lower voltage, temp with CPU 3.4 GHz across all cores as well:

did anyone spot the new BIOS 4024 ?

the realease notes points

  1. Improve system performance

no number 2 though :wink:

will not have he time to test very soon.

so I just throw the news, hoping for someone else to take the bate, and see what good comes out of it

:wink:

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My desktop is still in pieces in a box, so no update from me yet.

fwiw, I updated and my PC still works, so I’m sure perf was improved.

I threw on this new BIOS almost a week ago and the two sticks of oldish 2666 Mhz RAM that I used to run with customised settings (thanks to Ryzen DRAM Calculator) at 2933, are now stable at the same speed with just the auto(DOCP) settings plus the same 1.35V as before. While the resulting timings are a bit looser I won’t bother digging into that since Cinebench scores equally well.

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I just upgraded to it this morning. There’s a new entry, instead of just D.O.C.P there’s also D.O.C.P Standard in the dropdown now. I didn’t dig into it and the literature explains nothing at ASUS’ website as you know.

No problems and Cinebench scores the same. When I have time I’ll investigate this new ‘standard’ selection further.

Update: Per ASUS the ‘DOCP standard’ mode is XMP frequency dividers (Intel) and DOCP is stepped to Ryzen frequency dividers automatically although you still have all the dividers listed in the dropdown menus of each.

Have upgraded as well to 4024, and believed for a while that memory 3000Mz would be stable, but (just) not.

There a few new options for the memory, but for now I am back to my previous stable settings at least for a few days before i do any other tests

cheers

Keep an eye out for the future UEFI update with Agesa 1.0.0.6.
It should be coming around the end of October / start of November and bring a good few memory, performance and stability improvements.

Asus is currently still on 1.0.0.2c for most boards because they skipped the 1.0.0.4 and 1.0.0.5 Agesa releases which have proven to be quite buggy for testers.

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Well the new firmwa re is there with the Agesa 1.0.0.6, kind of Xmas surprise

here the release note:

PRIME X370-PRO BIOS 4207
1.Update AGESA 1006
2.Improve compatibility and performance for Athlon™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics Processors

I just tested it, but nope, it does not allows me 3000Mz stable, but auto setting at least do not hang anymore at install, or when choosing the overclocking profile

It does hang after a few reboot at 3000Mz, I willnot spend more time on this for now

So I am back to my 2933Mz “custom” settings proven to be rock stable

As for the temps well they are lower because it is only 19°C at my desk now, so still happy with power managment overall (in Linux Leap 42.3)

enjoy your hollidays,

Cheers

Domi

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How is the ECC support on that bios?

Hello Dryparn

Originally the board supports it

But the Memory QVL list has not been updated recently, so little way to knoiw if the new BIOS has any impact to that effect

My memory is no ECC module

I saw that there was a transcend ecc module supported int the gen 1 list but no explicit ecc mention in the ryzen gen2 QVL list

anyway speed is generally also limited to 2133 Mhz for ECC memory, Wendell made a video about this

Enjoy your hollidays , the year is running out :slight_smile:

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