Doubting sanity: Multiple ASUS ProArt X570-CREATOR WIFI with Power ON/Reboot/Standby issues :(

Hi,

I’ve encountered new issues and since they affect two units of the same motherboard model I’m a bit dumbfounded what to try next:

Issue description:

  • No POST after power on (about every other try)

  • No POST after a reboot initiated by the operating system

  • System not waking up after entering standby (S3)

But:

  • If system was able to boot it is “prime-stable” (CPU/memory) and “Furmark-stable” (GPU)

  • Same behavior with Windows 10 (21H2) or Linux

  • SAME BEHAVIOR with second motherboard unit of the same model

Random observation:

Normally when entering standby mode the power LED should change from being permanently on to blinking, this still happens sometimes but sometimes the power LED turns off permanently (but the system still tries to turn back on). Was unable to determine a pattern yet.

System configuration:

Things I’ve tried that didn’t change anything:

  • BIOS CMOS Reset

  • Reflash latest BIOS via USB BIOS Flashback

  • Increase memory voltage from default 1.20 V to 1.35 V

  • Reseated all components in their respective sockets/slots

  • Only tried a single memory module (in slot A2)

  • Changed memory modules (total of 8 units of the mentioned Micron modules)

  • Changed the power supply to a Seasonic TX-850

  • Changed CPU to a 5900X

  • Checked the correct amount of PC case motherboard spacers and that they are only installed in the correct positions

  • Got a second unit of the ProArt X570-CREATOR WIFI

  • Tested ALL components on other ASUS motherboards (Pro WS X570-ACE, UEFI 3801 and ProArt B550-CREATOR, UEFI 2423), here everything is working as expected.

Did I miss anything else to try?

As always appreciate the help!

Regards,
aBavarian Normie-Pleb

PS: @wendell Are you by any chance also checking out this motherboard model (like the ProArt B550-CREATOR some time ago?)

So you are saying that both of your ProArt x570 boards are behaving the same (with all of these components?)

When I was setting up my ProArt board with a 5950x and 2x32GB Trident Neo sticks, on Windows 10, I saw some frustrating behavior similar to this. I got through it though for now.

I attributed it to Windows and the ASUS EUFI (have never used ASUS bios since 20 years ago). I imagined that the bios was learning the setup, and in fact it overclocked both the memory and the cpu on its own. I also imagined that Windows was trying to cram in a bunch of updates and tried to reboot several times.

I am wondering about the ECC memory but have you tried non-ECC memory?

I was also wondering about the power supply but I would think a TX-850 would be fine unless it is compromised somehow (I have a TX-1000 with a 3700 XT).

I remember during the early confusion noting that when I put the system in sleep mode, the LED did not blink. (It does now). Unfortunately I never figured out what was happening, but I think it had to do with the BIOS making changes (and possibly Windows). Because I have been distracted I have not gone into the BIOS lately. Will check on it soon.

So you have nothing in slot 2? How many SATA drives are you using and which ones? Your C Drive is M.2_1 ? Has it ever been used for another Windows installation?

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There was actually a bugfix on another board which shortened the init time and it fixed symptoms I had like those elsewhere

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That was very thorough and quite sane contrary to the title

Have you also tried the older 0206 version?

The only other thing I can suggest is to disconnect everything from the motherboard that isn’t absolutely required for it to post. Everything from your USB headers, front panel audio, pull your M.2 drives, and even disconnect the LED status lights. Try a linux live USB and see if system posts after a reboot.

Yes my init time is way longer than I thought it should be…can you remember what vendor’s bug fix it was?

Regarding M.2_1 and M.2_3:

If the system was running correctly I wanted to use these two NVMe SSDs as a bootable RAID1 volume for Windows 10.

Currently there are no SATA drives connected, “later” there are supposed to be 6 x Micron 5300 PRO 3.84 TB SSDs attached to it.

The short Linux test (Parted Magic 2021-11-17, supports all components) to confirm the standby-wake up again crashes was just an USB stick, not a proper drive.

remember that SATA 5 and 6 cannot be used if M.2_2 is used, also M.2_3 shares with I think SATA 3 and 4? Something like that.

The only USB device connected is a Logitech Unify dongle for the keyboard/mouse, nothing else is connected (No ethernet etc).

Yes, M.2_3 comes from the chipset, M.2_2 however comes from a PCIe mux chip directly from the CPU (4 lanes from the second CPU PCIe x16 slot get redirected to M.2_2). Since I want to have the 8 CPU lanes from the second PCIe x16 slot available for two U.2 SSDs I chose to install the M.2 SSDs in M.2_1 and M.2_3.
(This is pretty uncommon so I understand the misconception about the shared resources)

But these additional components are not yet installed.

I’m a bit weird: Ever since DDR4 I only got systems with ECC memory, so don’t have “normal” non-ECC modules at hand at all.

Will try the one older BIOS version next, didn’t think of that…

Unfortunately nope, no change in behavior with the initial release BIOS 0206 :frowning:

Opened a ticket with ASUS’ tech support, hope they can help.

Would also like to get a newer BIOS with a later AGESA version than 1203C that addresses the newly found security issues.

Maybe its the physical switch in your case? Have you tried manually shorting the power pins?

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Just checked and sadly nope, no change there :frowning:

But I like that thinking, would be my kind of stupid “landmine” :wink:

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Some developments:

  • (Back to UEFI 0402) No BIOS or hardware changes, today the system just POSTed normally. Standby works again, too - at first without the blinking power LED, after a test reboot and power cycle it too started to blink again in standby mode.

  • I then installed an Intel XL710 QDA2 ethernet adapter (latest firmware) in the chipset PCIe x4 slot and the same issues started again.

  • Tested a second unit of the Intel XL710, the odd behavior remains.

  • Both NICs work fine in other systems.

  • Hypothesis: The motherboard (currently) might have issues with devices that are handled by the X570 chipset. At first it probably was the second M.2 NVMe SSD, that for some reason resolved itself and now it’s the NIC.

@bigpic

Do you have anything installed in the chipset PCIe slot?

The ECC ram being an issue is what I am thinking also.

That said, I recently just upgraded to this board and found it a bit finicky in the beginning (E.g.,no post after upgrading bios).

One issue that I was running into was that if the second m.2 slot was populated, it wouldn’t post. After some research, it seems other asus boards have this issue and you need to successfully boot without the second m.2 slot populated and then add it.

What ultimately worked for me was to reset the cmos, run latest bios, and strip it down to barebones (cpu, ram, video card, m.2 in slot 1), and then let it go through it boot cycle. The board would cycle several times, sometimes after just sitting for a min or so. Lastly, I had wiped my m.2 and reinstalled fedora 35 via usb.

After that I then added the rest of the other peripherals.

Hope this helps in some fashion…I had more issues with the board initially than my x570 Taichi, but now I am very happy with it.

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I have an Adata 480GB SSD PCI 3.0

In M.2_3 or as a regular AIC in the third PCIe x16 slot?

I had a similar issue when i used the easy tweaker in the bios with the ProArt x570, I had cleared the cmos and things have been running better since. I have different components:
5900x w/ corsair h100i aio
4 x 16 GB kingston fury 3200 c16 xmp 1 timing
1 TB 980pro
Asus 3070 KO OC
be quiet dark power 12 750w in a fractal meshify 2 compact

For me, I have both 1 and 3 m.2 slots populated.

Here is my setup for my workstation/vfio server:

3950x
64gb DDR4 (Gskil Ripjaws 3600, 2x32gb)
980 pro 2 tb in m2.1
ADATA SX8200 Pro in m2.3 (for gaming vm)
1070ti main gpu
RX 6800 second PCIE (for gaming vm)
USB pcie card in slot 3 (for gaming vm)
PSU: Seasonic FOCUS GX-850

I’ve been avoiding the second slot, as I didn’t want to have any bandwidth impact on the second gpu (plus to avoid the issues I was having with m2.2).

Was finally able to determine a reliable pattern:

The issue seems to be in fact caused by PCIe devices handled by the X570 chipset:

  • No issues with a dGPU (PCIEX16_1, from CPU) and a single M.2 SSD (M.2_1, from CPU), after the system has been configured correctly, I can add an SSD M.2_3 (from X570 chipset) and it still works (POST and S3 with blinking power LED)

  • If I add an Intel XL710 QDA2 ethernet adapter in PCIEX16_2 (from CPU), everything still works.

  • If that ethernet adapter is moved to PCIEX16_3 (from X570 chipset), the POST issues and S3 crashes as described in the first posting return.

In the meantime BIOS 0504 has been released.

Changes:

  • The POST issues after power on or a reboot seem to be gone.

  • However the S3 crashes remain if the ethernet adapter is in PCIEX16_3 from the X570 chipset.

  • A defective ethernet adapter is unlikely, tested a second unit and tested them in other AM4 motherboards, no issues there at all.

ASUS’ tech support hasn’t been able to help yet but they’ve sent my case to the developers in Taiwan…

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Interesting, hopefully asus will be able to resolve this issue.

Are you able to run your system (minus s3) successfully? Been following this thread to see your updates.

  • Yes, with 0504 the POST issues seem to be completely gone and the ethernet adapter also functions if installed in PCIEX16_3 when just using the system without S3.

  • When entering S3 the blinking power LED is also back but the system just crashes the moment you try to wake the system back up from S3.

  • If the ethernet adapter is moved to PCIEX16_2 everything including S3 is working normally.

While the ethernet adapter is only getting an x4 link from the X570 chipset in PCIEX16_3 I and x8 in PCIEX16_2 from the CPU I also tested limiting it to x4 in PCIEX16_2 by activating PCIe bifurcation for that slot; still works completely fine.

But of course something has to be afoot so maybe there are other issues I’ve just not encountered yet.

A bit bummed out by this since this system was meant to become a daily driver with possibly the “most mature” version of the X570 platform :-/
(also wanted Thunderbolt 4)