Question Asrock B450M Pro4 System Hangs

[MarkavStryver]

MB: Asrock B450M Pro4 Bios: 3.60
CPU: Ryzen 7 2700x @ ~4.0GHz (Ryzen power settings usually throw it into the 4.0 range, but it'll idle at 3.7GHz. Kraken x52 cooled)
GPU: RTX 2070Super
RAM: G.Skill F4-3000C16-8GTZR x2 (16GB) @ 1.4v 1T
Storage: Samsung 860 EVO 1TB
KINGSTON SV300S37A120G
PSU: Corsair 750x Silver-rated

Disclaimer: The board came with 3.60 BIOS from Amazon. It's not recommended by Asrock for Pinnacle Ridge CPUs. Asrock's support said to RMA but that's not a possibility as I use my rig for school/work atm so I can't be without it for an extended period.

So I have system stability issues. My system hangs at random times (almost always while idling or streaming video). I ran Memtest86 thoroughly and came back with zero errors. My DRAM was originally at 2133Mhz (incorrectly assigned by the UEFI) when I first started diagnosing the crashes. Since increasing the voltage to 1.35v and to 3000MHzit no longer hard-crashes (unexpected shutdown), but all processes will hang occasionally and I'll have to do a hard shutdown. I've also tried 2T and GDM. GDM added stability, but I'd rather be getting performance out of my DRAM. I've performed a clean windows install and all new drivers.

The reason I suspect it's the BIOS is due to running WhySoSlow for several hours and it coming back with BIOS stall/interrupts resulting in (at peak) 300ms-100ms stalls. Everything else comes back as stable. So I'm debating rolling it back to 3.50, but the Asrock BIOS page says not to roll back to previous BIOS from that version (I assume it means rolling back to anything before 3.50.) I've also had a couple of users on Reddit told me to push to a higher BIOS as 'their system runs fine at 4.5-4.6 etc' with the same chipset.

So I'm really at a loss at what to do now or what else I need to diagnose.

 

[rocktalkrock]

If you have already talked to ASRock technical support about an RMA, have you asked them if rolling back or updating to the latest BIOS is safe? My understanding is updating to the latest BIOS is perfectly safe, ASRock simply does not "recommend" updating the BIOS if your motherboard is already working properly. Your motherboard is not.

 

[rocktalkrock]

Does your Kraken X52 have the latest Firmware Update (04.16.19)?

 

[RealBeast]

I agree with your assessment that you should be running bios 3.50. There is no warning about rolling back from 3.60 to 3.50, but there is for the earlier versions. Your biggest risk is that it has an issue during the reversion to 3.50 -- then you may be forced to RMA the board.

edit: just checked and your memory is not on the motherboard QVL or the G.Skill QVL (they have a distinct model for AMD) and your issues may well be due to that despite passing memtest.

 

[MarkavStryver]

Does your Kraken X52 have the latest Firmware Update (04.16.19)?

My current firmware is v6.2 and on auto-update via the NZXT client. Unless there's another set of firmware for it that I don't know about.

If you have already talked to ASRock technical support about an RMA, have you asked them if rolling back or updating to the latest BIOS is safe? My understanding is updating to the latest BIOS is perfectly safe, ASRock simply does not "recommend" updating the BIOS if your motherboard is already working properly. Your motherboard is not.

They were quick to read "came with incompatible BIOS" and stopped there and just offered the RMA. They didn't answer my about whether or not the BIOS version is the culprit or could be alleviated. I honestly wish I could push to a higher BIOS, as it comes with some nice AGESA updates.

I agree with your assessment that you should be running bios 3.50. There is no warning about rolling back from 3.60 to 3.50, but there is for the earlier versions. Your biggest risk is that it has an issue during the reversion to 3.50 -- then you may be forced to RMA the board.

edit: just checked and your memory is not on the motherboard QVL or the G.Skill QVL (they have a distinct model for AMD) and your issues may well be due to that despite passing memtest.

Looks like I'll be trying that rollback to 3.50.

After looking through the recommended memory for the board and G.Skill, yeah you're right it likely is because my RAM isn't compatible with this board. Don't I feel dumb.

 

[RealBeast]

My current firmware is v6.2 and on auto-update via the NZXT client. Unless there's another set of firmware for it that I don't know about.



They were quick to read "came with incompatible BIOS" and stopped there and just offered the RMA. They didn't answer my about whether or not the BIOS version is the culprit or could be alleviated. I honestly wish I could push to a higher BIOS, as it comes with some nice AGESA updates.



Looks like I'll be trying that rollback to 3.50.

After looking through the recommended memory for the board and G.Skill, yeah you're right it likely is because my RAM isn't compatible with this board. Don't I feel dumb.

Don't feel dumb, it is one of the most common issues we see here now -- memory incompatibility with AMD since Ryzen.

Contact G.Skill support by email at ustech@gskillusa.com -- the memory you need is one of THESE.

 

[MarkavStryver]

Don't feel dumb, it is one of the most common issues we see here now -- memory incompatibility with AMD since Ryzen.

Contact G.Skill support by email at ustech@gskillusa.com -- the memory you need is one of THESE.

So my new issue; I got new DRAM and rolled back to 3.50. I got ahold of some F4-3200C16D-32GTZRX RAM. Perfectly compatible with my board.

I installed the new RAM on 3.6. Worked perfectly fine and then I rolled back to 3.5. It was also working fine then. I noticed my board had defaulted to to 1033mhz instead of 3200. So I went into UEFI, set my XMP to 3200, 1.35v, 1T and GDM Disabled. Now it won't POST with the new RAM, but the old ram (16GB 3000 @ 1.4v, 1T GDM Disabled) works just fine.

Initially, it would boot up, power down, and then boot again with XMP turned off. I assume that's because it failed it's self tests. I tried to adjust the mhz down to 2933 to see if that was the issue and it won't POST afterwards with that new DRAM.

I can't run Memtest86 anymore either. The UEFI just refuses to boot it and skips to the next drive-in-line even if I override it to boot via USB.

 

[RealBeast]

There is a new version of MEMTEST86 for UEFI, still free for personal use.

 

[MarkavStryver]

There is a new version of MEMTEST86 for UEFI, still free for personal use.

I ended up using Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool in the meantime and it came back that everything was stable.

This evening I ended up having just a complete BSOD and windows is corrupted due to it. I'm unable to boot past the Windows loading screen without the PC restarting and the Boot Repair tool isn't able to fix it. And it keeps crashing on windows reinstall at ~40%

I'm thinking of throwing the whole motherboard out. I can't seem to figure out why this is/keeps happening.

 

[RealBeast]

On my last build about 3 months ago, I had to RMA the board and NVMe drive. ;(