Question B450 gaming itx/ac 3200 XMP not working with LPX

[antony209494]

I built my first mini-itx system and went with this board because it supposedly had better a VRM than the other mini-itx boards in my local market. I took the Ryzen 1700 and Corsair LPX 3200 memory from my main rig which I upgraded to a 3700X and Patriot RAM and put them on the mini-itx. It was working perfectly on that system at its rated 3200 XMP profile with the Crosshair VI hero. So basically I took the CPU and RAM out and put them in the mini-itx system not even thinking that the RAM might not work at rated speeds considering its a second gen board without (in theory) the Ryzen memory speed issues of first gen.

I was extremely disappointed to find out that I cannot run the XMP profile on the new system. It just refuses to boot with anything above 2933 which is not terrible but I bought a board that advertises 3466+ speeds! And it cannot hit 3200 with one of the most popular Corsair (if not THE most popular) RAM kits? That's just insane!

I spent 2 days tweaking timings and voltages using the DRAM calculator for Ryzen trying to get it to work manually but nope...it just doesn't boot with anything above 3000.

The kit is the CMK16GX4M2B3200C16. It's has Hynix AFR dies. I know it is technically not in the QVL list of the board (it wasn't on ASUS' X370 CH6 QVL either but it worked fine there) but that is no excuse for a simple 3200Mhz XMP not working on a second gen board, more than a year after its release.

Sorry if I sound pissed off. It's because I am! Is it reasonable to expect a bios update that improves memory support a year later?

Sorry for the long, ranty post.

 

[TechyInAZ]

Yep this is a common problem with most 300 and 400 series boards right now, due to immature BIOS updates. Just be lucky you can post to 3000mhz at all.

For me personally, I could not get my 3200mhz kit to run stability with my Crosshair X370 Hero and new R5 3600. It would post easily, but there was some glitching in games, so all I did was increase voltage from 1.35v to 1.39v and it worked. You could try that. 🤷 (I apparently am lucky, cause lots of people running Crosshair's on 3rd gen ryzen can't even boot at 3000mhz or 3200mhz.)

So just be patient and wait for new BIOS revisions with updated AGESA Codes to fix the issue. Fortunately 2133mhz or 2400mhz seems to run pretty quick on Ryzen still.

 

[antony209494]

A common problem still? I thought it was a common problem back in 2017 when Ryzen launched and then kept reading everywhere how "improved" 2nd gen boards memory support is! Ugh...
I already tried to run even up to 1.45V to get the XMP profile to boot but it doesn't. Used a ton of custom timing combinations with DRAM calculator and again nothing. It is the board that's crappy, Should have gone with the MSI mini-itx board instead...

 

[antony209494]

I finally managed to get it to work at 3200.
I downgraded to bios 1.70 after contacting asrock support and following their instructions as they said it is the best bios for 1st gen Ryzen. They also recommended increasing RAM and SOC voltage but none of those helped.
The problem was actually in the sub-timings that the XMP profile sets, not in the 3200mhz clock speed. The trc value that it was trying to set was too aggresive (54) and the board was not liking it. Setting it to 57 got me up and stable with all other XMP settings untouched. Primary timings were never an issue and I can boot even with CL 14 (altough I dont trust it for 24/7 stability).
So as a general FYI, if you cant get an XMP profile to work take a look at the timings on your bios as XMP profiles can modify the sub-timings too, not only the primary timings. It might be just a single value that prevents it from working.
Finally happy and stable at 3.9 Ghz @1.375 Volts and 3200mhz CL16!