SAM gone after 5800X3D upgrade and DRAM OC on x570?

V

VoloxitySF

Gawd
Joined
Apr 26, 2005
Messages
794
Dear [H],

Update 1/10/24: Gigabyte pulled all BIOS after F37 from their website. I downgraded to F37 and now SAM is working.

I hope someone has a nifty trick to share with me on this one. It's a longshot for sure.

I just went from a 3800X to a 5800X3D. I retained the same motherboard, GPU and RAM = Gigabyte Aorus X570 Elite, RX5700, 2x8 Patriot Viper 4400 (SB8)
Prior to upgrading I've always had access to Smart Access Memory, even though AMD doesn't list RX 5000 series as supported.

When I dropped in the 5800X3D, I had to upgrade my BIOS from F35 to F38f.
At this point, everything was defaulted. No more DRAM OC from my previous profile.
SAM was working and games were running great. I had a huge boost in FPS compared to my 3800X.
However, I just had to try to get CL14 @ 3800mhz 1:1 with 1900mhz fabric. Didn't work, found stability with 3733.

At this point I'm thinking, "No Problem, I can live with this" ... Until I rebooted and discovered SAM was Not Available :ROFLMAO:

I *suspect* manipulating my BIOS DRAM settings with the integralfx/MemTestHelper guide helped me inadvertently take Sam out to the pasture.

Maybe the recommended voltage adjustment of my VSOC, VDPP and VDDG played a part?
On AMD, start with 1.10 V SOC, 0.95 V VDDP, 0.95 V VDDG CCD, and 1.05 V VDDG IOD.
Click to expand...

I've tried a handful of troubleshooting steps to get it enabled again with no luck. There are still things I can do, but I figured I would poke around here first before bashing my face against it. (update: my face has been, and continues to be bashed)
I'm aware SAM is not officially supported with my configuration, but it did work briefly until I reconfigured my DRAM settings which leaves me with hope.
I have been told that SAM isn't even worth it, but I have noticed a big difference personally.

Things I've tried in order:
  • Disabled CSM (and enable/disable with reboots)
  • Enabled Above 4G Decoding (and enable/disable with reboots)
  • Enabled Resize BAR (and enable/disable with reboots)
  • Load Optimized Defaults (default voltages and dram settings)
  • Newest GPU Drivers, Newest Chipset drivers
  • Defaulted Ryzen Master config
  • AMD Cleanup Utility then latest Adrenaline driver install (thanks learners permit)
  • Uninstalled Ryzen Master
  • Experimenting with Secure Boot and TPM settings. All drives/partitions are GPT and SecureBoot is enabled
  • Manually enabling SAM in Registry
  • DDU with another fresh driver install
  • Reseated GPU and RAM
  • Downgrade to F37 (FIXED IT FOR ME)

Thanks in advance for any input 🙏
 
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Try uninstall GPU driver and run AMD clean up utility (available for download at AMD) then reinstall latest driver for your GPU.
 
I found a lot of the stuff through the Radeon app doesn't work well, I have a lot less problems with a driver-only installation and using the old style control panel.
 
learners permit said:
Try uninstall GPU driver and run AMD clean up utility (available for download at AMD) then reinstall latest driver for your GPU.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, this didn't work. But I do thank you for letting me know about the AMD Clean up utility. It's simpler and faster than DDU which is awesome.
 
VoloxitySF said:
Unfortunately, this didn't work. But I do thank you for letting me know about the AMD Clean up utility. It's simpler and faster than DDU which is awesome.
Click to expand...

It needs all sorts of BIOS settings active to work, stuff like Secure Boot have to be on. Its possible your BIOS flash shut off something it needs on, like 4G decode or Resizable Bar.
 
LigTasm said:
It needs all sorts of BIOS settings active to work, stuff like Secure Boot have to be on. Its possible your BIOS flash shut off something it needs on, like 4G decode or Resizable Bar.
Click to expand...
SAM is just AMD marketing speak for Resizable BAR. OP should make sure it's enabled in BIOS, probably got toggled at some point.
 
Never heard of SAM in my life. Is it actually important? Or is this more...autism? (Not meant in a derogatory way)
 
I wouldn't worry about it. Its not going to impact much on a 5700 if at all.
 
Rvenger said:
I wouldn't worry about it. Its not going to impact much on a 5700 if at all.
Click to expand...

If I thought there was a chance it might go away, I would have run benchmarks comparing ON/OFF.
It definitely made a noticeable improvement when it was on

Luckily it's only for my video games and I can wait a while for a possible solution.
 
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t1337duder said:
Never heard of SAM in my life. Is it actually important? Or is this more...autism? (Not meant in a derogatory way)
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Honestly, this process is making me feel autistic :ROFLMAO:


Smart Access Memory (AMD)

Some games care, some don't.
https://www.techspot.com/article/2178-amd-smart-access-memory/

I guess my games liked it.

Open World Survival/MMO games are where I notice it missing the most. This makes sense if you think about how SAM/BAR works I guess. These types of games are very rarely used in benchmarks so it's hard to prove the point. There are so many variables that would make those titles useless in a study without careful planning.

Stuff like Battlefield, Halo, Counter Strike I don't notice much improvement with SAM on.
 
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silentcircuit said:
SAM is just AMD marketing speak for Resizable BAR. OP should make sure it's enabled in BIOS, probably got toggled at some point.
Click to expand...

Historically on my system SAM always automatically enabled when toggling CSM OFF, Resizable BAR ON, and Above 4G Decoding ON in BIOS. Not anymore.
 
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Welp. After 3 weeks of dicking around with this issue I think.. something.. happened.
Gigabyte just pulled every x570 Aorus Elite BIOS release from 2023 from their website and now the most recent version is F37 from the end of 22.
I just downgraded to what is now the "newest" BIOS (F37) and now SAM is working.

During my 3 week troubleshooting phases I also experienced other odd issues, such as a PCI-e Intel NIC making sizzling sounds like it was cooking bacon inside of my chassis.
also My CPU fans stopped working intermittently.
I had to unplug all my HDMI and Displayport connections in order to get my machine to boot once in a while
Plus I had to take half of my RAM out in order to boot occasionally


Gigabyte and/or AGESA fucked up.
I don't know if this is true, but during my research I've found a few people saying that BIOS versions ending in 'F' are Beta releases.
If this is true, then that makes me angry. I would have never installed a beta firmware knowingly.

I don't want to end this thread yet as things are still developing. I'll post more once I learn more, but I expect there to be some News coming out soon about this.
 
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Interesting... I'm on a removed from website BIOS version F37f (AGESA V2 1.0.2.A) and I have working SAM on my Gigabyte X570 Aorus Xtreme (with a 6900XT, now resizable bar- the same thing basically?? still works on a 4090.) I have flashed pretty much every F37insertletter BIOS and never noticed it not working. You need 1.0.2.A or 1.0.2.B to fix the EDC PBO bug but ultimately I don't think that will matter that much on a 5800X3D. Hopefully Gigabyte puts out an updated BIOS soon which has the newest AGESA and doesn't break SAM for that board. On December 25th, 2023 they published F37g for my board which has 1.0.2.B and I'll be flashing it this weekend. Props for updating the main post with your solution.

1704937666401.png


edit: also I'm not sure if you tried it but there is F38g available here which might have it fixed? I'd assume thats 1.2.0.B but I don't know for sure.
 
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Dopamin3, it's really hard to say for sure.​

You are using a 6000 series GPU and it sounds like you stayed on F37.. I went to F38f


I think what it boils down to is that AMD or Gigabyte was not testing newer firmware + newest AM4 CPUs in conjunction with older GPUs like the 5000 series. This is only speculation, as I feel most people have moved on to newer models of GPUs after upgrading to 5800X3D and beyond.
I was seriously close to abandoning Gigabyte and going back to MSI, or replacing my power supply and RAM before I decided to take one last look at the firmware page to see if anything was NEWER. Much to my surprise, everything was OLDER. I had even went as far as checking wayback machine and triple checking myself to make sure I wasn't hallucinating.
Out of curiosity, I just looked up a random X570 board on MSI and ASUS support pages - and they both still have all of their 2023 BIOS releases available for download. This may be a GIGABYTE-only issue, but time will tell...

Thanks for posting! These are the things that matter in the end, people contributing instead of people just shitting on SAM and baseless speculation.

The funny thing about this whole situation for me is: I wanted a X3D chip for drop-in top level AM4 performance without OC, and to take a few years off from enthusiast stuff to focus on my enterprise career :ROFLMAO:

yea.PNG
 
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silentcircuit said:
Tracks that you'd say that with that tag line in your signature.
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I'm just curious what all of this work is over is all. Like, if the OP got it working, and tested the before and after for his specific-use cases, I'd be extremely interested in seeing what the real world benefit of all this was. Are we talking 5 more FPS in a few games? The linked article showed a whopping 3% increase at 1440P. Totally sounds like something worth spending hours and hours on, or if this is someone trying to get a random feature working just for the sake (hence the autism comment).
 
t1337duder said:
I'm just curious what all of this work is over is all. Like, if the OP got it working, and tested the before and after for his specific-use cases, I'd be extremely interested in seeing what the real world benefit of all this was. Are we talking 5 more FPS in a few games? The linked article showed a whopping 3% increase at 1440P. Totally sounds like something worth spending hours and hours on, or if this is someone trying to get a random feature working just for the sake (hence the autism comment).
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First of all, I wasn't spending every hour of the last 3 weeks trying to get this to work. I work a full time job+ some and do a lot of other things that nobody cares about here. A huge portion of folks on hardforum spend a lot of time and effort on tuning/overclocking and solving complex problems because most of us are enthusiasts here.

There is a lot of proof out there that smart access memory is beneficial in certain scenarios, otherwise AMD would have never put it in their driver. Like, they actually paid an engineer(s) money to add it in.
If you read (completely) above I also had very good experience with the feature. I also had a lot of bad things happening to my system because of a jacked up firmware from gigabyte... so there was also other reasons to keep grinding.

At this point I think you're just trolling.
 
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VoloxitySF said:
Gigabyte and/or AGESA fucked up.
I don't know if this is true, but during my research I've found a few people saying that BIOS versions ending in 'F' are Beta releases.
If this is true, then that makes me angry. I would have never installed a beta firmware knowingly.
Click to expand...
Any Gigabyte BIOS version number that ends in a letter is a beta. Oddly I still see a mix of release and beta versions listed for download for the X570 Aorus Elite including F38h dated December 25th which suggests that an F38 release version should be incoming at some point.
 
I've been on f38g since it was released last fall. It was for the 1.2.0.B AGESA. I had the "Resizable BAR not working" issue with the past few beta bioses (anything with a letter after the number is beta as I understand it) and went through the same rigmarole as you trying to get it to work.

I think clearing CMOS and/or resetting to optimized defaults was the only thing that fixed it.

There was supposed to be another beta bios released at the end of last year with the latest security vulnerabilities addressed. Gigabyte's BIOS "strategy" is a complete mystery to me...
 
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