New X3D BIOS Rolling Out - ASUS, ASRock, More (AM5, X670/B650)

[sk3tch]

Hey guys - just a heads up to check your boards support page for the new X3D BIOS. It has AGESA ComboAM5PI 1.0.0.5 patch C which also has a ton of nice quality of life features for those of us sticking with non-X3D (for now) - better memory training (faster boot), USB fixes, etc....go go go!

ASUS -

ASRock -

 

[longblock454]

My ASUS Prime B650-PLUS refused to flash via the BIOS, had to go the FlackBack route for some reason.

 

[sk3tch]

My ASUS Prime B650-PLUS refused to flash via the BIOS, had to go the FlackBack route for some reason.

Yeah mine worked but it took far longer (ASUS). My ASRock was like any other update.

 

[Zahua]

Scared to try this on an Asus B650E-F, everything is working like a dream right now. On Reddidt some people's ram training time went up

 

[sk3tch]

Scared to try this on an Asus B650E-F, everything is working like a dream right now. On Reddidt some people's ram training time went up

C'mon man. New is good!

 

[mullet]

more gooder.

 

[longblock454]

Yeah mine worked but it took far longer (ASUS)

Mine did the usual at first, picked the file, it asked if wanted to read the file, said the computer will reboot then asked if I was sure. Screen went blank, I waited 30 min, screen still asleep with no activity then finally gave up and hard rebooted, prayed it would come back up.

I tried it twice then FlashBack, which worked. Hopefully something that was fixed in this revision.

 

[sk3tch]

Mine did the usual at first, picked the file, it asked if wanted to read the file, said the computer will reboot then asked if I was sure. Screen went blank, I waited 30 min, screen still asleep with no activity then finally gave up and hard rebooted, prayed it would come back up.

I tried it twice then FlashBack, which worked. Hopefully something that was fixed in this revision.

Geez. That is scary!

Mine went past that part - then did the secondary update (the RGB one, I think?) - then powered off. Sat there and was like wtf...powered it on and it did the secondary part again and it was OK. Gotta risk it for the biscuit!

EDIT: looks like I’m gonna have to FlashBack my B650E-F.
EDIT2: how long was your FlashBack green light solid green? Mine has been like this for like 20 min...can't be good?
EDIT3: didn't flash. Trying again. I have used two different USB drives (downloaded again both times). Via BIOS GUI it will not proceed. Gives solid red CPU status light.
EDIT4: ended up being FlashBack that worked but it was still pretty buggy/janky of a process. Based on this blog post - I took a USB 2.0 drive formatted it FAT32 with MBR and placed the BIOS at the root. Let it go and came back - still had to powercycle 3x (while getting a yellow light which indicates DRAM issues) until it got me to the RGB update screen and then completed. I literally thought I had hosed my box. LOL. STILL WORTH IT!!! Updated OP with AIDA64 CPUID.

 

[XDM]

EDIT4: ended up being FlashBack that worked but it was still pretty buggy/janky of a process. Based on this blog post - I took a USB 2.0 drive formatted it FAT32 with MBR and placed the BIOS at the root. Let it go and came back - still had to powercycle 3x (while getting a yellow light which indicates DRAM issues) until it got me to the RGB update screen and then completed. I literally thought I had hosed my box. LOL. STILL WORTH IT!!! Updated OP with AIDA64 CPUID.

Same here!
My system wouldn't boot anymore after flashing ROG STRIX B650E-I GAMING WIFI BIOS 1222 from within the BIOS (EZflash). It kept hanging on the orange (yellow) DRAM light.
After trying BIOS Flashback twice, it finally booted. Incredible that ASUS would release a BIOS that creates the appearance of bricking your motherboard.

 

[The Punisher]

Made an account to chime in with my two cents. I have a B650E-E.

In my particular case the update did its first reboot and subsequently went into a coma (post code C5). I could get it out of this stupid state by:

1. Turn off computer while stuck at C5/yellow light.
2. Unplug machine
3. Clear CMOS
4. Plugin machine
5. Power up. The machine will sit at post code 15 for awhile but should eventually snap out of it (this is the memory training phase)

At that stage, it would finish the BIOS flash and update the LED firmware (two additional reboots sprinkled in there) and then finally boot up.

I believe the BIOS simply isn't packed up correctly by ASUS. The BIOS flash process seems to be a series of steps and something feels broken early on during that process. I think there is logic in there somewhere during a BIOS flash to wipe the CMOS but that step is missing, causing memory initialization to freak out (post code C5, 42 or 46).

Because I am a glutton for punishment, I bounced around a few different BIOS versions today (using various flashing methods) and 1222 behaved consistently wrong. I was 3 for 3 on "fixing" 1222 using the aforementioned method.

 

[learners permit]

Well shit now I'm paranoid and gonna wait to update for a few days. Not looking forward to sweating it out on this one.😣

 

[Maransin]

I updated my B65E-F using EZ-Flash, everything worked as it should

 

[Domingo]

Looks like the ASUS B650E-F now has an even newer BIOS (the one that supports non-standard RAM configs) as of this morning. It's still in Beta, though.
https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog-strix/rog-strix-b650e-f-gaming-wifi-model/helpdesk_bios/

For what it's worth, this is the first board I've ever had with BIOS flashback, and I found the process worked fine. I bought the board prior to the X3D launch and was able to flash it sans CPU so everything was ready in advance.

 

[NKD]

Asus says patch A+D in previous bios. latest is 0925, just improves system stability. They are really slacking when it comes to bios updates though, almost behind everyone lmao. The boot times are horrible on these boards. Mine is still almost in the 50+ seconds mark. IDK what asus is doing to be honest. Probably go ASrock last time, should have stuck with that before canceling my order and going with ASUS x670e white version lmao.

https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog-strix/rog-strix-x670e-a-gaming-wifi-model/helpdesk_bios/

 

[sk3tch]

Looks like the ASUS B650E-F now has an even newer BIOS (the one that supports non-standard RAM configs) as of this morning. It's still in Beta, though.
https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog-strix/rog-strix-b650e-f-gaming-wifi-model/helpdesk_bios/

For what it's worth, this is the first board I've ever had with BIOS flashback, and I found the process worked fine. I bought the board prior to the X3D launch and was able to flash it sans CPU so everything was ready in advance.

Installed it - no issues. There's a new "EXPO Tweaked" option in the BIOS...didn't seem to be much different than the "EXPO I" setting that I have been using. Glad that after the rollercoaster to get into the 1222 BIOS, things are now back to being easy to update!

 

[Domingo]

Installed it - no issues. There's a new "EXPO Tweaked" option in the BIOS...didn't seem to be much different than the "EXPO I" setting that I have been using. Glad that after the rollercoaster to get into the 1222 BIOS, things are now back to being easy to update!

I've been rocking Expo I sans any issues. I plan to keep rolling with it unless something goes awry. In fact, I've really had zero issues with anything, period. After being a little afraid of Zen 4, I've had a better experience with it vs. Zen 3 so far. Slower boot times (around 30 seconds) are literally my only gripe. After watching the latest vid from Jayztwocents, I've had zero of the issues he had. With anything. I think he went balls to the wall with crazy RAM and I just went with really good quality DDR5 6000. If I didn't know this was a new'ish platform, I'd probably think it was totally mature.

 

[sk3tch]

I've been rocking Expo I sans any issues. I plan to keep rolling with it unless something goes awry. In fact, I've really had zero issues with anything, period. After being a little afraid of Zen 4, I've had a better experience with it vs. Zen 3 so far. Slower boot times (around 30 seconds) are literally my only gripe. After watching the latest vid from Jayztwocents, I've had zero of the issues he had. With anything. I think he went balls to the wall with crazy RAM and I just went with really good quality DDR5 6000. If I didn't know this was a new'ish platform, I'd probably think it was totally mature.

Totally agree. I did the same, too - just DDR5 6000 CL30 across the board. I have even now standardized on one 64GB kit (F5-6000J3040G32GX2-TZ5N).

 

[Advil]

(Speaking specifically of the Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX but other boards with the same BIOS set have the same issues)

There are several BIOS features that are mega borked with Gigabyte's F4B (1.0.0.5C) and have been for a month.
DRAM Power Down (mass instability if you disable it to improve latency)
Using the BIOS to set "prefer cache" cores. Instant lockup and no post without resetting BIOS.
Random loss of fTPM at boot requiring user intervention to "reset" fTPM.

The previous BIOS F3 (1.0.0.4) is pretty stable, all the above issues are not present, but it is missing a few features such as not having DRAM Power Down available as a setting at all so you have to live with a few extra ns of latency for no reason. Also it doesn't seem to handle the default boost speeds of the X3D CPUs quite the same, but that isn't a big deal if you set PBO +200 and curve optimizer anyway. It's ok until something with newer AGESA code that is actually STABLE is released.

Hopefully, now that MSI has released new BIOSs today based on 1.0.0.6 we will see all the board vendors start releasing and maybe some of these issues will get ironed out.

My experience so far has been "absolutely not in good enough shape for retail sales." Someone who isn't expert with BIOS and stability issues would just return the whole thing and go buy something else.

Which is too bad, because when it is working and stable it's exactly what I want. Fast AND power efficient on an air cooler.

AMD needed to do more to make sure all the board vendor's boards were stable before the X3D CPUs started going out. This could also be a big reason why the release has been slow and the 7800X3D was held another month. It's pretty obvious the motherboards aren't even close to all being ready and stable.

 

[Domingo]

I know some people love Gigabyte stuff, but I hate dealing with them. I feel like their hardware is fine, but their software (of all sorts) is jank as hell. If you ever contact them about any of it, their answers equate to someone using Google translate and stock customer service phrases like "I am sorry you are having issues..."
I wouldn't be surprised if the issues were specifically on their end of things.

 

[NKD]

I know some people love Gigabyte stuff, but I hate dealing with them. I feel like their hardware is fine, but their software (of all sorts) is jank as hell. If you ever contact them about any of it, their answers equate to someone using Google translate and stock customer service phrases like "I am sorry you are having issues..."
I wouldn't be surprised if the issues were specifically on their end of things.

Do agree. dealing with their GPU return, their repair warranty is crap. they be sending back GPUs saying they repaired them but didn't really do shit or tested it after repair lmao. I got one returned back to me dead saying they repaired a component and then sorry when I sent a nasty email back. Told me to call back and may be send it back again. I had 60 day return with BB so I just returned it. Didn't have time to go through the 3 week turn around again. I think their goal is to make you really work to get a working card back lmao. I won't be touching any of their products ever with my recent experience.

 

[Advil]

Unfortunately that's most of the motherboard vendors. I could replace Gigabyte with ASUS in that last post and that would mirror my experiences with them exactly. Doesn't change the fact we have to deal with them because ASUS makes a good chunk of the best boards out there.

I still frequently use motherboards from ASUS, Gigabyte, ASRock, and occasionally MSI. Every one of them has good product releases and total garbage. Typically I have a pretty good sense of which boards are working well... but there's a lot of teething pains going on with X3D on the BIOS side that is being glossed over and not reported. That doesn't mean I think the tech is bad or that people shouldn't buy one. I just want myself and others to have a smoother experience.

I'm willing to accept some of this simply because I have no interest in the crazy high power CPUs Intel is pushing right now. However, the competing product should be BIOS ready on every major brand of motherboard upon launch. I'm just calling it out because the ball was dropped.

I will say though, last night everything was fast and stable on the earlier BIOS after some tweaks and the gaming was awesome.

UPDATE ---
Gigabyte just finally pulled the F4B 1.0.0.5C BIOS. They should have done that earlier. That will actually really help since F3 is at least a stable choice for average users even if not perfect.

 

[Advil]

And just to tie it off, Gigabyte replaced F4B with F4, a non-beta release. This fixed most of the issues, although they left DRAM Power Down off. So there is no way to turn it off on this board, at the moment. Maybe it'll come back when they release the next BIOS with 1.0.0.6.

 

[philb2]

but there's a lot of teething pains going on with X3D on the BIOS side that is being glossed over and not reported. That doesn't mean I think the tech is bad or that people shouldn't buy one. I just want myself and others to have a smoother experience.

I don't have an X3D CPU, but I have to wonder. I've wasted a lot of time trying to get an ASUS X670E ROG Strix-E BIOS to load, but EZFlash says the file is not valid. So I'm going to ask here. If the various vendors are struggling with X3D support, could that have a negative impart on BIOS quality overall?

 

[Domingo]

Looks like the B650E-F has a pair of BIOS updates today. https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog-strix/rog-strix-b650e-f-gaming-wifi-model/helpdesk_bios/
1224 is an update to the previous X3D update with "improved memory compatibility."
1410 is a beta update to the new AGESA 1.0.0.6 version with several updates/fixes vs. the prior beta from last week.
Since I'm super stable, I'll be skipping both of these. I'm interested in the eventual update to the new AGESA version, but I'm going to wait until that one is final.

This is my first go-round with ASUS after close to 15 years of MSI boards. I'm happy they're keeping the updates flowing. It's a good quality board, too. I do hate how their board auto-install a bunch of shit in Windows if you don't disable that in BIOS, but I've otherwise been happy.

 

[Advil]

Gigabyte is also speedily releasing. F5a with 1.0.0.6. Since I'm tuning my X3D CPU I went ahead and tried it. This one is working just fine as an alpha release so far, at least it's stable. Now if they can just bring back a feature or two they removed and improve memory OC a little bit everything will be in a really good place.