Time for a fresh install.. Gigabyte X470 gaming 7.. advise please.

[Copyright]

I could use some help with this board.. since day one I have had some odd issues. Memory shows good.. I am using XMP profile so I am about to get away from that. I need advice on a fresh Windows 10 install.. what order and what drivers to use.. my normal order and settings...


Install OS
Install Chipset driver (latest from AMD Site)
Install video driver (latest from AMD Site)
Install Samsung NVME driver and magician (latest from samsung site)
Install Audio Driver (Latest from Gigabyte site)
Install Asus Wifi driver for PCIE wifi card (latest from Asus site)
Install Gigabyte utilities for fast bootk, RGB control (latest from gigabyte site)

Set power plan to Ryzen power plan. (installs with chipset driver)
Lots of mixed info here if I use ryzen power plan it holds all cores 4050 and never gives me the 4.3 boost on a single core. It also holds voltage high. While in balanced mode the voltage reduces to .79 and the CPU throttles speed. Which is truly the best way?

Also, I have noticed EDC (CPU) is usually in the red.. normal?

What else do I need to do? Windows usually takes care of the other drivers.. I do not use any of the wifi or BT functions.. I wish I could disable those in bios but I cannot.. which is really strange to me we cannot disable these features.

Bios settings? Should I move to F4

I reset to optimized default, disable CSM to ensure UEFI install and usually apply XMP (will not this time) I have Samsung B die Ram 3200mhz I want to tweak for 3200 without using XMP due to issues. Should I be enabling any other powerboost options etc? My goal is just to get the ram to 3200 stable. Do I need to mess with PBO settings? Are there any benefits really?


What else am I missing? Is there a better order or a more correct way to get the best performance out of this PC? Strangest thing is I felt like when I got rid of my RD400 m.2 SSD and went to the Samsung 970 Pro everything got slower and less snappy. I did a fresh install on both drives.. benchmarks showed the RD400 slower but it sure felt faster.. even booted faster. Overall since moving to this AMD setup I find my self missing my 6700k @ 4.8ghz.. it felt faster... bootup.. launching applications.. and responsiveness..

 

[Ebernanut]

Everything I've read indicates that you want windows balanced mode for Ryzen+.

Most x470 boards let you disable wifi/BT but that GB board doesn't for some reason, I agree that it's odd. I do wonder however why you're using a standalone wifi card when that mobo uses a top of the line intel wireless NIC.

Post times will be faster on the Intel system but everything else should be comparable. I use a 6600k system regularly and if anything it seems slower than my 2700x though it might be because it uses a regular SSD instead of an NVME. Changing to windows balanced might help, beyond that I'd double check that the NVME drive is in slot one and AHCI is enabled.

 

[Copyright]

Everything I've read indicates that you want windows balanced mode for Ryzen+.

Most x470 boards let you disable wifi/BT but that GB board doesn't for some reason, I agree that it's odd. I do wonder however why you're using a standalone wifi card when that mobo uses a top of the line intel wireless NIC.

Post times will be faster on the Intel system but everything else should be comparable. I use a 6600k system regularly and if anything it seems slower than my 2700x though it might be because it uses a regular SSD instead of an NVME. Changing to windows balanced might help, beyond that I'd double check that the NVME drive is in slot one and AHCI is enabled.

Top of the line Intel? It's pure garbage.. .even my USB A6210 and A7000 (A7000 had tons of issues) from netgear were FAR stronger on signal. I battled that for a while.. barely get connections in the 700mbps range when the USB were getting 1gbps and this PCIe card is getting 1.3gbps and bounces to 1.5gbps. I have dual Ubuquiti AC HD access points in my house.. one is a direct shot from this PC and still the intel onboard was pure junk... The Asus wifi card has been by far the most stable and the strongest signal.

I will look but don't recall AHCI enable as an option for the M.2 slot.. maybe it knows if its M.2?

Yes, I keep reading windows balanced power plan is the one to use initially everyone was saying use the ryzen power plan but then we found out it wasn't ideal for the ryzen+.

Does my load order look correct? Is it even possible to do a legacy install of windows 10 these days on a setup like this?

 

[rhexis]

ive been using this board for a month or so now. i did a fresh win10 install even tho swapping out my old msi x370 with this one, windows booted right up and seemed fine. anyway here is what i have observed so far.
the rgb fusion software is crap. actually all the gigabyte software is crap and not really needed. the only reason i installed the rgb fusion app is in the bios you cant control the brightness. the main issue with the software is it prevents my monitors from going into sleep mode. its a known issue and has been around for awhile so im not very confident gigabyte is going to fix this.
i am currently running on the bios that shipped with my board which is F3. i am running 3400 mhz g skill ripjaws. bios F4G and F4 would cause my system to bluescreen coming out of standby with a memory cannot be read error. reverting back to F3 and i dont get that issue even when using the xmp profile.
occasionally i get a win10 freeze where my mouse and keyboard dont do anything. this lasts about 20 seconds then everything is back to normal. this has happened a few times after coming out of standby.
other than that the board has been stable and i think after a few more bios releases should be even better.

 

[Copyright]

ive been using this board for a month or so now. i did a fresh win10 install even tho swapping out my old msi x370 with this one, windows booted right up and seemed fine. anyway here is what i have observed so far.
the rgb fusion software is crap. actually all the gigabyte software is crap and not really needed. the only reason i installed the rgb fusion app is in the bios you cant control the brightness. the main issue with the software is it prevents my monitors from going into sleep mode. its a known issue and has been around for awhile so im not very confident gigabyte is going to fix this.
i am currently running on the bios that shipped with my board which is F3. i am running 3400 mhz g skill ripjaws. bios F4G and F4 would cause my system to bluescreen coming out of standby with a memory cannot be read error. reverting back to F3 and i dont get that issue even when using the xmp profile.
occasionally i get a win10 freeze where my mouse and keyboard dont do anything. this lasts about 20 seconds then everything is back to normal. this has happened a few times after coming out of standby.
other than that the board has been stable and i think after a few more bios releases should be even better.

Using XMP profile is pretty much not advised with this board and many Ryzen boards. It kinda works but you get better stability with manual inputs. Guys are liking the F4G and getting great speed. F3 doesnt have PBO etc.. you are missing out on some features running that older bios. I suggest if you try it again disable XMP and set the memory timings up manually and verify voltage is correct and you should be fine with the new bios.

 

[rhexis]

Using XMP profile is pretty much not advised with this board and many Ryzen boards. It kinda works but you get better stability with manual inputs. Guys are liking the F4G and getting great speed. F3 doesnt have PBO etc.. you are missing out on some features running that older bios. I suggest if you try it again disable XMP and set the memory timings up manually and verify voltage is correct and you should be fine with the new bios.

i will give that a try. its just odd that F3 has been stable with xmp enabled. i also recall when i was on F4G my bios corrupted after shutting off the computer overnight. nothing would get it back and had to switch to the backup bios then reflash it back to F3. ive have read a few other reports of this from users running F4G.

 

[Astral Abyss]

I've not had any memory issues with F4G or F4. XMP seems to be working fine. Have you tried increasing the memory voltage slightly?

 

[rhexis]

I've not had any memory issues with F4G or F4. XMP seems to be working fine. Have you tried increasing the memory voltage slightly?

no was just using the profile 1 on F3 its stable but on F4 I get a crash with a memory can't be read error. I'm going to test F4 again with manually setting the timings and voltage and see if that's more stable than the xmp profile

 

[Copyright]

I've not had any memory issues with F4G or F4. XMP seems to be working fine. Have you tried increasing the memory voltage slightly?

Mine always acts goofy after a bios update and applying XMP memory profiles.. sometimes I have to let it boot loop etc but eventually it will go in and be fine. But after talking with the hardcore AMD guys and hanging out in the Gigabyte X470 club page it was highly suggest to NOT use XMP profiles. I started to read this in many locations.

 

[rhexis]

well i tried manual timings at 3200 and this morning got the blue screen coming out of standby with F4. i up'd the mem voltage to 1.36 as well. the weird thing is when this happens it will just loop even after turning the machine off and on it will only stop when i go back into the bios then save and exit. there is something off with F4 as F3 does not do this with xmp enabled. i saw a few points more in cinebench on F4 but nothing noticeable as far as better performance. i think i will go back to F3 and wait for F5.

 

[Copyright]

well i tried manual timings at 3200 and this morning got the blue screen coming out of standby with F4. i up'd the mem voltage to 1.36 as well. the weird thing is when this happens it will just loop even after turning the machine off and on it will only stop when i go back into the bios then save and exit. there is something off with F4 as F3 does not do this with xmp enabled. i saw a few points more in cinebench on F4 but nothing noticeable as far as better performance. i think i will go back to F3 and wait for F5.

I gave up on my board.. some how I corrupted the primary bios and I can get it back but it fails to post sometimes. The Backup bios functions fine. My gigabyte board was just a hassle from day one. I had many failure to POST problems and boot loops. Moved to Asus CH7 and it has posted everytime. I set DOCP (XMP) profile and only had to bump dram voltage to 1.37 to gain stability at 3200mhz with 4x8 32gb. It does have its own issues. VERY slow POST on this board but not a big deal when sleep works like it's supposed to which it does. The other problem is a weird issue with 3rd party sensory applications like corsair CUE or NZXT CAM. It caues a random hard power off. They released a bios update to fix this but I found it still has an issue but so far only during fan calibration of AI SUITE III. So I disabled CAM and CUE ... ran fan calibration and all is well. I was able to enable CUE and CAM again without issue. Fan control on the Asus is superior. I can slow them down 100 more rpm than the gigabyte would let me. Overall much happier with this board. Makes me wonder if my Gigabyte was just a dud or not. From what I read there were others who had corrupted primary bios issues. I should have never left Asus for boards.. been good to me for 10 years.

 

[Astral Abyss]

I gave up on my board.. some how I corrupted the primary bios and I can get it back but it fails to post sometimes. The Backup bios functions fine. My gigabyte board was just a hassle from day one. I had many failure to POST problems and boot loops. Moved to Asus CH7 and it has posted everytime. I set DOCP (XMP) profile and only had to bump dram voltage to 1.37 to gain stability at 3200mhz with 4x8 32gb. It does have its own issues. VERY slow POST on this board but not a big deal when sleep works like it's supposed to which it does. The other problem is a weird issue with 3rd party sensory applications like corsair CUE or NZXT CAM. It caues a random hard power off. They released a bios update to fix this but I found it still has an issue but so far only during fan calibration of AI SUITE III. So I disabled CAM and CUE ... ran fan calibration and all is well. I was able to enable CUE and CAM again without issue. Fan control on the Asus is superior. I can slow them down 100 more rpm than the gigabyte would let me. Overall much happier with this board. Makes me wonder if my Gigabyte was just a dud or not. From what I read there were others who had corrupted primary bios issues. I should have never left Asus for boards.. been good to me for 10 years.

Over the years, I've had good and bad luck with most brands. I can't honestly say one tier 1 manufacturer is consistently better than the others. I generally just look for the features or board layout that suits me best and go with that one. Sometimes you'll just get problems with a board and your particular setup, be it peripherals, RAM, drivers, etc. It can be a real pain in the ass.

 

[Copyright]

Over the years, I've had good and bad luck with most brands. I can't honestly say one tier 1 manufacturer is consistently better than the others. I generally just look for the features or board layout that suits me best and go with that one. Sometimes you'll just get problems with a board and your particular setup, be it peripherals, RAM, drivers, etc. It can be a real pain in the ass.

I've built hundreds of pcs over the past 20 years for gamers etc. For me I have had better luck with Asus and Asrock over everyone else. Really impressed with asrock.