Defective Ryzen 9000 processors: Further BIOS updates for Asrock mainboards

The Taiwanese manufacturer Asrock is responding to the frequent failures of Ryzen 9000 processors with another BIOS update. Version 3.40 for AM5 mainboards with the 600 and 800 series chipsets updates the AGESA to version 1.2.0.3f, among other things. This firmware library comes from AMD and initializes the processor, memory controller and essential I/O functions. The changes in the rest of the BIOS that are more important for system stability concern energy-saving functions for the memory and CPU voltages.

In March, the first reports emerged from users whose Ryzen 9000 systems stopped booting after a few weeks to months of operation. A disproportionately high number of computers with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D gaming processor and AM5 mainboards from Asrock are affected. As a result, the manufacturer released BIOS updates in March and again in May, which were intended to rectify several possible causes. Version 3.20 improved memory compatibility, while the later firmware 3.25 reduced the maximum current in Precision Boost Overdrive overclocking mode.

BIOS 3.40 in practical testing

Now comes another BIOS update with version 3.40. The Asrock developers have tweaked two parameters. On the one hand, the BIOS deactivates the energy-saving function of the main memory by default. With DDR5 RAM, the memory controller can actually lower the memory clock dynamically depending on the applied load. Presumably there are DIMMs that cannot cope with this. On the other hand, Asrock turns the so-called SoC voltage VDDCR_SOC of the processor. This is used to supply power to the I/O die of the Ryzen CPUs, which contains the memory controller, Infinity Fabric and I/O interfaces such as PCI Express.

We have installed the latest firmware on a system with Asrock X870E Tachi Lite and Ryzen 7 9800X3D and measured it. With JEDEC-compliant DDR5-5600 RAM, the SoC voltage increases quite drastically from BIOS 3.30 to 3.40 by 20 percent from 0.9 to 1.1 volts. For overclocking RAM with EXPO profile, Asrock sets it to 1.2 volts as before. There is also another undocumented difference between the two BIOS versions, but this only affects EXPO RAM. Asrock has changed the loadline voltage curve of the SoC voltage from "Auto" to "Level 3". One of the purposes of the loadline is to reduce the risk of voltage peaks during load changes.

AMD criticizes board manufacturer

Only recently, AMD criticized the motherboard manufacturers in relation to the defective Ryzen 9000 because some of them do not adhere to AMD specifications. We can only agree with this. The unnecessarily high SoC voltage, especially with JEDEC-compliant RAM, is, in our view, a step in the wrong direction for Asrock. Even with the previous Ryzen 7000 generation, excessively high voltages caused the X3D variants to literally burn out.

For this reason, we use standard-compliant modules without XMP and EXPO profiles in c't build proposals. This is because many users may not be aware that the higher memory voltage of the overclocking DIMMs of up to 1.45 volts instead of 1.1 volts is also applied to the I/O die of the Ryzen processors. The 30 percent higher voltage cannot be good for the sensitive chip, which is manufactured using 6-nanometer technology, in the long term.

Empfohlener redaktioneller Inhalt

Mit Ihrer Zustimmung wird hier ein externer Preisvergleich (heise Preisvergleich) geladen.

Preisvergleiche immer laden Preisvergleich jetzt laden

Ich bin damit einverstanden, dass mir externe Inhalte angezeigt werden. Damit können personenbezogene Daten an Drittplattformen (heise Preisvergleich) übermittelt werden. Mehr dazu in unserer Datenschutzerklärung.

(chh)