HELP: Problems with new X370 Motherboard (Ryzen 2700X)

[Hilarious]

So, my last MSI MB bricked itself (4 months over the 3 year warranty) due to what I suspect to be a failure in the BIOS chip which was unrecoverable. Since then, I embarked on a quest to find the best MB and selected a new Asus ROG Crosshair vi Extreme (X370 chipset), together with a new Ryzen 2700x.

I was aware that the MB may not POST with a 2700x out of the box but felt confident that since the MB was more than a couple of years into its life cycle, that most issues (if not all) would have been sorted with progressive BIOS updates and the replacement of any ‘dicky’ components which caused a high failure rate.
My idea was that I was simply going to download the latest BIOS from the Asus web site and flash the BIOS using BIOS Flashback (back I/O panel switch) and USB stick, and all would be well….I was hoping….

Out of the box, with the new Ryzen 2700x, RAM and GPU installed (MB does not have IGP), the MB did not POST. The POST codes indicate that the boot process commences but then before video is initiated, I get error code E6 (Reserved for future AMI progress codes) and the White debug LED hard on indicating a VGA problem and no video signal.

Anyhow, I think it is a 2700x compatibility issue and that the BIOS needs to be flashed to the latest ver 6401. So, I downloaded the latest BIOS (6401), unziped it, and saved it to USB 2.0 FAT32. I tried three different USB 2.0 sticks (4GB, 8GB, 16GB) all FAT32. Renamed the file to C6E.CAP and with the PC shutdown but power applied, inserted the USB to the back BIOS I/O port and pressed the button for three seconds. The LED flashes 4 times and then goes hard ON and remains lit. There is no progress in the flashing. I tried several times and also tried Clear CMOS prior to flashing. No Luck!

So, fellow PC enthusiasts, gamer’s and OCs, what should I do?

1. Stick with the X370 Asus ROG crosshair vi Extreme. Try to get a Ryzen 1xxx, bootup and flash the BIOS using one of the other flashing techniques?
2. Return the X370 board and get a X470 MB?
3. If I am to get a new X470 MB which one? The criteria are min 3 year warranty, Solid BIOS, OC friendly, good RAM support, good user experience with
lots of bells and whistles.

So, what you think? as I really like the features of my new Crosshair vi Extreme MB but am sick of troubleshooting at the moment. Lay it on me guys, this is like my 5th build.

 

[trents]

I would quit wasting time trying to get the first gen motherboard to work with the second generation CPU and just get a 2nd generation motherboard. Which one? Will you want to overclock the CPU to the max?

IMO, it isn't a wise course of action to buy a second gen CPU to go with a first gen board unless you already have a first gen CPU that you can use to flash the bios. The odds aren't good otherwise and not worth trying to save a few bucks.

What make and frequency of RAM are you using?

 

[Johan45]

There's nothing wrong with running a Ryzen 2xxx on an X370 motherboard I've been doing it for a year now with A CHVI and a 2600 with no issues.
I would try a bit older BIOS for that board first. Not certain but I think with the latest AGESA BIOS there was an in-between BIOS that needed to be used prior to the latest BIOS. I'm using a BIOS from April last year it was one of the first Ryzen 2XXX supporting BIOS and to me works better than most that have been released since. That's where I would start anyway, from your description the BIOS FB isn't running properly and it sounds like you have done your homework there and are using the proper procedure. Maybe a different file will work?

 

[Hilarious]

Asus ROG Crosshair vi Extreme (EXTREMELY DISSAPOINTING - So far)

I finally (FINALLY) got a reply back from Asus Tech Support and was informed that I had to RMA the brand new MB. The Clear CMOS switch (cap) on the I/O panel had also come off and won't click back into place.

I took the MB into the shop yesterday. The replacement service is not what they state on thier website and I was told that I am stuck with the board. The guy also blamed ME for breaking the switch. What????? I proceeded to explain that I have worked on Millions and Millions AND MILLIONS of dollars worth of equipment in my time (I have worked in telecommunications since 1982).

Be warned! It's been a terrible experince dealing with Umart (Gold Coast). I don't think they know anything about customer satisfaction!

The guy at the shop told me the MB needed a Ryzen 1XXX CPU in the socket in order to flash properly. However, now thay tell me that they can't get it to flash at the shop with their 1800x and have to send it to a different shop (reason: the BIOS is not flashing).

As for the X370 vs X470:
Gamers Nexus did a test on the X370 vs X470 back to back and found vertually no difference between the two chip sets in terms of performance. I see that the advantages of the X470 are perhaps better RAM QVL support and the likelyhood that it will one day be more compatable with an upgarde to the Ryzen 3 series CPUs.

 

[InsertNameHere]

I’m currently having a similar problem. I am running a 1800x though.

For some reason I also can’t get the bios to update. I’ve tried everything usb, direct download, bios ez flash tool. Nothing seems to work.

I can still use my PC just can’t keep my ram over clocks from crashing my games.

If you find a solution please let me know. I just hope I don’t have to take the build apart.

 

[Hilarious]

I’m currently having a similar problem. I am running a 1800x though.

For some reason I also can’t get the bios to update. I’ve tried everything usb, direct download, bios ez flash tool. Nothing seems to work.

I can still use my PC just can’t keep my ram over clocks from crashing my games.

If you find a solution please let me know. I just hope I don’t have to take the build apart.

WIll do.

BTW what RAM are you using and what OC settings?

 

[InsertNameHere]

Thanks

Don’t know the exact settings off the top of my head

Team group Delta RGB 4 x 4gb 2666mhz

I have got them as high as 3200mhz but after a while it will crash BO4 and Far Cry 5. I haven’t workload tested it at all as I only play games.

CPU is over locked to 4 ghz with at the moment. I’ve been a high as 4.3 But the extra heat wasn’t worth the performance.
Not to mention it wasn’t really stable. It would work perfectly sometimes other times it would crash and need a reboot.

 

[Hilarious]

I got my MB back on Saturday and it has been flashed with the latest BIOS ver 6401 by the shop. I asked several questions regarding how and why and the guy at the sales desk did'nt know anything further except that they had to send it out to their orher shop to get it flashed.

The MB still has the broken Clear Cmos switch cap (I have a piece of insulation tape over it). I asked why they did'nt RMA the MB and the guy did'nt know.
I REALLY NEED TO FIND A BETTER SHOP AS I AM LOOKING TO GET A NEW GPU, Case, AIO and PSU.


Anyhow, the MB is now up and running and I have Win 10 64bit Pro installed.

I am in the process of updating the Drivers and ran into an issue with installing the following:
- AI Suite 3 v3.00.13 from Asus.com web site.

When I unzip the folder and run Setup, the installintion appers to start but then dissapears. Anyone know why this is happening?
I also tried unzipping the folder using WinRAR but can only see - Dual Intelligent Processor 5 ticked and nothing else. Can someone tell me what's happening here please?

The same thing is happening with EZ Update.

 

[trents]

AI Suite has a reputation for being problematic down through the years on many different platforms. It can cause a lot of weird performance and instability problems. It might be better to uninstall it and use bios or other tools to do what it does.

 

[Hilarious]

Thanks trents,

I have'nt installed AI Suite yet. Thanks for letting me know.

How about EZ Update? any ideas as to why it won't install? It looks like AI Suite and EZ Update are linked. Anyway, I have started downloading and installing the required drivers
without EZ Update. Updates are progressing fine.....

 

[trents]

Again, I would do all that EZ Update does manually. Windows generally keeps drivers up to date without any help, though they may be a little behind chronologically in some cases. On the other hand, though they they may not be the very newest drivers they have been tested and approved by Microsoft to work properly with Windows. The exception to that would be if your motherboard or devices are so very new that there are not already drivers built into Windows for them. I certainly would not install bios updates through any kind of Windows-based utility. I would download the file, put it on a flash drive and do the update from bios itself. In fact, the rule of thumb for bios updates is don't do it unless there is a reason, i.e., something isn't working correctly in the installed version. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Bios updates can go wrong and sometimes the newer versions introduce issues of their own.

 

[Hilarious]

Update.

I installed AI Suite 3 and all is well. Not sure why it didn't install previously but may have been due to a Windows 10 issue which seems to have corrected itself.

I feel that I need this App due to the extensive features of this MB especially the Thermistor Temp monitoring functionality which I plan to utilize....

The build is still progressing and the MB is still in my old case.

New parts have been delivered and I have the following:
Lian Li 011 Dynamic case (case of the year 2018)
Cooler Master ARGB 360 AIO with 3 fans
6 x Cooler Master ARGB 120mm fans
5 x Thermistors (only 4 TM MB connections which includes the supplied fan extension card).
Keeping the old R9390 GPU until 2080Ti prices drop or AMD comes to the party with the Navi.....

Not sure why EZ update which I also installed is not prompting me to update missing drivers (such as WiFi)???

Also, I have been doing some RAM setup but not pushing anything yet until I get my cooling sorted in the new case (not trusting the Writh Prism supplied by AMD) as I Bench and Stress test the RAM + CPU after each OC

 

[InsertNameHere]

I still can’t get my motherboard to update.

I will be rebuilding the PC just before summer

I will try to update the bios then.

 

[ahmad.c15]

Reply

I will contact my friend who is related to this field and will let you know as soon as possible about the possible solutions for your error with your Motherboard! By the way you can try contacting or receive customer support from the Ryzen's official website!
Best Of Luck!

 

[Hilarious]

OK. The build is complete and I have been testing and tweaking the OC of this MB and so far, it looking good.
I will post a more detailed post of the completed build with pics together with benchmark scores later as I am still working on tightening up the RAM timings.

I ran Realbench v2.56 Benchmark today and got the following screen. Does nayone know why I got these Errors? Cinebench R20 runs fine...

 

[trents]

Save your overclock settings to a profile in bios and return everything to default before trying to run Realbench 2.56 again. Not sure besides Realbench and CB R20 what you have been using for stress testing but CB R20 is not hard to pass when an overclocked system is only marginally stable. Realbench uses AVX instruction sets and I don't think CB r20 does. AVX stress tests are harder to pass than non AVX stress tests. Try OCCT which uses AVX. Also, do you have an AVX offset in place in bios yet?

 

[Johan45]

@trents, AMD doesn't offer AXV offset in BIOS.

Hilarious, like Trents said save your profile but the first thing I would try is dropping that RAM to JEDEC specs and see if it passes.
Also, I think that test will stop if you touch the mouse, not sure since I really don't use it but that sticks in my mind

 

[WhitehawkEQ]

Check out my post in Folding on how to keep Win 10 from updating hardware drivers here.

 

[trents]

@Trents, AMD doesn't offer AXV offset in BIOS.

Hilarious, like Trents said save your profile but the first thing I would try is dropping that RAM to JEDEC specs and see if it passes.
Also, I think that test will stop if you touch the mouse, not sure since I really don't use it but that sticks in my mind

Yep, that's correct. I forgot that. Thanks for the correction. Wonder why they don't offer an AVX offset?

 

[Hilarious]

@Trents, AMD doesn't offer AXV offset in BIOS.

Hilarious, like Trents said save your profile but the first thing I would try is dropping that RAM to JEDEC specs and see if it passes.
Also, I think that test will stop if you touch the mouse, not sure since I really don't use it but that sticks in my mind

Ok Thanks fo that. I did noticed that the test stopped when the mouse was moved. So, I stopped moving the mouse while the test ran.

I am still playing around with the BIOS settings and am well impressed with this MB so far.... Contrary to my original misgivings....

I am benchmarking 4080 on Cinebench and haven't touched the CPU OC yet....
I will write a more detailed post once I have the OC dialled in.

- - - Auto-Merged Double Post - - -

Check out my post in Folding on how to keep Win 10 from updating hardware drivers here.

Awesome!