Crosshair VIII Hero (WiFi) what's going on with new BIOS versions ?

[GoLLuM13]

Hi everyone,

Right now I'm on the 3801 version and everything is stable and works perfectly but as soon as I try a higher version 3904 or 4006 for example, I have multiple and random issues whether at boot with a black screen and different Q-Codes each time amongst them 02 - 22 - FA - F9, I also had error messages such as "BIOS Recovery mode has been detected" or "Invalid signature detected" (for those two I guess it's because of the USB drive I used to flash the BIOS), when I manage to load Windows 11 and reboot whether I have the same symptoms or I have a BSOD while loading Windows or after it, and all of these problems happen mostly when I set up the RAM whether manually (as soon as I reach 2800Mhz) or via D.O.C.P., and they disappear as soon as I set memory to "auto" or flash back 3801 BIOS version

Am I the only one having these kinds of issues ? What am I doing wrong ? Or is it like I think a problem with the new BIOSes versions since everything is working perfectly with older versions 3801 and previous ?

Of course, I flashed again and again multiple times, with different USB drives, from different downloads for a same version with Clear CMOS before and after flashing, tried with Bios Flashback and EZ Flash 3

My build : Crosshair VIII Hero (WiFi) - Ryzen 9 3900x - Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro CMW32GX4M4C3000C15 (8GB*4 - 3000Mhz - C15) - Sabrent Rocket 4.0 500G - nVidia RTX 3090 FE
OS : Windows 11 Pro x64 (up to date)

[GoLLuM13]

jeordiewhite wrote:
I'm not sure if that is true either. I have heard speculation that it's issues with the ryzen 5800X3D.
I originally purchased my system with a 3950x when they first came out. I upgraded to a 5950x by ordering both as soon as they came out before they were in short supply and scalped. It was a short window where I barely payed more than the difference in retail prices by reselling the 3950x.

Anyway, with having a 5950x and 4004 and 4006, I have had major issues with crashing since. The update wiped my profiles where I had my memory completely optimized and I was thinking of backing those up to my sd card and stupidly didn't. No matter, I had the ryzen memory calculator screenshots saved. So I entered them in and things ran ok until I started getting crashes occasionally. I didn't think others were having issues as no one was posting about it. So I tried lowering my timings to the xmp timings and then went with stock to no avail. Tried using different voltages. I don't know why I mistakenly thought it was I screwed up my memory timings. Turns out 3904 was a pretty solid bios for me.
This is sort of the first time my computer had issues this bad. Daily crashing isn't good, or sometimes twice on a weekend if it's in use all day.

Thanks for the feedback and they (Asus) tell me it's my Windows installation that is bad 😄

[GoLLuM13]

@skellattarr thank you for your feedback, there's something wrong with these AGESA and AMD and Asus should at least inform their customers with a Ryzen 3000 CPU that there's a compatibility, I contacted technical support weeks ago, they sent me a form to fill, which I did, I hope they'll do something about it.

@DvLAx3l Yes exactly that's not only Asus like I mentioned few posts ago, since there's the same unstable behavior with other brands, so it must be the AGESA. I really hope that the next AGESA with the fTPM fix will also fix this

[GoLLuM13]

OMG I am so disappointed with Asus customer service and technical support right now. I contacted them with all the information required to be able to reproduce the problem, with additional information too (just in case), and all they find to say to me after having me fill out a technical form (and waiting for weeks) is that they haven't had this issue (with a video to show me that, while everything was set up on default whereas I specified that it is starting from a certain frequency that issues began) and they also told me that it is my Windows which has a problem with TPM set up wrongly and that it must be reinstalled. While I have problems before even accessing the OS (Q-Codes for RAM) and everything works perfectly on an old BIOS version.
Really, Asus, you should listen a little bit more to your customers when they're giving you information and feedback !!

[GoLLuM13]

Yes, you're right about AGESA and indeed Dark Hero and Hero / Hero (WiFi) are almost alike, with same BIOS version numbers even if they're different.
And yes, there's a big chance to see them affected equally, since there's the same buggy behavior even on Strix motherboards.

Yes typical of Asus, I admit it, they even sent me a video to show me that it's working for them, and replied to them showing them all the flaws in the video, starting with RAM frequency, they don't know I'm a tech-savvy person and even made it my job 😄

[GoLLuM13]

I did a reddit post and had more feedbacks from people using different brands of motherboards and RAMs, and it appeared clear to me, or at least I see this as a confirmation, when I read Tom's article knowing that the SMU for Ryzen 3000 CPUs hasn't changed since AGESA 1.2.0.5 that there's clearly something wrong with new BIOS versions based on AGESA 1.2.0.5 and later

Article : https://www.tomshardware.com/news/agesa-1205-bugs-amd-ryzen
SMU Checker Screenshot : https://i.imgur.com/L2Ny6Gs.png
My Reddit post : https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/uquyu1/ram_issues_depending_on_agesa_version_1205_to_1207/