My ongoing disaster experience with an X670E-A motherboard

[Astroplane]

Since buying an X670E-A motherboard 1.5 months ago and assembling my PC, I've had nothing but issues since the very first power-on of the system, when it wouldn't post until I removed the CMOS battery, the power cable, and held down the PC case power switch to drain any other caps, and then put it all back together.

After that it would post, but the same issue of it not posting returns any time I make a BIOS change in Ryzen Master that requires a system restart, such as simply clicking the button to reset the settings to their defaults. And then I have to go through the process of removing the CMOS battery, the power cable, and held down the PC case power switch to drain any other caps, and then put it all back together.

But that isn't the only issue. Setting temperature and thermal limits in the BIOS has no effect whatsoever. But I can change them in Ryzen Master.

Additionally, most frustrating of all, is that the system restarts randomly around once per day, though something less than once per day, and sometimes more than once per day. The longest it has gone without randomly restarting was for four days, which it just did this week, until it randomly restarted twice yesterday. After these random restarts happen, a lot of the time the screen will display normally, but sometimes picture won't be output to the monitor, though I'll still hear the Windows login-screen chime. Sometimes, the screen will flash between dark-grey and black. And when the display isn't outputting to the monitor, I need to power off the PC at the PSU, and then power it back on - simply pressing the reset button on the PC case won't clear the issue.

I've been in contact with Asus Support about it since February 15 (I could've still returned the mobo to the store then, but not now). Responses have been slow and not really moving things forward. They did finally offer an RMA on March 4, though I'm still awaiting a follow-up email with the instructions I need to follow to do the RMA.


And I've just encountered another issue with the motherboard, which is that I can't get it to connect to any devices via Bluetooth. My Bluetooth devices all connect to each other just fine, and I've done lots of troubleshooting with Bluetooth on my PC, but I haven't gotten it to connect a single time to a device.

Just about every time I enable Bluetooth in Windows 11 and search for nearby devices, the Bluetooth device-finder doesn't identify any nearby Bluetooth devices. It did twice successfully identify nearby devices, and one time successfully paired with my phone, which it took far too long to do, but it hasn't been able to actually connect to it once it's paired. And every time I run the Windows 11 Bluetooth troubleshooter, it finds and "fixes" an issue of enabling Bluetooth. Yet every time I run the troubleshooter, it "fixes" the same issue over and over, of enabling Bluetooth. And I've tried un-checking the box that lets Windows disable Bluetooth to save energy, but that didn't help.


I'm wondering if something is damaged on the motherboard that is the source for all of these issues.



Video demonstrations of the first 3 issues I mentioned (setting thermal and power limits in BIOS don't work, and making changes to BIOS via Ryzen Master make the system unable to post), which I sent to Asus support in my emails, are here:

Setting a temperature limit in the BIOS doesn't work: https://youtu.be/RanSk-B2tzg
Setting a thermal limit in the BIOS doesn't work: https://youtu.be/RnvoKJWQFjU
Resetting BIOS to default in Ryzen Master causes the system to be unable to post: https://youtu.be/WNcDtJ8bhuA

[Astroplane]

BTW, my PC hardware is this:

PSU: Corsair RMx 1000 watt
mobo: Asus X670E-A Gaming Wifi
CPU: 7700X
cooler: Noctua NH-D15
RAM: 64GB G.Skill CL32 6000 Mhz
GPU: 7700X integrated graphics
m.2: 2x Hynix P41 2TB
OS: Windows 11

I'm going to mail the motherboard for the RMA this upcoming week.

[jbareham]

Also have a X670-A. When first installed and booted with the 0805 BIOS, I had similar problems, but seemed to be an issue with the video being sent to the onboard graphics instead of the video card, so the system was waiting for key presses. Then sometimes it would send to the video card, but not the onboard. Also found the ASUS XG43UQ monitor in energy saving mode didn't start up until after POST meaning I missed the option to go into the BIOS screens.

I used to have the Noctua-D15 on my Intel 6700K, but went with an AIO cooler this time given the heat outputs of the newer processors.

Also they keep posting Intel Drivers for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on the website, when both are AMD, so need to use these. Not helping is the latest Bluetooth driver posted on 7th March seems to be a Wi-Fi driver.

Having worked these glitches out, have had no issues with instability or crashes, running the RAM on EXPO-I with BIOS 0922 and the CPU at stock. Couldn't boot the system with EXPO-II on 0805 BIOS , haven't tried yet with 0922. Bluetooth and Wifi seem Ok with the correct drivers. Tried Ryzen Master, but seemed to cause issues with crashes, so I change everything from the BIOS screens.

Obvious things to check are the power supply is Ok and sufficient wattage, and that the air cooling is enough for the 7700X. Also stick with EXPO-I timings and check stability with that before going to EXPO-II.

My system currently running on BIOS 0922 with the following:

CPU 7900X
Cooler Bequiet Pure Loop 2 FX 360mm
RAM 4 x 16 GB Kingston FURY Beast RGB CL36 6000MHz EXPO
GPU ASUS Tuf RTX4090
Boot Drive Samsung 980 Pro 2 TB
Power Supply Corsair HX1200
Windows 11 (Recently upgraded from Win 10 on same system)