Armoury Crate installation tips

[Jimbo93]

**Edited info about AI Suite 3 and Prefetch on 5-12-22 based on better info and results.

** New recommendation for a possible quick fix for many issues. I have 2 posts on the subject. Latest is in another thread here: https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?117241-Problem-with-RGB-lighting/page2#post863163
I first reported it later in this thread here: https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?128812-Armoury-Crate-installation-tips/page3#post862991

Depending on the severity of your issues the rest of the info below is intended to get it running right but some of it is fairly involved.

Hi I have an intel desktop system, the details are in my profile if you like to see them. I had my share of difficulties with AC 5.1.5, sorted it out finally.


Problems I encountered


1. It needed a fix for the keyboard, the developers took care of it after I sent my log
2. Installation errors 504 and 101 that say restart and check internet connection
3. RGB basic animation stuttering and the app saying it needed to turn on performance mode
4. Updates resulting in poor performance like #3 above.

*5. Using the uninstaller Armoury Crate - Support (asus.com) and installing again and running the installer 2 or 3 times after just rebooting (more than once) does not fix the issues you are experiencing.

** Definitely try just uninstalling with the tool and installing again and if you get a network error just restart and run the installer again.... Do that stuff before considering all the suggestions I have compiled. This list is a compilation of steps to cure whatever ails.


IMPORTANT: These suggestions WILL NOT help if the AsusCertService.exe is not running properly on your system. Check it is running with Task manager-details tab or check windows event log Application log (there should be an Event 0, AsusCertService - "The operation completed successfully" event logged there immediately after system startup.

1a. I recommend you turn off XMP memory overclock or cpu overclock during this process. If you have a usb flash drive just save your bios profile if this is a concern, and then you can reload it afterward.

1b. Update your bios to the latest from Asus support page and/or set your bios to defaults. Note that you may need to check your TPM setting is correct after setting defaults.

2. Update your hardware drivers (I recommend using MoKiChU's driver packs. https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?119120-INDEX-All-My-Firmware-Drivers-Software-Threads


3. Use Driver store explorer to remove old drivers from you driver store, this app is shared by MoKiChU also in his driver threads.


4. How to reinstall chipset drivers? MoKiChU has the answer for intel chipset here https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?117609-DRIVERS-Intel-Chipset-MEI-SATA-VMD-(1xx-2xx-3xx-4xx...


*** THIS #5 IS NOT NECESSARY, I have a had good result (but no windows fan control) with just installing Armoury Crate, AND with installing AI Suite 3 after installing Armoury Crate. AI Suite 3 is good software I had it all working, but it does not allow to turn on virtualization and memory integrity for device security. I decided I need that more than windows fan control. 5.I used to think I need to install AI Suite first for the best system performance, not true anymore.

Still good info here #6 especially if you want to strip AI Suite 3 out all the way.

6. (EDITED twice) And more information on AI Suite 3.
There is a cleaner app for completely removing it on your Asus support page. To get the best results:

PAUSE windows updates FIRST. Just go to windows settings and windows updates and hit the pause button. You can come back and hit resume after this step 6 is complete.

Uninstall A.C. with the uninstall tool, uninstall AI Suite 3 from windows settings-Apps, Remove Aura device drivers with device manager or with driver store explorer. For example I have 2 drivers that must be removed rogkb.inf and rogms.inf as seen with driver store explorer. Reboot then run the AI Sute 3 Cleaner. Run AI Sute 3 Cleaner a second time to make sure everything is removed.

7. This doesn't take long to do. With A.C uninstalled and AI Suite 3 uninstalled use windows troubleshooter to make sure things are ok. Open the windows control panel-Troubleshooting. Run the following troubleshooters:
a. Windows Update troubleshooter
b. Search and Indexing troubleshooter - select the option files and folders are not showing
c. Power troubleshooter
d. System maintenance troubleshooter
e. Windows store apps troubleshooter
f. Restart the computer


8. How is your network connection? If you have less than reliable network 100% of the time it is probably worth your time to investigate and correct.

*Probably not necessary, probably, but I dont like having multiple identical entries in my firewall rules and I have reinstalled AC many times.
9. Remove the few firewall entries that the A.C. uninstaller left. This is not difficult. Control Panel or search for Windows Defender Firewall. Open it, select Advanced settings, then select inbound rules. Remove the following entries should be near the top:
a. ArmouryHtmlDebugger
b. ArmourySocketServer
c. FrameworkService


10. Run the windows Disk Cleanup as Administrator and select temporary file categories


11. Recompile .NET. Use Windows System Maintenance under Control Panel, Security and Maintenance, Start Maintenance. Or if you are in a hurry:

a. Open 2 administrator command prompts
b. In one of them execute these two commands
i. CD C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319
ii. ngen executequeueditems
c. In the other command prompt execute these
i. CD C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319
ii. ngen executequeueditems
d. Go back to first command prompt and execute
i. ngen update
e. In the second command prompt execute
i. ngen update


*THIS IS NO LONGER CONSIDERED A BIG HELP. I have not had to resort to this in quite some time now, there are better solutions. 12. Just for the purposes of installing software, temporarily disable windows prefetching. This may make a big difference for you and is definitely worth trying. Use windows registry editor and go here
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters
Note the current setting for the value called EnablePrefetcher. Change it to zero and restart the system. After all installation and updates of A.C. are done put it back to original setting and restart again.


13. If you are still having trouble, uninstall everything again and follow these steps

a. In an Adminstrator command prompt execute: DISM /ONLINE /CLEANUP-IMAGE /RESTOREHEALTH
b. RESTART the computer.
c. In an Adminstrator command prompt execute: SFC /SCANNOW
d. In the same Admin command prompt execute: CHKDSK /X /F - answer yes and reboot.

14. You can run the installer a second or even third time to get past the internet connection failure, without running the uninstaller again.

15. There are also drivers installed by windows update for some (all?) Aura devices that can be removed just from device manager or by using driver store explorer. I refer to Keyboard drivers, mouse drivers etc. Edited: I think this is only necessary if you have also used AI Suite 3 at some time.

Hope it helps someone. Feel free to post your suggestions or questions to this thread.

[Jimbo93]

Bushmaster78FS wrote:
For the same profiles, BIOS fan settings seem to be a bit quieter. I fined tuned the AI3 as much as I could but there would always be a fan spike here and there. BIOS is pretty smooth.


Also an irrelevant question, but you may know the answer.





I use the Aura Sync smart effects based on CPU temperature for a couple Aura devices, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out which mobo sensor below does Armoury Crate utilize to change the lighting...





I am assuming it is the last one, below the PECI as it kind of matches when I do a stress test.

Is that HWInfo you are using? I just uninstalled it. It is also not fully functional with virtualization turned on in windows. Not sure if it is affecting temperature readings. I might be seeing something similar.

I think you found a bug. It looks to me like Armoury Crate is reading the wrong sensor.

[Jimbo93]

Mission accomplished. Very low resources being used while running aura wallpaper and other devices all synced to breathing animation.

[RogScott]

@jimbo93 - Thanks for consolidating all this info. I recently needed to uninstall/reinstall AC and your suggestions gave me some things to try. Kept getting error 504 but finally succeeded after running "windows disk cleanup" and deleting temporary files. Not sure if that is what solved the problem or if it was just ASUS' flakey servers finally downloading everything successfully, but either way -- appreciate you sharing info / suggestions to help navigate the problem.

[HumbleSiPilot77]

Jimbo93 wrote:
Is that HWInfo you are using? I just uninstalled it. It is also not fully functional with virtualization turned on in windows. Not sure if it is affecting temperature readings. I might be seeing something similar.

I think you found a bug. It looks to me like Armoury Crate is reading the wrong sensor.

Hey Jimbo, sorry for the late response, yes it is HWInfo. I use it as a part of my Rainmeter desktop where I see a plethora of hardware info on the side. That screenshot of AC I shared above could be misleading as it is the temp setting to change colors on my keyboard based on CPU temp. HWinfo reads temp from a gazillion of sources, but AC must be reading from only one and I am assuming it is from the mobo. I noticed AI Suite 3 and Armoury Crate reads the same or similar temps because whenever a preset temp is exceeded and my keyboard changes colors, I used to see on AI Suite temp agreed to the threshold I set in Armoury Crate.

If you can do me a favor and if you are using a hardware monitor, since you use AI Suite, what do you suppose the temp indication in AI Suite comes from? I bet it is the same sensor where BIOS also reads from, I just don't know which.

[Jimbo93]

Bushmaster78FS wrote:
Hey Jimbo, sorry for the late response, yes it is HWInfo. I use it as a part of my Rainmeter desktop where I see a plethora of hardware info on the side. That screenshot of AC I shared above could be misleading as it is the temp setting to change colors on my keyboard based on CPU temp. HWinfo reads temp from a gazillion of sources, but AC must be reading from only one and I am assuming it is from the mobo. I noticed AI Suite 3 and Armoury Crate reads the same or similar temps because whenever a preset temp is exceeded and my keyboard changes colors, I used to see on AI Suite temp agreed to the threshold I set in Armoury Crate.

If you can do me a favor and if you are using a hardware monitor, since you use AI Suite, what do you suppose the temp indication in AI Suite comes from? I bet it is the same sensor where BIOS also reads from, I just don't know which.

Hi again bushmaster, so Ive been deep in the bat cave working on this whole optimization thing. I will be adding some more info I think in the next day or so as far as installing/ troubleshooting. On your sensor question I can see one value in HWINFO64 that matches with AC and AI cpu number. It is labeled cpu in HWINFO64 and is one of the motherboard nuvoton sensor values. Ill share a screenshot after Im off work. Cya.

[Jimbo93]

I made an important discovery on my system and am now getting even better reponsiveness in Armoury Crate, and better system performance. Ill give the short story here now and follow up with more later.

On my system there was a problem were the WMIADAP.EXE process, that is always launched at around 4:20 after a system start or restart, this process was running longer than normal and, I think, was failing to do its job of optimizing the performance counters. So I figured out how to get it to finish in the normal 30 second range. When I say it was running too long, it was running for 3 minutes and 40 seconds, till the 8:00 minute mark system up time. You can easily check if you are having a similar issue using task manager and/or resource monitor.

To get the process to run and finish within 30 seconds:

Set Armoury Crate to static mode and unsync all the devices, turned off aura wallpaper.
Turn off the GeForce in game overlay, this can be done in the GeForce Experience settings.
Sign out of windows.
Reboot and leave the system to idle at the sign in screen for around 6.5 to 7 minutes.
Sign in and open task manager immediately to check if WMIADAP.EXE is still running.
If it is not running then you were successful and some optimizations were performed.

I suggest you start your computer this way a few times for increased optimization.

If the WMIADAP.EXE process still runs all the way to the 8 minutes mark, it suggests that you need to uninstall Armoury Crate or GeForce Experience or other software that is using WMI a lot, then try same steps again and see if the process will finish quicker after a restart. Once you confirm it is finishing sooner, you can reinstall the software you uninstalled. I recommend doing the restart process above after each software installation.

[Jimbo93]

Did everyone get their Tuesday windows updates? I actually experienced a problem with a couple processes refusing to run afterwards. One was ArmourySwAgent. I used the recovery environment (Restart with shift key pressed) to uninstall the latest quality update and then I uninstalled both updates from the screenshot and let the system settle and was able to reinstall them both with no further issues.

Microsoft warns users: Uninstall Windows 11 KB5012643 if it crashes your apps (windowslatest.com)

May 10, 2022-KB5013628 Cumulative Update for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8 for Windows 11 (microsoft.co...

[Jimbo93]

Screenshot for Bushmaster! Sorry it took so long, my system had to go through some things and once I start troubleshooting its hard to stop. 😛

[lordberti]

@ Jimbo93

Problem is already known as well as the solution.
NET Framework 3.5 make Problems because ASUS AC accesses it. Because Microsoft has disabled/updatet this in the last updates!

Solution:
In Windows 10 and 11 under Windows Features (Search), first tick .Net Framework 3.5 and press OK and continue. Restart and uncheck again.
Then everything works again

[Jimbo93]

lordberti wrote:
@ Jimbo93

Problem is already known as well as the solution.
NET Framework 3.5 make Problems because ASUS AC accesses it. Because Microsoft has disabled/updatet this in the last updates!

Solution:
In Windows 10 and 11 under Windows Features (Search), first tick .Net Framework 3.5 and press OK and continue. Restart and uncheck again.
Then everything works again

Hi lordberti. Can you clarify one thing. When you say "..first tick .Net framework 3.5 and press OK.." does that mean to enable the feature or to disable the feature? For the record, I did not have that feature enabled in the first place, and second point, I do not want to enable it. Also the article I linked to seems to say something different as well. Im happy though, as everything is fine on my end.