I really need some Crosshair VIII EXTREME advice for drivers and bios?

[AQUASTEVAE]

Hey guys,
It's been a long time since I've been in here. I switched to an Aorus X570 Master mobo for a while, and never was happy with it. I was all set to buy a Dark Hero board, when this EXTREME board monster fell into my lap for way cheaper than retail. So I decided to pull the ripcord and take the plunge back to Asus. As I was downloading all the latest drivers and applying them in the software, I started thinking about past experiences and stopped dead in my tracks. My system is running perfectly on older drivers right now. Coming back to this forum I noticed so many people having problems with different drivers and downloads.
So, I thought I'd reach out to the community, and just ask which drivers have performed well, and which should I avoid???? I am currently on an older bios, which is 0211, and everything is working very well. No problems with bootups, and smooth sailing on everything else. The problem is I want to OC this beast, and I'm thinking that might not go so well on an older bios. So I wanted to ask you guys as well, how the latest bios (0801) is working, and how stable is it?
Thanks for any help, and good to be back.

[Silent_Scone]

Hello,

Use the latest drivers either noted by the board vendor or manufacturer.

Only update the UEFI if experiencing compatibility or stability issues.

If experience any specific problems, specify so others can help.

[AQUASTEVAE]

Silent Scone@ROG wrote:
Hello,

Use the latest drivers either noted by the board vendor or manufacturer.

Only update the UEFI if experiencing compatibility or stability issues.

If experience any specific problems, specify so others can help.

While I appreciate the reply, that doesn't really answer my question about the latest bios. IF the latest bios is stable and working well, it's important to have those features to allow me to gain the full power and feature set of this board. BUT, if the latest bios is faulty, and those who have already loaded it are experiencing more problems than it's worth, then I prefer to stay on the earlier bios. But getting that information from the community is what I came here for.

[Murph_9000]

You need BIOS 0801 for AMD AGESA 1.2.0.7, which fixes a performance problem with Windows 11 & TPM. I've not looked through all of the previous BIOS versions, but there may also be security fixes for CPU vulnerabilities. BIOS used to be something that should be left alone if everything is working well, but it can leave your system vulnerable to attack with modern CPU security problems.

I've been running 0801 for months, it seems fairly solid.

[AQUASTEVAE]

Murph_9000 wrote:
You need BIOS 0801 for AMD AGESA 1.2.0.7, which fixes a performance problem with Windows 11 & TPM. I've not looked through all of the previous BIOS versions, but there may also be security fixes for CPU vulnerabilities. BIOS used to be something that should be left alone if everything is working well, but it can leave your system vulnerable to attack with modern CPU security problems.

I've been running 0801 for months, it seems fairly solid.

So I updated to the latest bios (0801), because of your positive answer and those of others on different forums, but then I ran into a problem.
When I tried to post after the the bios update said it finished, I found my system in a boot loop. The sys would start checking codes as usual, but I noticed two particular codes it would get stuck on for several seconds. First it would stop on 58 vga and ramp the fans up on high, then a few more codes and then 94 would stay on there for a while, then back to 58 and the reading on the Oled would then switch to "Loading VGA Bios". This didn't make sense to me, as when I looked up the codes, 58 was a cpu code, but on the board oled, it was reading VGA. ???
At first I left it, thinking the new bios just needed to run through some things, but when I came back a good while later it was still doing the same loop. So I first tried safe boot, and nothing changed, the exact same thing would happen. It would not even post into bios. Then I tried the clear CMOS button, and still nothing changed, just the same boot loop. Finally I remembered reading about some people having trouble with some of the m.2 drives on this bios, so I took out the Dimm.2 drives, and got it to post. So I'm wondering if you, or anyone else with this EXTREME board have gone through that, or maybe have read about any fixes I haven't seen yet??? And are you using all of your m.2 drive bays, especially the Dimm.2 module??? Lastly, are you using drivers from Asus's site, or AMD's site? Thanks for any help.

[Murph_9000]

I've got Firecuda 530s in M.2_1 (top slot, under the OLED dashboard thing) and both DIMM.2 slots on 0801, without any obvious problems. Drivers should be mostly irrelevant if it's stuck in POST / BIOS, they should only really come into play once control passes to the OS; but I'm on the latest 4.x chipset drivers from AMD.

Now that you can get into the BIOS, I would do a load optimised defaults and only change the bare minimum of settings. Check CSM is disabled, UEFI is enabled, TPM is enabled, TPM/boot type is set to Windows, and see what happens. Don't even enable XMP/DOCP, and no tuning; see if you can get a boot on a very basic/minimal config. New BIOS and AGESA can change timings a little on things, so old tuning that was pushing limits may be the problem.

Don't forget the SAFE_BOOT button on the bottom/south edge of the board (page 1-24 of the manual), it may help you if the problem is BIOS config.

[Silent_Scone]

AQUASTEVAE wrote:
While I appreciate the reply, that doesn't really answer my question about the latest bios. IF the latest bios is stable and working well, it's important to have those features to allow me to gain the full power and feature set of this board. BUT, if the latest bios is faulty, and those who have already loaded it are experiencing more problems than it's worth, then I prefer to stay on the earlier bios. But getting that information from the community is what I came here for.

What features are you even referring to. I see now you've run into difficulties with stability after updating, which was why i gave the answer I did. Unless there's some compatibility you're desperate for.

In terms of OC, there's no guarantees later ucode will net you any more overclocking range or performance. You'd be better off tuning the system and then deciding, rather than making the decision based on this. If overclocking, compromise is the word of the day. I've often stayed on builds that work best for my CPU and memory.

[AQUASTEVAE]

Silent Scone@ROG wrote:
What features are you even referring to. I see now you've run into difficulties with stability after updating, which was why i gave the answer I did. Unless there's some compatibility you're desperate for.

In terms of OC, there's no guarantees later ucode will net you any more overclocking range or performance. You'd be better off tuning the system and then deciding, rather than making the decision based on this. If overclocking, compromise is the word of the day. I've often stayed on builds that work best for my CPU and memory.

The older bios didn't allow me to manually set some of the voltage suspension and OC Switcher settings. They were static "auto", where the newer bios allows you to manually control them. It also would not boot with the Dimm.2 module installed. Now it is working intermittently, so I'm just going to send this board back, and get an X670E board/processor. If I'm going to have to go through a bunch of troubleshooting steps and problems, it might as well be for a much newer technology, with a much better result. I'll get the CH X670E/7900X combo instead.