B760-F with Bios 1666 Beta (0x12B) - unplayable

[Chrissi84]

Hey guys,

I want to share my experience in the last two weeks with the newest 1666 beta bios (0x12B) for B760-F.
I've got an i5-13500, Corsair DDR5 6000 (2x 16GB) and Inno3D 4070. Maybe it's a mix of the new 24H2 update and the newest bios or just the bios. But: CS2 displays the Frametime in game. I got massive frametime spikes from 6-12 to over 54-80. After that the paketlost started to spike (onboard wifi). I tested everything... new router, new ram (2 pairs!), new nvme (from 980 pro to sn850x). I did everything. Today I read in the forum that some guys got the frametime probs. So I go back to the 1663 (also with intel defaut settings) - and everything is fine again. No frametime spikes. I am a little bit confused to spent so much time, money and hours with no playing - just to find out, that something ain't wrong with it?

What are your thoughts guys? Did you also noticed kind of strange things happend to you after the update?

Cheers

Chris

[Silent_Scone]

Hi Chris 

Please rule out memory stability issues by ensuring XMP is disabled. Retest to see if the behaviour is the same. 
Please also specify what memory kit as you state having two pairs. Combining/mixing memory kits is neither recommended nor supported by the memory vendor when using XMP overclocking.

[Wesley1]

Hi Chris,

One thing you could try, since, new BIOS adds new microcode and forces C1E power saving sate for CPU. This C1E is very aggressive in power saving and can cause latency issues and framerate fluctuation (stuttering) on some systems.

If you which to test if new BIOS contributed to problems you saw, you could try on your currently BIOS 1663 to enable below two options.

CPU C-states: Enabled
Enhanced C1 state: Enabled

Save BIOS setting and reboot computer. Then see if you CS2 game behaves like on new BIOS.

You can always revert these setting in BIOS to old and default values, shown below.

Enhanced C1 state: Disabled
CPU C-states: Auto

Or by loading "Intel Default Profile".

[Chrissi84]

Dear Silent_Scone:
used different ram kits, different timings and xmp on and off. Same problem, different ram 😞

Dear Wesley1:
on the previous Bios (1663), I re-install, was CPU C-states on auto. Do you know what auto mean or effects has?
So I try both. I think to disable makes it a bit worse. Auto and Disable give me low frametime (around 5-6ms) but does big spikes to 50-60ms.
If I did the settings you told (both enable) it has a little bit higher "lowest" frametime (ms) 6-9 but it just spikes... more less.. to 11-12ms. Also it effects the paketlost I think.

Are the default disable C1 states -and unable to change in the newest beta bios (1666)- Intel specifications or is it as  prevention / to be careful?

[Silent_Scone · Accepted solution]

The new firmware and ucode from Intel prevents C1E from being disabled. 

You can try rolling back to 23H2. However, the Management Engine firmware cannot be reverted by rolling back to the previous UEFI. 

[Chrissi84]

Dear Silent_Scone, thanks for your quick response. The problem is, that I did a clean install of win 11 with media creation. So I got badly the 24H2 update. So with media creation, I can' t create a win 11 copy with 23h2.

Can you tell me, if Enhanced C1 state also forced to be enable in 1666? Cause I read just in the bios info about 1666 about the C-States.

Thanks again 🙂

[Silent_Scone · Accepted solution]

As far as I'm aware, any BIOS containing 0x12B should result in C1E being force-enabled.

[Chrissi84]

I found an old OEM Disc with Win11 23H2.. so I installed it and what? No problems anymore. 24h2 with my B760-F, 13500 and 4070 was a bad combination...

[Silent_Scone]

Cool. Good to know. Might explain why I'm not experiencing any issues.

[Chrissi84]

Best combination seems currently With 23h2 with 1663 and Enhanced C1 state: on & 
CPU C-states: on. Also Intel default and mce off. Runs again really smooth. On 23h2 I've got lower fps but also lower and constant frametime. On 24h2 I got an fps boost (on 13500) but high frametime spikes.