BIOS 2204 - What's Your Experience

[JohnAb]

Hi 3DGuru, sounds good. I would suggest you use Armoury Crate for the initial install at least, it will save you a lot of trouble and I find it useful to have it installed anyway. Then it will be easy to do updates manually as you should have a working system as a 'baseline'. One thing that Armoury Crate will not install for you (while I think of it and if my memory serves me well) are Intel's Rapid Storage Technology Drivers - you will have to install those manually. I can guide you nearer the time if needed.

Not sure why you are not seeing anything in Fan Expert, when I use it I can see all of the motherboard fan headers and the speed of each where they are connected. In the image, Chassis Fans 2 & 3 are my PCH cooling fans. On my system, all of the other fans are actually not controlled by Armoury crate, but there is a connection to the CPU fan header, just so that the PC 'thinks' that the CPU fan is spinning. The extra signal is actually just a single wire from the AIO. It's just a speed sensing wire which tricks the system into thinking that the fan is present and correct. This means that I cannot control that 'fan' through Armoury Crate of course, that's just the way my AIO is designed to work. The AIO pump and W_Pump are not connected either and just read 0 rpm. Anyway, none of that is important.

You could try uninstalling Armoury Crate (there is a tool to do that on the support pages) and then you could try installing it again. You could have a look at your fans in the BIOS and see if you can see them there there. At least you would know that the issue is just Armoury Crate. There can't be a serious issue, otherwise your system would not be happy.

Time for bed here and yes, very pleased that BIOS 2204 seems good. No problems whatsoever after about 5 hours. I'm always a bit nervous about a new BIOS, but the ones I have used so far have all been very good, for me at least. I don't overclock as such, just because my system is fast enough that there is just no need. The benefit of having most settings on defaults is excellent stability and I have only had a single Windows 'blue screen of death' in 6 months. I can't complain about that and since I changed to Win 11 I've been delighted with it.

My main advice is make sure that you a have a copy of all your files before you reinstall Windows as it's good to do a completely fresh install and start with a clean drive. Things like your e-mail database (if not online), passwords stored in the browser, browser bookmarks, game saves etc, are all easily forgotten. A good thing to do for now is to make sure that everything you need is stored somewhere other than the OS drive. If you don't use one, get a password manager and keep the database somewhere safe. Keepass is another piece of great free software that I have been using for years. Secure and reliable 🙂 You might be a 'cloud' guy and that's fine, I'm just old fashioned and don't trust another company to manage my data, hence my backup routines lol. Good luck for when you begin reinstalling Windows, if I don't see your post - send me a message. I'll be very happy to help where I can and perhaps we can start a new thread. Cheers, John.

[3DG]

Friend, I am happy, because this is the first time I see this Fan Expert screen where it should be, thank you! I have something similar but inside the Rog Ryujin II (AC - AI Cooling 02.jpg / also look AC - AI Cooling 01.jpg), this Ryujin has only USB connection with the Motherboard, has no PWM... in the BIOS appears also the correct reading (R II BIOS. jpg), analyze it and tell me if you find something strange or that I can change, at first I was terrified because it appeared zero RPM in the main interface of the Armoury Crate (AC - 0 RPM.jpg), I turned off the button thinking it would burn everything (yes, you can fall off the chair laughing so hard at your friend here lol), then I entered the BIOS, I saw that they were spinning and I took courage to connect again lol. I still think this AI Suite has got in the way of something look (AI Suite 3.jpg), in the AI Suite it says to look in FanXpert, however it's not (I think that's why I have a suspicion of the Armoury Crate, but it's being suppressed with your support lol, thanks).

About "Intel's Rapid Storage Technology Drivers - you will have to install those manually. I can guide you nearer the time if needed.", yes it is currently one of the biggest questions of what to do and how to do it, I saw MokiChu's post at https://www.elevenforum.com/t/drivers-intel-chipset-mei-sata-vmd-1xx-2xx-3xx-4xx-5xx-6xx-7xx.11373/ and I don't know if I understood something there... I have it in the Bios like this (BIOS VMD.jpg)... yes better go thinking about how best I should configure all this keeping in mind that I have an XPG GAMMIX S70 BLADE 1TB M.2 NVME PCIe Gen4x4 SSD plugged into the M.2 Slot (Number 7 on page 1-2 of the Z690 Motherboard Layout manual). Yes, paid that, you can send me your PayPal by PM! 🙂

Yes, with this system I can install, uninstall and test, I call this Phase I, tests and more tests, after that I try to do a formatting and installation as perfect as possible with logic and care, to then spend at least a year working with it correct and "quiet". Yes I am also very happy with BIOS 2204 and with the purchase of Windows 11 For Workstation, which solid and manages memory very well, I work with complex and heavy programs, I installed one of them and tested, it flows like I have never seen anything like it when loading giant files, then close and everything is clean and light for another, impressive!

PS: Yes, if we don't get deleted here from the forum for excessive text it's ok, just in case, I have already saved "JohnAb 01 to 11" with your precious information (yes, send me your address to at least buy you a good cold beer or whatever you like to drink) 🙂 A good rest and a big hug, I travel early, in a few hours, I don't know if I will have communication, but I will write you something and more when I return, on the 12th we will start this Phase II / Final turbocharged power lol! For the moment thank you!

[JohnAb]

OK, you have cooling, that's good to know 🙂 lol

I think your VMD settings are fine. I think you only need to turn on that 3rd VMD setting to use RAID mode. I will look at my settings next time I am in the BIOS. Anyway, all seems good to me, so have a nice trip...

[Renovatio_j]

So my PC runs stable, i did notice that my already high Chipset temperatures are now 10°C higher than on 1720.
My Chipset is now reaching up to 85°C before that it was only around 75°C.
Will need to keep monitoring that.

[Dfear78]

I upgraded to BIOS 2204 in a Z690 Hero from BIOS 2103 and the PCIex16(G5)_1 port is not detected (with the consecuence the system not detects my graphic card). I return to BIOS 2103 and the port PPCIex16(G5)_1 is detected normally. The port M2_1 (Socket3) is detectd correctly with the Nvme.
Try to shutdown and reconnect the graphic card but not resolves the issue.
Anyone with this problem?

I think this problem is related to the RTX4080... I try the second PCI "PCIex16(G5)_2"and detects the graphic card but 1x.... in the first one
"PCIex16(G5)_1"continues not detected.
I see in the Z790 Hero BIOS there are a correction to RTX4000...
Anyone with Z690 Hero and RTX4000 to verify if this graphic card runs well in BIOS 2204?

[lalantha]

Just updated to 2204 couple of hours ago and so far, so good.

[PeterSimpson]

Hi all,

I have just updated my ROG STRIX Z690-A GAMING WIFI D4 to 2204, my system uses a 12900K processor and 64Gb RAM (4 x 16GB DIMMS). I followed the recommended procedure of updating the ME driver, then the ME firmware and finally the BIOS. I also updated all other components to the latest versions on the ASUS support site before updating the BIOS.

So far all is stable and the AIDA64 stress test runs very happily for half an hour.


I have held off this update because, after 30 years in IT, I've learned the hard way that you always need a back-out plan to return to your original configuration in the event of trouble.

We can't trust BIOS updates where it is not possible to get back to a previous known stable state!

It's not important whether this issue is caused by Intel or by ASUS, but I sincerely hope that whoever is responsible is working very hard to eliminate the additional risk that they have imposed on BIOS updates.



Best wishes, Peter

[ElectronSpin]

I've been struggling with what seems to be memory instability on both BIOS versions 2204 and 2104 on my Z690-E Game WIFI... Everything is good and stable on BIOS 2004 but if I update to anything higher than that I can't boot into Windows without crashing unless I increase DRAM voltages ( from 1.3v to 1.35v on both VDD and VDDQ) and even then I still have lock ups and general instability using Windows.

I've made sure my MEI and ME Firmware is updated before updating the BIOS but always end up rolling back to BIOS 2004 to get some stability...

I'm running MEI version 2240.3.4.0 and ME Firmware version 16.1.25.2020 when trying to run BIOS version 2204.

I'm not overclocking my CPU and running my RAM at the supported frequency and timings (6000Mhz etc).

Bit frustrating cause I can't figure out what is making it so unstable.

[JohnAb]

I don't know if it will help, but try turning off your PC, turn off the PSU, wait a few minutes and then clear the BIOS.

I'm sure I've read elsewhere on these forums that it can clear some stubborn BIOS settings. Nothing to lose I guess. I don't really see why it should work if I'm honest, as a BIOS reset is a reset, but please update here if it helps. I know it's a longshot!

Oh, I think you should remove the CMOS battery too before the reset...

[Raider0001]

PRIME Z690-A + G.Skill F5-5600J3636C16G + BIOS 2204 = UNSTABLE AGAIN
asus is rubbish !?!?