My Z690 motherboard: DDR5 XMP does not work at all, and very slow black screen boot

[illusionist]

Hello,

I built a brand new premium and expensive PC. I have issues with my Asus motherboard. I am very disappointed, do you have any advice? Maybe I need wait for a BIOS update? Should I send back the motherboard?

Intel Core i9-12900KF
NZXT Kraken X73 RGB 360mm
ASUS ROG STRIX Z690-E GAMING WIFI
ASUS GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 8GB DDR6X OC
Kingston FURY 64GB 4 x 16GB DDR5 6000 Mhz (2x KF560C40BBK2-32)
Samsung 980 PRO with Heatsink 1TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD (MZ-V8P1T0CW)
Corsair HX1200, 80 PLUS Platinum
Corsair 5000D case

In my case, there are 10 fans (3 for the watercooler) The speed of the fans was set up by 2 controllers, so the motherboard sees 2 fans only. The water pump is controlled in Windows by the Kraken software. I upgraded to the latest BIOS: 1720.

1.

I do not see "Fast boot" in the BIOS, UEFI boot is active if I turn it off I do not see the difference. I turned off the BIOS logo. My issue is that there is a black screen and 20 seconds when the BIOS screen appears. Is this normal for this fast PC?

I upgraded the firmware of GPU and nothing changed.
https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5233/~/nvidia-gpu-firmware-update-tool-for-displ...

The boot is super slow, circa 20-second black screen then BIOS logo appears, then Windows starts. (My old PC is much faster, almost immediately I can see the BIOS screen: i7-4790K + Asus Z97 gamer pro + 32GB DDR XMP + Corsair H80i)

In general, I turn off the electricity after when I turn off my PC. So when I turn back the electricity and when I start the PC my fans are very loud during that 20-second black screen, they became quiet when the BIOS logo appears, is this normal that the sound of my PC is like a hoover at the first start after turn on the PSU?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5ObcmZhFg0
With motherboard numbers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qL56_UD7a8


If I did not turn off the electricity, then the boot is the same slow, 20-second black screen until the BIOS logo, just the fans are quiet and not loud at this time. Why is the difference? Is this normal? (My old PC has fans and I did not recognize this kind of difference)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx9G9_a3IQs
With motherboard numbers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNIS5vT7E8U

2.

We can see I have the latest BIOS. In the BIOS the "Graphis configuration" is missing, is this normal? I thought maybe I can change some PCI boot priority here, I have KF CPU, which does not have GPU, but I do not think that menu should missing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7cwapxl6bo


3.

XMP does not work at all!!! I tried XMP1/XMP2, but the PC is unable to booting.

According to the official description of the motherboard memory is supported up to 6400 MHz and "Supports Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP)"
https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog-strix/rog-strix-z690-e-gaming-wifi-model/spec/
My memory is on the supported list: KF560C40BBK2-32
https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog-strix/rog-strix-z690-e-gaming-wifi-model/helpdesk_qvl_memory/

I deliberately bought an expensive 64GB DDR5 6000 MHz memory, it is a big disappointment that XMP does not work at all. So my memory is working on default 4800 Mhz. Here is a longer video of what happens if I try to set up XMP.
After my PC is unable to boot, I think it starts an infinity boot cycle, after 6 minutes I turned off my PC (but if I turn it off after 1 minute the situation is the same). If I turn back again, very slowly I can see again the BIOS logo with the error message: "safe mode", then in the BIOS I set back XMP to "auto" as it was the default. After that Windows is unable to launch anymore, sometimes Windows launched but I got a blue screen and automatically restart, then a blue screen again... I can break this cycle when I reset the BIOS (by a button in the back) or I saved the good working default BIOS settings in a USB stick, then I load back my BIOS settings. In the video we can see, interesting, I did not change anything but Windows works again with my saved settings. This setting is just the default BIOS and fan speed settings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5XDN_UmrhY

[illusionist]

I bought a 3rd memory DDR5 2x32GB 5600Mhz KF556C40BBAK2-64.

Of course, this is on the QVL list:
https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog-strix/rog-strix-z690-e-gaming-wifi-model/helpdesk_qvl_memory/

I set up the default BIOS settings, no XMP, the Windows is unable to boot, I got all the time blue screen of death:
I recorded:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2xoE-pvNrc

How possible that the other 2 KITs separately worked with 4800Mhz (they did not work in XMP)
DDR5 2 x 16GB DDR5 6000Mhz (KF560C40BBK2-32) 2 KITs

And with the new memory the Windows is unable to boot in default BIOS settings?

Is it possibe that I had 3 pairs bad memory from 3 pairs? Or the motherboard is broken?

[Braegnok]

Try running 2x16GB in XMP 1,.. first and see what happens.

[Nate152]

Hi illusionist,

Yeah combining memory kits is not a good idea, and the higher frequency you go, the more difficult it can be to get them to work.

With one kit, your using kingston fury beast 32GB 6000MT/s cl40, same ram as me but I'm only using 16GB (2x8GB), I had to raise a few voltages to get 16GB stable and for 32GB you may have to do the same.

Install them in the recommended slots A2 - B2.

On the AI Tweaker page set:

Dram VDD voltage: 1.35v - 1.40v
Dram VDDQ voltage: 1.35v - 1.40v
System Agent voltage: 1.30v - 1.35v

At the bottom, Advanced Memory voltages

IVR Transmitter VDDQ voltage: 1.35v - 1.40v
Memory Controller voltage: 1.30v - 1.35v

Raising these voltages got me stable, I'm even overclocked to 6133MHz.

These are my predicted voltages, try with the lowest values first.

[illusionist]

I used only 1 RAM module (16GB) to only 1 slot, so 3 slots are empty. When I put this module in B2 then XMP is working, when I move this module in B1 then XMP is not working. How possible that the XMP works in B2 and not in B1?
I assume this is because the B1 memory slot is broken in the motherboard, if not what is the explanation for this issue?

[Nate152]

Technically it should work, but according to the manual, a single dimm configuration is the A2 slot.

[illusionist]

I have put the same module (1x16GB) to the B2, and Memtest was OK, XMP was working.
Yes, I see on the motherboard manual book that the A2 slot is the recommended for single ram.

Now I put the same single module to the A2, and Memtest was OK, but XMP did not work: long time black screen, many restarts and finally I got the BIOS safe mode screen.
Should I think the motherboard is broken? (I will check the A2 slot with other memory module)

[ahfoo]

IN short that is the RAM topology Asus being implementing. Even other mobo manufacturer does too.

[Nate152]

No, the motherboard isn't broken as everything is fine at default settings.

You need to raise the voltages I listed above to achieve stability. One module is 16GB, as mentioned I had to raise voltages to get 16GB 6000MHz stable.

Write the voltages down on a piece of paper and start with the lowest values first.

Here's a screenshot of my Hwinfo, click the pic to make it bigger.

[illusionist]

Thanks for the answer! I will try your suggestion.

How can be OK the motherboard if it needs 20 second black screen until I see the BIOS screen. Is this normal? And why my fans are super loud if I turn off/on the electricity when I start my PC during that 20 second black screen time?

But what is your explanation that the same module works in the B2 slot with XMP and does not work in the A2 slot with XMP?
I see the motherboard specification clearly says it supports XMP up to 6400Mhz, so why does not work the default Asus XMP profile?

Btw I tried with XMP 5000 Mhz only in the XMP menu, and it did not work.

[Traumatik]

illusionist wrote:
Thanks for the answer! I will try your suggestion.

How can be OK the motherboard if it needs 20 second black screen until I see the BIOS screen. Is this normal? And why my fans are super loud if I turn off/on the electricity when I start my PC during that 20 second black screen time?

But what is your explanation that the same module works in the B2 slot with XMP and does not work in the A2 slot with XMP?
I see the motherboard specification clearly says it supports XMP up to 6400Mhz, so why does not work the default Asus XMP profile?

Btw I tried with XMP 5000 Mhz only in the XMP menu, and it did not work.

OP , i found a youtube video on what to change if your using 4 sticks. He said to go into ram settings and set to not sync pmic , think it was "by each pmic"
Also on top of what others suggested check out buildzoids ram tweaks, they helped me get my 2x16 teamgroup 6200 cl38 (on QVL) with tighter timings and also run at 6400 in bios versions 1720 down to the bios version that came stock(dont remember version) , when xmp1 and xmp2 would error out in bios memtests.

The bios screen on these ddr5 mobos do take a bit longer then older mobos. My extreme has all m.2 slots full which might slow down my boot, Win 11 says 25 seconds to desktop fyi.

Asus states on product page that QVL list if on it is guaranteed , but 2 forum mods said that QVL isnt a guarantee due to cpu imc differences/quality and higher frequencies are harder to get to work. I tried 2 12900k and 2 12900ks which all 4 have problems with xmp1 xmp2. On 2004 bios just released xmp2 has passed ( fingers crossed) but will be trying buildzoids tweaks that i used on 1720 which worked and got my ram to 6400 also.

EDIT , xmp2 not good also, back to buildzoids ram tweaks.