Bug in B660 bios cpu voltage offset

[trihy]

Hi. I made several tickets on Asus support but there is no way to make them understand the problem.

There is a bug on b660 bios, on all b660 boards. And all 600 series. On z690 is less visible cause there is adaptive voltage, which most people use. On b660 there is only offset.

Problem is, setting a CPU voltage offset of -0.005 will cause ramdon freeze at idle. As you increase the offset, the random freeze ratio will increase.

Also setting + offset will do the same.

This is because applying any offset will cause more than -0.200mv drop at idle.

This was happening on msi boards too and was fixed with a bios update.

Thread on msi forums https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threads/msi-b660-tomahawk-ddr4-cpu-core-voltage-offset.372022/



Please someone from Asus explain why cpu voltage drops to 0.300 or less when using default bios settings. Lowest per spec value is 0.700 for alder lake.

Thanks.

[darkcg]

So, why you posted this on the Z690 forum? This forum is related to Z690 motherboards, not B660. This thread should go in the "Other series motherboards" subforum.

[trihy]

This should go on b660 subforum. But 3 months after release there is still no subforum. Great support.

This was the nearest chipset subforum.

[w4rdog]

Hi everyone,

This is my first message in this forum as a b660m Tuf Gaming Plus D4´s owner and although this is an old threat the issue described on it keeps happening nowdays.

But, I found a temporary solution works the problem out in Reddit but energy savings are gone because of disabling C-States and RC6:

https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/s1ssr0/12th_gen_ddr5_system_freezing_up_but_not_powering/

I hope Asus people work on it and new bios version resolves this bug.

Cheers.

[trihy]

Yes, that's a workaround, but a total waste of energy.

Problem is present on all Asus b660 boards. And all Asus z690 boards too.

Use any cpu vcore monitoring software and you will see voltages way below 0.700v, (which is the lowest for gen 12) On every Asus series 600 boards.

[STARRAIN_ROG]

Hi all,
Do you mean have system freezing issue and need to shutdown and turn on the pc to recover?
Does it also occur on bios 1402 with bios all default settings?
Is there no issue when disabling C-States?
Thank you.

[trihy]

STARRAIN@ROG wrote:
Hi all,
Do you mean have system freezing issue and need to shutdown and turn on the pc to recover?
Does it also occur on bios 1402 with bios all default settings?
Is there no issue when disabling C-States?
Thank you.

Hi. This is the cause of random freeze at idle. Screen freeze and you need to shutdown by holding power button 5 seconds.

Freeze will depend on how your cpu tolerates this extreme low voltages, could get idle freeze once a day or every 2 or 3 days.

If you set minimal voltage offset, 0.005 doesnt matter if + or - you will have more freezes. At -0.040 or 0.050 system will hang at Asus logo. This cpu's can handle more than -0.100v on other brands, so something is wrong there.

It happens on every bios, 14xx included with default settings. Just let hwinfo running and check the lowest vcore reported, you will see crazy low cpu voltages of 0.300, 0.200 or even lower. On other brands never go below 0.700v.

Disabling c states or setting a fixed cpu voltage are the only ones workarounds.

[trihy]

Bios 1603. Same problem. How Asus didnt notice this?



Bios default settings

Its a miracle this boards post with such out of specs cpu voltage.

[STARRAIN_ROG]

Hi trihy,
How long do you put the pc at idle a day and get idle freeze once a day or every 2 or 3 days?
Does it also freeze when you boot into windows and only let hwinfo running?
May I have the following information?
- the serial number of the motherboard via PM
- the brand and the model name of your CPU, RAM, graphics card, OS drive, and PSU
(Please check the specific model name of RAM such as G.SKILL F5-6800U4040G16GX2-TZ5S.)
- OS version and OS build
Thank you.

[trihy]

STARRAIN@ROG wrote:
Hi trihy,
How long do you put the pc at idle a day and get idle freeze once a day or every 2 or 3 days?
Does it also freeze when you boot into windows and only let hwinfo running?
May I have the following information?
- the serial number of the motherboard via PM
- the brand and the model name of your CPU, RAM, graphics card, OS drive, and PSU
(Please check the specific model name of RAM such as G.SKILL F5-6800U4040G16GX2-TZ5S.)
- OS version and OS build
Thank you.

Hi. There is no exact time for idle freeze. But idle includes low cpu usage tasks like copying files, playing low cpu usage games and everything related to low cpu usage. Freeze never occurs if you let the system doing heavy task or cpu benchmarking.

If I set cpu voltage offset of +0.005 or -0.005 freeze will be more frequent and sometimes more than once per day.

I´d tried other brands boards, and cpu vcore never go below 0.700v. On any asus 600 series it goes out of specs as you can see on the image. On ddr5 ones and ddr4 ones. Alder lake working voltage is 0.700-1.4v Not 0.300v. Just show the image to any test team and they will notice something is wrong.

I ´d RMA the board many times, sometimes the same returned, sometimes other, but problem still there. Many users reported the same problem. That´s why disabling C-states has been so popular around this boards.

Will send that info by pm.