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.

[MonstyB]

Okay I'm done with some testing with the voltage offset on this B660-I (CPU : i5 12500)

Same results, it freezes at -0.05V during boot.

Using -0.020V I can reach Windows Desktop but I did get a freeze when trying to reboot.

I hope we will get a fix soon, it's already fixed on my MSI B660M Mortar and I know my CPU can do -0.05V without any freeze.

Regards

[STARRAIN_ROG]

Hi MonstyB,
Do you have freezing issue at idle or only during boot?
Do you have the issue on bios 1603 with bios all default settings?
If you disable C-states in bios, does the freezing issue disappear?
May I have the serial number of your motherboard via PM?
Thank you.

[MonstyB]

STARRAIN@ROG wrote:
Hi MonstyB,
Do you have freezing issue at idle or only during boot?
Do you have the issue on bios 1603 with bios all default settings?
If you disable C-states in bios, does the freezing issue disappear?
May I have the serial number of your motherboard via PM?
Thank you.

Freezing mainly occurred at the beginning of boot process, when the windows loading spinner starts spinning.

I also had a freeze during shutdown, when I clicked "reboot" in windows. Windows tried to log me off but it froze instantly.

I'm gonna test with C states disabled (what about speedstep ?)

Everything was set to default in BIOS except RAM profile that is set to XMP (Corsair Vengeance 5600 CL36)

I will send you my motherboard's S/N in PM in a few minutes and keep this post updated with my results.

Thanks !

[MonstyB]

Okay so the results are interesting.

Disabling the C-States did stop freezing issues... but in this scenario, applying a negative core voltage offset sacrifices almost all the CPU's performance :'(

Here are the multi-thread results with CPU-Z (C-States disabled) :

No offset : 5100
-0.025V : 4000
-0.050V : 2500

How could the performance be that impacted by such a small undervolting ?

[MonstyB]

No offset / C-States disabled


-0.05V / C-States disabled


-0.01V (best offset with no freezes) / C-States enabled


Core voltage is higher with a negative offset :confused:

[trihy]

Also check your vcore on hwinfo.

Vid is not real vcore, it's just what the core ask for.

[STARRAIN_ROG]

Hi MonstyB,
Thank you for your reply.
Have you tried bios 1603 with bios all default settings(no OC and no XMP)? Did it also freeze at the beginning of boot process and during shutdown?
or it only freezes after adjust voltage offset?
Thank you.

[MonstyB]

I am using bios 1603.

It freezes during boot process only when adjusting core voltage offset.

I have juste made a test with -0.020V with everything else @stock, it froze when windows finished loading (so I guess it means voltage was too low when the CPU entered idle state)

This board would be perfect without this issue.

At the moment it sounds like a deal breaker for me 😞

[trihy]

Bios 1620 was released today.

But bug still there. So keep using the beta one.

[MonstyB]

Too bad this beta bios does not exist for the ITX motherboardÂ*