cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

TSC Unstable - Asus Strix ROG STRIX X299-E GAMING

Ganesh_S
Level 7
Dear Community,

Hardware Details

Intel Core i9 - 7900x
Asus ROG STRIX X299-E GAMING
Corsair - CMU16GX4M2C3000C15

Mother Board BIOS Version: 0702

Software Details

Operating System: Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.9 (Santiago)
Linux Kernel Version: 2.6.32-696.el6.x86_64

I am in need of assistance to resolve my following problem with my new hardware

Problem

TSC: Unable to calibrate against PIT
TSC: using PMTIMER reference calibration
TSC synchronization [CPU#0 -> CPU#1]:
Measured 227738976020810 cycles TSC warp between CPUs, turning off TSC clock.
Marking TSC unstable due to check_tsc_sync_source failed
Override clocksource tsc is unstable and not HRT compatible - cannot switch while in HRT/NOHZ mode

With the mainline Kernel Version: 4.12.9-1.el6.elrepo.x86_64

The error changes to

tsc: Detected 3300.000 MHz processor
[Firmware Bug]: TSC ADJUST: CPU0: -2835629506026 force to 0
TSC deadline timer enabled
[Firmware Bug]: TSC ADJUST differs: Reference CPU0: -2835629506026 CPU1: 0
[Firmware Bug]: TSC ADJUST differs: Reference CPU0: -2835629506026 CPU2: 0
[Firmware Bug]: TSC ADJUST differs: Reference CPU0: -2835629506026 CPU3: 0
[Firmware Bug]: TSC ADJUST differs: Reference CPU0: -2835629506026 CPU4: 0
[Firmware Bug]: TSC ADJUST differs: Reference CPU0: -2835629506026 CPU5: 0
[Firmware Bug]: TSC ADJUST differs: Reference CPU0: -2835629506026 CPU6: 0
[Firmware Bug]: TSC ADJUST differs: Reference CPU0: -2835629506026 CPU7: 0
[Firmware Bug]: TSC ADJUST differs: Reference CPU0: -2835629506026 CPU8: 0
[Firmware Bug]: TSC ADJUST differs: Reference CPU0: -2835629506026 CPU9: 0
clocksource: tsc: mask: 0xffffffffffffffff max_cycles: 0x31bad01a63d, max_idle_ns: 440795332416 ns
clocksource: Switched to clocksource tsc

This TSC unstable error is common and reproducible with listed below Linux Flavours and versions

1.) RHEL 6.9
2.) RHEL 7.4
3.) Ubuntu LTS - 16.04
4.) Ubuntu 17.04
5.) Fedora 26 - Desktop / Workstation / Server editions

Earlier with the ASUS Mother Board Model: Rampage IV Extreme, i had faced the similar problem with the lower version of BIOS. But after upgrading to higher BIOS versions, this TSC unstable problem is resolved. I could not recollect the exact version of BIOS with problem and without problem
449 Views
14 REPLIES 14

Hi All,

Update, even with this latest version of BIOS: 0802, the TSC unstable problem remain same.

dispat0r
Level 7
Hi,
TSC ist still UNSTABLE on the RAMPAGE VI APEX with BIOS 1004.
The TSC is somewhat working but sometimes strange things happen:

Geekbench error:
Geekbench has detected a 9.39s difference between the clock (152s) and the high-resolution timer (143s) on your system. Since this difference can affect benchmark results, Geekbench will not display the benchmark result

ntpdate offset (tsc):
16 Dec 18:32:19 ntpdate[14755]: step time server 192.53.103.108 offset 1.297016 sec
16 Dec 18:32:27 ntpdate[14771]: step time server 192.53.103.108 offset 0.180180 sec
16 Dec 18:32:35 ntpdate[14789]: step time server 192.53.103.108 offset 0.676349 sec

ntpdate offset (acpi_pm):
16 Dec 18:33:01 ntpdate[14952]: step time server 192.53.103.108 offset 0.066387 sec
16 Dec 18:33:09 ntpdate[14970]: step time server 192.53.103.108 offset 0.067204 sec
16 Dec 18:33:16 ntpdate[15004]: step time server 192.53.103.108 offset 0.066966 sec

I have this issue with my ASUS X299-A Prime and i9-7940x. Due to this, my RTC clock drifts about 4% which causes VLC to output audio with silences inserted every few seconds. I found a small Linux utility called "adjtimex" that will automatically calibrate the kernel RTC clock params so the clock is accurate. I posted instructions for using this at... https://askubuntu.com/questions/982882/audio-glitches-every-few-seconds-with-vlc-and-the-alc1220-cod...

It looks like the kernel folks are aware of this issue. There is a bug posted on Bugzilla that identifies the root cause a a spread-spectrum clock chip. See https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=197299

Late to the party here.. but 4.14 appears to have the correct workarounds for x299.. testing with an x7900 chip, this is the sort of message you want to see to show the calibration is correct:

[ 3.425243] tsc: Refined TSC clocksource calibration: 3312.001 MHz

I believe it was these 2 patches:

> 341102c3ef29 ("x86/tsc: Add option that TSC on Socket 0 being non-zero is valid")
> 41e7864ab5ce ("x86/tsc: Drastically reduce the number of firmware bug warnings")

so 4.12 should work, 4.14 should remove log spam


bivouac0 wrote:
I have this issue with my ASUS X299-A Prime and i9-7940x. Due to this, my RTC clock drifts about 4% which causes VLC to output audio with silences inserted every few seconds. I found a small Linux utility called "adjtimex" that will automatically calibrate the kernel RTC clock params so the clock is accurate. I posted instructions for using this at... https://askubuntu.com/questions/982882/audio-glitches-every-few-seconds-with-vlc-and-the-alc1220-cod...

It looks like the kernel folks are aware of this issue. There is a bug posted on Bugzilla that identifies the root cause a a spread-spectrum clock chip. See https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=197299

Ramalama
Level 7
i have the same problem with TSC, the main problem is, the longer the PC runs, the more problems are comming, the pc gets after a time stuttering, or better to say somehow laggy...

And the whole hackintosh community have this problem... you can read there tons about the x299 and TSC... there is even a customized bios available for the Rampage 6 Extreme and the x299 Strix...
But however we have no official fix from asus or intel...

Cheers!