[lemonhazed]

Hi all, I got back into PC building this month after a few years out and bought a few used parts from eBay

5900x
Aorus Pro X570
8Gb Gskill F4 3200C14Q2 -64GAK (4 sticks)
Noctua NHD15
1500w Silverstone Strider Gold PSU

So my experience for OC'ing is all on Intel, not had a AMD CPU since Phenom 6 core, and I didn't OC that. I updated BIOS to the latest one F36D and all was well until I set some manual PBO limits last night trying to eek out some gains, (200w 135edc 180tdc) nothing spectacular and during a cinebench run the PC crashed, but since then its been acting up, at first it wouldn't boot at all, then after several CPU re-seat's each time I would get random ram sticks/slots problems... some ram slots wouldn't work, then other ram slots stopped working, then all worked fine with all 4 sticks inserted, then it would only work with 2 sticks and now it seems one particular stick of ram if inserted will not let the PC boot, all other sticks work fine in any of the other ram slots.....

Could my PBO settings really have caused all this? As before the crash everything worked fine, I know my Ram isnt on the QVL but its basically Gskill ram for OEM's.

I don't think its a hardware issue, as they worked after the crash and even now all is fine bar 1 stick of Ram, has the BIOS been corrupted? Should I reinstall a slightly older BIOS? Should I return the RAM and get a newer/better one? (I paid £20 a stick for Samsung Bdie..!) Is there something I am missing, something that I have neglected, some BIOS setting?

Any help or guidance or experiences shared would be a God send and hugely appreciated as I am seriously regretting getting an AMD CPU as it stands, its been so much mither!!

Thanks in advance

 

[lemonhazed]

It's not AMD's fault there is something going on with your PC. You may have been sold faulty parts which is why the person had them up for sale. That's the risk with used parts.

They were working fine at first until I dialled in that PBO limit setting, seems OC'ing AMD is a fragile affair. I remember building a Zen 1 system for my in laws and had a nightmare with RAM compatibility, it seems like RAM is a problem for me as well, after that PBO crash I just cant get this one stick of RAM to work.

I agree buying used is a gamble but I always buy used and always buy Intel CPU's never had an issue, just my luck my first AMD system in decades and its started off abysmally

Thanks for replying

 

[lemonhazed]

I would go back to F34... I think it's widely accepted by most of us that that particular bios has worked best. You're on a 5900x and don't need the newer BIOs more than likely. I find it quite strange that a RAM stick would die from just a PC crash but it's probably luck of the draw there or perhaps bad ram settings driving too much current through them. Try downgrading the bios to F34 and see how you go. At the very least you have the system booting and working.

Hi I ended up dropping back a BIOS revision to F36a....but same problem, the PC will just noit boot with that one particular ram in any of the slot's. I contacted the seller and he said he would send me another on the house, will have a look at going back to F34, I appreciate that Gskill Ares RAM is a maybe some weird OEM RAM but I do agree surely PBO limit settings shouldn't break a stick of RAM?? But what do I know eh?

Thanks for the reply, appreciated.

 

[lemonhazed]

Zen1 did have a problem with ram initially, as it was the first Zen architecture produced. However, it wasn't long before those problems were corrected with motherboard bios updates. It's no better with Intel when Intel releases a brand-new architecture CPU--a lot of bios teething is required torture for owners of new-architecture CPUs when they first come to market. I've been puttering along with a 3900X for > a couple of years and having no problems to speak of for most of that time.

If everything worked fine before you started tinkering with PBO settings then I would return all settings to where they were when you had no problems, initially. Zen2/3 CPUs do not overclock like Zen1/Intel legacy CPUs--not at all. You need to study up on Zen 2/3 PBO overclocking!

Your CPU does best if allowed to automatically overclock itself with its own internal boost routines--as it is designed to do. Remember that when attempting all-core overclocks with Zen3 CPUs you lose the ability of the CPU to boost--meaning you will lose a lot of single-core performance. You went straight to Zen3 from a Zen1/Intel background, and you should dispose of any notions that things work like they did with those legacy architecture CPUs. The most important thing to do now is to get your system stable again, imo! Good luck...

Also, I really cannot recommend buying used because if you have problems with the hardware then you cannot eliminate the hardware itself as the problem--as you can do with new/warrantied hardware. When you buy used you do not know where it's been or what has been done with it!

Hi I agree I went into Zen 3 with a Intel OC mindset, first mistake....I have got it back to being stable, it crashed once on desktop so I raised the curve optimiser (I don't think this CPU is na good OC'er at all...and have had zero problems since then, but tbh all i have done is web browsing, will be setting it up as a real time audio machine over this weekend and next month will get a GPU so lets see how things go then, but all seems ok so far, apart from that one stick of RAM that means I cant boot.

One thing I did notice is that when I try insert the troublesome stick of ram in and it fails to boot, once I remove it and it does boot up again I have to re-set BIOS as its been cleared back to default?!? I changed the CMOS battery but it still does it, now that's proper strange!

I do agree about buying used usually, I did take a hell of a chance but bought from sellers with high ratings on eBay and I have had decent experiences previously with Ebay returns.

Cheers

 

[lemonhazed]

Hi I ended up dropping back a BIOS revision to F36a....but same problem, the PC will just noit boot with that one particular ram in any of the slot's. I contacted the seller and he said he would send me another on the house, will have a look at going back to F34, I appreciate that Gskill Ares RAM is a maybe some weird OEM RAM but I do agree surely PBO limit settings shouldn't break a stick of RAM?? But what do I know eh?

Thanks for the reply, appreciated.

Edit - One thing I did notice is that when I try insert the troublesome stick of ram in and it fails to boot, once I remove it and it does boot up again I have to re-set BIOS as its been cleared back to default?!? I changed the CMOS battery but it still does it, now that's proper strange!

 

[lemonhazed]

AMD OC with PBO is pretty solid, no way you can get those issues with just dialing in some values.
RAM compatibility with the board can be an issue, it's Gigabyte, but it's very unlikely since they are Samsung and are in the QVL.

More likely it's an HW issue.
I'd first clean the DIMM contacts, could be the easiest solution.
Use contacts cleaner or thermal paste cleaner.
Also alcohol but take care it's very pure, preferably isopropanol otherwise could leave a halo.

Inspect also the DIMM slots for dust, use a clean paintbrush to clean them or air.

Since you also reseated many times the CPU take it out and inspect the pins.
Could be there's thermal paste around a pin or a bended pin (some of these pins go to the DIMMs).
To remove thermal paste you can use a paintbrush but to remove thermal paste in the socket or fix a bended pin it's not easy at all.
In that case better to seek professional service.



I had a similar issue with SVM and my old 5950X B0.
AMD replaced it. I would ask for RMA unless you know it works on another board.

Hi, I cleaned all DIMM slots, CPU and CPU socket with WD40 electrical contact cleaner, compressed air and a brush and got no joy, remember no matter what slot I put this stick of ram in it just wont boot.....One thing I did notice is that when I try insert the troublesome stick of ram in and it fails to boot, once I remove it and it does boot up again I have to re-set BIOS as its been cleared back to default?!? I changed the CMOS battery but it still does it, now that's proper strange!

Took several pics of the pins and zoomed right in and all seems fine, no thermal paste on the pins or in the CPU socket, it was working all ok at one point in time before

My RAM isnt actually on the Gigabyte x570 Pro QVL, I checked but it could be that because its an OEM model, the seller is sending a new stick of ram anyway FOC!!

Cheers

 

[lemonhazed]

Thanks for all the replies, you guys are a friendly bunch for sure and I appreciate the sharing of experiences and knowledge.

I have to say I am loving the 5900x its an absolute beast, its so cool P95, OCCT and TM5 stress tests included!

Also when testing for DPC driver calls and latency with LatencyMon I am astounded at how well behaved this whole system is compared to my old Intel system, which needed loads of tweaks to W10 to behave itself for real time audio work, super impressed with this AMD system so far.

Absolutely zero regrets going with Zen 3 what so ever, loving it.

 

[lemonhazed]

If you need good DPC latency try the Ultimate and Snappy power plans in my signature.

Hopefully it's just a faulty DIMM and you get a good one back.



If you don't want to spend a lot of time to find stable CO counts with CoreCycler, you can use the automatic calibration with Ryzen Master.

Just add a +2 to every count to be sure as it's too fast and quite bad in finding stable ones and then uninstall Ryzen Master.

I think it is a faulty DIMM I tried all the other DIMM slots and gave them a few hours TM5 test for good measure and all good.

I have a power plan from Bitsum which has done me really well, but will gladly try the one in your link thanks.

Never heard of core cycler but will have a nosey.

 

[lemonhazed]

If you need good DPC latency try the Ultimate and Snappy power plans in my signature.

Hopefully it's just a faulty DIMM and you get a good one back.



If you don't want to spend a lot of time to find stable CO counts with CoreCycler, you can use the automatic calibration with Ryzen Master.

Just add a +2 to every count to be sure as it's too fast and quite bad in finding stable ones and then uninstall Ryzen Master.

Is Ryzen master a better alternative to tinkering in BIOS? Also in Ryzen Master when I do a Cinebench MC test the CCD frequency numbers are ever sp slightly off? (eg 4.37 CCD1 4.35 CCD2) anything to that or is that normal behaviour?

Also when i go into profiles to look around in control mode section the PPT, TDC and EDC settings are showing maqx values of 900, 480 and 600, obviously I wont be using those settings but how comes it shows those numbers by default?

 

[lemonhazed]

Absolutely not, better in BIOS and Ryzen master uninstalled once done.



Normal throttling behavior.



That means those are the limits you have set in BIOS.
Double check the PBO settings and set proper values with Advanced mode.

SO play with RM and then set in BIOS? WIll have a play with RM then. Any favoured PBO setting's for 5900x stepping B0?

The PBO settings were with PBO limits set to "motherboard" "AUTO" sets them back to 142 95 140, which is default?

 

[lemonhazed]

Well, yes OC on Zen 3 can be tricky and OCing the CPU might break your RAM-OC.
Another tip is to use a BIOS with AGESA 1.2.0.3 as the newer ones reportedly are much harder to OC and are less stable when doing so.
And/or you use some tool like Project Hydra.

And yes it is a totally different approach than OCing the "older" (don't know about the new ones) Intels-CPUs where you put in some more or less voltage apply an All-Core OC and call it a day...;-)
I personally actually didn’t bother to OC my Zen 3 CPUs and concentrated on a decent RAM OC. OCing my 3900X worked well though and it hits easily 4,7GHz on 2 cores.

But for starters you should just Clear CMOS and start again fresh as user Waltc already suggested.

BTW: Did you already look into this thread: (1) OFFICIAL 5900X and 5950X two chiplet Zen 3 CPUs Overclocking thread | Overclock.net

Best regards,
Medizinmann

Thanks for the OC thread.

 

[lemonhazed]

Yes, try to set with Advanced those you mentioned in your first post (200w 135edc 180tdc).



Yes you can play with it but mostly use it for the CO Curve Optimizer function.
Use the Per Core and check what you get.
Sometimes it's total BS, like you get all -30 and they are unstable, sometimes gives you something decent to start.
I'd remove at least 2 counts from what it's giving you, so if you get -16 for Core 0, set -14 or -12 in BIOS.

PBO Settings depends on the sample quality.
You should check with some benchmarks.
Scalar 4x-6x but sometimes is better 1x.
Boost Clock as high as it holds and doesn't crash.
Check with the boosttester in my signature and HWInfo.

Thank you, takes so long to runt these tests! lol whats a good freq and CPU voltage reading for a 5900x multi/single?

4.3ghz Multi, 4.9Single @ 1.475 60c range for me with default 142/95/140 and -8 on curve optimiser

 

[lemonhazed]

That depends on the benchmark workload, for default limits and -8 looks good

That was running cinebench R23, well thats good to hear.
So seems my original problem was just a dodgy stick of RAM......

Using RM is a real easy way of OC'ing, it dosent seem able to get to 5ghz on single core with the same settings (PPT etc) that achieve 4.4 on multicore, but I am still super impressed with this 5900x. loving the low temps at load, and low DPC latency readings, looking forward to turning this into a gaming/DAW in the next few weeks!

Going to try and tinker with some PBO settings to try and get closer to 5ghz.

 

[lemonhazed]

Quick question if anyone can answer, does anyone have a external HDD like THIS attached to their Aorus X570?

 

[lemonhazed]

I have a 2 bay one, no issues

I did have a question to ask you regarding if I could stop the enclosure restarting everytime I restart the PC its connected too? Is there an option in BIOS or something??

It takes ages to spin the disks up and makes posting and any restarts on the PC take around 2mins, but to be honest I have just sold my unit on eBay over the weekend, I had the 4 bay one, but thinking just to go and get a NAS now.

 

[lemonhazed]

You disable usb storage in the bios, no wait time for post with usb hdd.

Should be better as the bios doesn't wait for hdds to spin up.

Of course! Thank you. I have seen that option in BIOS, so that means disable just for post?

 

[lemonhazed]

I quit using it because I got tired of it not working after a bios update for a period of time--it usually took weeks before they'd upgrade their software to match the bios update. Driver updates, I always go directly to the manufacturer's website of every device in my system--cannot possibly recommend this highly enough. BTW, I haven't done a fresh install of Windows in several years--as I have TB's of programs I don't wish to have to reinstall! All of my Windows 10 and Win11 build installs (too numerous to count--roughly 1-2 a month) are strictly upgrades, and so far the system is working fine. I upgraded from Win10 to Win11 a year ago, and even my Group Policy settings carried over without a problem (most notably the one which nixes automatic driver updates, which you should definitely be doing, imo.) Glad you got your formatting accomplished!

You sound like me, most hiccups on PC hardware happen because of Windows, tweaking it is a must.

Running a stripped out tweaked W10 and its super stable, super low DPC latency (perfect for DAW's/Gaming) all with full Windows security, Windows store and able to get latest security updates.

Its like night and day compared to a full fat windows experience lol

 

[lemonhazed]

Did you do this yourself or download a program to do it automatically?
I wouldn't use some programs people make as I remember someone had to reinstall Windows as they stripped out too much and couldn't use Windows store.

I have always ran full fat Windows and do not have any issues.

Stripped out is probably the wrong word, more a fairly tweaked as in bare minimum services running and a custom power plan

 

[lemonhazed]

I really have zero problems with Windows (see sig).. The problem I had that I related in that post was with the Gigabyte update software program that comes with the motherboard, which I stopped using years ago for the reasons I stated in that post. Also, I tried the whole disabling services thing years ago and stopped after discovering it really didn't do me any benefit and wasn't worth the trouble. It was much easier to just buy more ram. If you enjoy doing it, however, that's great...

Fair play, you make a good point tbh, I don't go wild as I used to but I do enjoy a good ol tinker, I like a nice minimal Windows experience lol, the results are massively noticeable especially in things like DPC calls, all of which means zero pops and clicks etc when recording.

 

[lemonhazed]

Anyone have any idea why from a cold boot sometimes my PC wont output a signal until after I restart it?