Asus Armoury Crate

Peter Rattey

Peter Rattey

Peter Rattey

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Joined
2 May 2020
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1
Hi guys - Just finished building my new PC from OC. Asus Hero XI, 9900 KS, Asus water cpu water cooler, and 1280 Ti. Running stable at 5.1.

Have had real problems with Asus Software. Armoury Crate is installed directly by the Bios the first time you install Windows. It ran fine for a day until I installed Aura sync. Then the whole RGB system failed. No lighting, no display on the cooler and Armoury crate refused to recognise any of my hardware.

Now realise Armoury Crate is really flakey. After uninstalling and reinstalling it ten times I could still not get it to recognise my hardware. Have now reformatted my C drive, reinstalled windows and it is working but I am waiting for the next fail. It seems Armoury Crate leaves bits of code all over your computer that are impossible to uninstall. On reinstallation conflicts with the older code stops it working. So my message is never ever uninstall Armoury Crate.

Have any of you had the same problem???
 
First time I've heard of software installing itself so I did some Googling and it appears that Asus Armoury Crate can appear even with no internet connection - I can't say that sits will with me at all.
During testing for our Intel Core i9-9900K review we found out that new ASUS Z390 motherboards automatically install software and drivers to your Windows 10 System, without the need for network access, and without any user knowledge or confirmation. This process happens in complete network-isolation (i.e. the machine has no Internet or LAN access). Our Windows 10 image is based on Windows 10 April 2018 Update and lacks in-built drivers for the integrated network controllers.

Upon first boot, with the machine having no LAN or Internet connectivity, we were greeted by an ASUS-specific window in the bottom right corner of our screen, asking whether we'd like to install the network drivers and download "Armoury Crate". This got us curious and we scanned the system for any files that aren't part of the standard MS Windows installation. We discovered three ASUS-signed files in our Windows 10 System32 folder, which, so it seems, magically appeared on our harddrive out of thin air. Upon further investigation we also found a new, already running, system service called "AsusUpdateCheck."

These files could not have come from either our Windows image or the network, leaving the motherboard's 16-megabyte UEFI BIOS as the only suspect. The files themselves, which total around 3.6 MB in size, appear harmless, and belong to an ASUS-made program called "ASUS Armoury Crate." This program fetches the latest drivers for your hardware from ASUS servers, and installs them for you in an automated process with little user-intervention. This is a very useful feature, as it establishes a method to install network driver and other drivers easily, without the need for a physical driver disc (in times where nobody has an optical drive anymore). After digging around in the UEFI BIOS, we managed to find a fairly nondescript option "Download and Install ARMOURY CRATE app", which of course defaults to "on"; and it's not easy to find, being located in the "Tool" section of the BIOS setup.
Click to expand...
ASUS Z390 Motherboards Automatically Push Software into Your Windows Installation - TechPowerUp
 
You should be given the option to install, in which case do not do it. I just get the latest drivers of the asus web site and when i do clean install, i make sure the rig is not connect to router and only have one harddrive connected (boot drive).
 
Armoury Crate is a buggy hot mess of a joke. It, and the associated Asus AI Suite and related tools are basically malware-like in the amount of apps and drivers they spray around the system with no audit trail (hence no uninstall). I spent hours uninstalling them manually and combing the registry after their drivers started bluescreening my Threadripper system. Their uninstall process is broken and they don't have a clean-up/uninstaller tool any more. It's pathetic. You need to disable the Armoury Crate option in BIOS (though it shouldn't be there to start with imo). I so wish I'd waited the extra week(s) for the Gigabyte boards to come in stock.
 
so is all ASUS stuff glitchy crap? My mobo had some inhouse voltage protector "feature" that triggered a couple times for no apparent reason, and the consensus on the internet, included ASUS themselves was to just remove it cos it don't work :-D don't think i'd ever buy another ASUS mobo, to be honest.
 
Peter Rattey said:
Hi guys - Just finished building my new PC from OC. Asus Hero XI, 9900 KS, Asus water cpu water cooler, and 1280 Ti. Running stable at 5.1.

Have had real problems with Asus Software. Armoury Crate is installed directly by the Bios the first time you install Windows. It ran fine for a day until I installed Aura sync. Then the whole RGB system failed. No lighting, no display on the cooler and Armoury crate refused to recognise any of my hardware.

Now realise Armoury Crate is really flakey. After uninstalling and reinstalling it ten times I could still not get it to recognise my hardware. Have now reformatted my C drive, reinstalled windows and it is working but I am waiting for the next fail. It seems Armoury Crate leaves bits of code all over your computer that are impossible to uninstall. On reinstallation conflicts with the older code stops it working. So my message is never ever uninstall Armoury Crate.

Have any of you had the same problem???
Click to expand...

Not sure if you are aware so sorry if you know this already but you can't / should not install Aura Sync and Armoury Crate. I think it's in the pre-req info for Armoury Crate where it says Aura Sync needs to be uninstalled. That might explain why you had the issues. I must admit, Aura Sync was better than this Armoury Crate. However, it seems to have improved stability wise for me with the latest version which dropped recently. I'm on an Asus X470-F ROG Gaming mobo and not had any forced installs... always had to manually install it if I wanted it.

Thanks.
 
After my build I had Armoury Crate running for a while and it was fine. I even installed the Corsair add in for it and it even synced up my RAM. The corsair website advised not to install aura sync so didn't. Anyway, yesterday it just failed big time. Booted up and no devices. When clicking on Aura sync tab, it just closes down.
I then manually un-installed all of the elements and re-installed and it worked. However, it failed again after a re-boot.
I discovered a couple of things today which is that there is an official uninstall program by Asus to remove it. I used this, reinstalled but the same happens.
Even updated to the latest motherboard BIOS (Asus Z490 TUF Gaming) and it does the same. Re-installed set the devices (MB, ARGB, KB, Mouse, RAM) to a static colour, rebooted and again fail. Uninstalled and all devices are now on a static colour.
This coincided with a windows update so just have to wait for another version.
Asus ROG forum is full of complaints with no feedback from ASUS. I have been an Asus fan for decades, no more, but I am going to have to put up with this now until my rig goes out of date due to the investment.

One potential clue I did pick up though was that when I cleaned the registry using CCleaner, it looks like Armoury Crate triggered a load of firewall errors in the registry. Might be worth investigating for someone more familiar with Windows than I am.

PS. I found the uninstall app looking for the Asus M5 mouse utilities. Look there and you will find it.
 
TheMightyTen said:
There should be an option in bios to switch off the automatic installation of Armoury Crate
Click to expand...
There is an option in the BIOS on my motherboard to disable the auto install, but even when turned off, it asks you to install it. You can say no though on booting to Windows and it skips it from then on.
If you do not have it, look for a BIOS update and you may get lucky.
 
Gave it one more chance last night and reinstalled - couldn't resist.
As expected, all devices appeared. It then did some auto update thing and all of the devices disappeared again. Lost patience and thought to deal with it this morning.

Booted up this morning and all the devices are showing and working and it has been reliable all of today. Lets see how that goes Asus - you are hanging in there by the skin of your teeth.
 
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