Asus TUF Gaming B650-Plus Wifi BIOS updated, EXPO now seems to work (yay?)

[keyser van someone]

Gskill F5-6000J3038F16G SK Hynix 2x16GB and Asus TUF Gaming B650-Plus Wifi motherboard, I've flashed to the latest BIOS for the long overdue logo security fix.

Before I could only get EXPO timings to work at 5600Mhz now the proper EXPO at 6000 seems to be working so far (30-38-38-96-134 1.35V).

Should this be all good then? I take it the RAM is in fact great and it was a motherboard issue before? Should I do some memtest?

OT but, I forgot about the other random hoops to jump through, everything was default again and the BIOS doesn't showing when connected to display port, only HDMI, then video was jerky and Hitman was 2 fps, remembered this from a year ago, disabled iGPU in BIOS, games and video are now fixed! sigh

Before the BIOS saves changes it gives a review of the pending changes - now this is slightly better as I can make a note of that and using this at least know the name of the settings, then I just have to find them.

I find the following equally confusing/boring/annoying: instead of 'DRAM voltage' it's called 'DRAM VDD Voltage / DRAM VDDQ voltage / PMIC Voltages sync all PMICS / Memory VDD voltage' and I have no idea what they mean and also gl finding them in the BIOS. also EXPO I or II? I closed my eyes and picked one /annual bios update rant over cya next year

 

[Tetras]

Should this be all good then? I take it the RAM is in fact great and it was a motherboard issue before?

Possibly, was your BIOS pretty old?

I find the following equally confusing/boring/annoying: instead of 'DRAM voltage' it's called 'DRAM VDD Voltage / DRAM VDDQ voltage / PMIC Voltages sync all PMICS / Memory VDD voltage' and I have no idea what they mean and also gl finding them in the BIOS.

This is from a THG article:

DRAM VDD: This voltage is one of the most critical as it powers the memory chips. For everyday use, we recommend keeping it below 1.4V for safe measure.

DRAM VDDQ: The voltage feeds the memory chip's I/O. VDD and VDDQ typically go hand-in-hand. However, in some cases, desynchronizing the voltages and running a higher VDDQ (50 mV - 100 mV) can help stabilize memory overclocks.

CPU VDDQ: The voltage that goes to the processor's memory controller. 1.2V is sufficient for DDR5-4800 to DDR5-6000, whereas 1.4V should be high enough for DDR5-6200 and beyond.

VCCSA: This is the voltage for the system agent but helps for memory overclocks. It's one of the more sensitive voltages, so use small increments. For example, 1.25V to 1.35V is sufficient for most memory overclocks. It's best to keep VCCSA under 1.4V.

How to Overclock DDR5 RAM

The best performance is free performance.

www.tomshardware.com

I believe PMIC (on-stick power management) voltages are: DRAM VDD and DRAM VDDQ.

also EXPO I or II?

Can you show us a screenshot from CPU-Z's SPD tab?

 

[keyser van someone]

Possibly, was your BIOS pretty old?

Yeah I don't recall flashing it since I bought it, been meaning to do it but BIOS flashing usually has these hicups along the way. The first one being I downloaded the wrong BIOS a few times motherboard names!

Thanks for the info.

I found this BIOS walkthrough for my motherboard, would you advise these as well? I think this might help with boot times, which are long so far on this, but not an issue if you never shut down

in the RAM timings menu:
power down enable - Enabled
memory context restore - Enabled

Can anyone recommend a motherboard for the great BIOS menu experience, ease of tweaking and flashing?

Sometimes updating the BIOS things gets changed around so old guides are then outdated to some degree, and some descriptions are missing completely.

 

[Tetras]

I found this BIOS walkthrough for my motherboard, would you advise these as well? I think this might help with boot times, which are long so far on this, but not an issue if you never shut down

If the boot times bother you, sure, but in some cases they aren't stable and have to be reverted.

About CPU-Z, I was hoping it would show each of the EXPO profiles, but CPU-Z is only showing one.

 

[keyser van someone]

About CPU-Z, I was hoping it would show each of the EXPO profiles, but CPU-Z is only showing one.

I installed newer version of CPU-Z but that's all it shows, exported info as txt and only shows this EXPO profile below:

EXPO profile
VDD Voltage 1.350 Volts
VDDQ Voltage 1.350 Volts
VPP Voltage 1.800 Volts
Min Cycle time 0.333 ns (3000 MHz)
Max CL 30.0
Min tRP 12.66 ns
Min tRCD 12.66 ns
Min tRAS 31.98 ns
Min tRFC 0.29 ns
EXPO timings table CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC @ frequency
EXPO #1 30.0-38-38-96-134 @ 3000 MHz

and this: EXPO yes, rev. 1.0 - so I guess I should choose EXPO I?

24 hours and no issues so far, I'll review settings make notes, save a profile and run a memtest overnight.

 

[Tetras]

and this: EXPO yes, rev. 1.0 - so I guess I should choose EXPO I?

24 hours and no issues so far, I'll review settings make notes, save a profile and run a memtest overnight.

CPU-Z truncates the profiles so it is possible that HWINFO would show it instead, but anyway, if you're running stable I guess it is fine either way.

 

[keyser van someone]

Well I forgot to run memtest, will run overnight. Before my PC wouldn't even post when trying EXPO, so it's already much better! I'm hopeful it's not being overclocked its just running at the rated EXPO profile.

 

[Tetras]

it's not being overclocked its just running at the rated EXPO profile.

I know what you're saying, but technically it is being overclocked, because you're running the memory faster than the CPU's memory controller is rated for. EXPO: AMD extended profiles for overclocking.

Before my PC wouldn't even post when trying EXPO, so it's already much better! I'm hopeful

My suspicion is you're fine now too, they're improving memory compatibility and performance all the time, so you've probably got a lot of updates between the two BIOS versions.

 

[JollyJamma]

Well I forgot to run memtest, will run overnight. Before my PC wouldn't even post when trying EXPO, so it's already much better! I'm hopeful it's not being overclocked its just running at the rated EXPO profile.

EXPO is overclocking, it’s just an automatic option rather than the manual option of setting the timings and speed.

Memtest isn’t very good, rather use Testmem5 with the ANTA777 extreme profile.

 

[keyser van someone]

Thanks I'll try that. Memtest all good overnight, actually left it running today as well. Never had such issue getting into a BIOS before, F2 apparently doesn't cut it, but got in eventually and force it to wait until I press esc before booting Windows. I win.

 

[Tetras]

Never had such issue getting into a BIOS before, F2 apparently doesn't cut it, but got in eventually and force it to wait until I press esc before booting Windows. I win.

I always go into the BIOS through Windows now, got tired of the futile hammering of my keyboard

 

[keyser van someone]

I always go into the BIOS through Windows now, got tired of the futile hammering of my keyboard

Yeah I tried that and even then it would still sometimes just go back to Windows, or maybe in my desperation I was also hammering the keys which somehow cancelled my previous request to enter the BIOS. Part of the issue is my monitor takes a long time to show the image from an off state, when it should be instant. And display port doesn't show the BIOS screen, has to be HDMI.

27 passes of memtest all good. I will check other tests, maybe Testmem5 but I think the BIOS update has sorted the previous EXPO issue. It should be plug and play and now it sort of is. Now will make a note so I remember all this for next year

 

[sx_turbo]

This motherboard was very unstable with or without expo when first released, with each bios update stability improved a lot. Think the last bios update I done was earlier in the year and the system has been as steady as a rock so I'm loathed to upset the apple cart now with new bios updates, think I'll wait to update until I either have issues or want to install a later CPU.