General Discussions

[disturbedbrain]

Hi everyone, I'll try to make sure theres no fluff in this post and get straight to the point. As some of you might be aware Gigabyte are doing a god awful job at supporting and fixing the firmware of their B350 and X370 based boards (http://forum.gigabyte.us/thread/1542/am4-beta-bios-thread?page=111&scrollTo=18789) it's gotten so bad that there is talk by Gigabyte customers of a class action lawsuit because they are repeatedly being ignored by Gigabyte and the situation has gone on for a year or more now. I feel that the disregard being shown by Gigabyte to their customers and failure to address the simplest of firmware bugs to the less technically adept people at least out there who don't know where to turn reflects badly on AMD as a result of Gigabytes (in)actions to those less technically knowledgeable people so AMDs public image takes an undeserved beating. I ask that anyone reading this spreads the word and that if anyone knows how to reach AMD in any way to tell them about this situation and ask if there is anything they can do to get Gigabyte to acknowledge these problems and actually fix them. Thats all we want, some firmware that fixes the problems we are having. Below is a list of current known issues with the latest F22 firmware that apply to all of Gigabytes B350 and X370 boards either in part or completely.

1. XMP is entirely or partly broken even on memory kits Gigabyte themselves list as fully compatible on their QVL list.

2. Disabling Gear Down mode with XMP enabled causes a no POST.

3. Half or more of the advanced memory timings do not display default SPD \ UEFI values next to them

A screenshot will best illustrate and explain this one;

4. When HPET is disabled a 0d POST code system hang occurs when trying to restart the system from Windows

5. P-State overclocking is broken... again.

6. When overclocking the CPU vcore with constant voltage (likely applies when overclocking the CPU with offset voltage as well) VCORE SOC Voltage is set extremely high when left at the "Auto" setting (1.236v-1.248v).

7. Setting the Orange LED profile in RGB Fusion turns the LEDs yellow. Incorrect preset values. Should be Red: 255, Green: 19, Blue: 0.

Even the security hole with Gigabyte gaming motherboard firmware failing to recognise the GOP on the Nvidia GTX10xx video card range so making CSM necessary and Secure Boot unattainable has only recently been fixed and newly introduced bugs with the latest firmware such as broken HPET must surely be particularly eyebrow raising as AMD recommend disabling it as par for the course. I as have countless others tried getting Gigabytes attention, or anyone from Gigabyte in general, in their forums to make them aware of these problems as have I tried contacting their support which when I did eventually get responses after replying to anything they asked me (in my experience it was not uncommon to wait a week or more for a single reply) I mostly got excuses from Gigabyte, and poor ones at that. At one stage I was asked to get back to them after trying a beta firmware they sent me to verify if the problem was fixed. Trying to be helpful and aid them in squashing bugs I took an entire weekend to fully test the beta firmware they sent me and gave them a full report explaining clearly each bug I found and how to reproduce it only to never get any reply back. I still have not got a reply back to this day either, its been at least 2 months now since then.

Thanks for reading guys and I hope we can get some momentum going to get Gigabyte to take their thumbs out of their arses.

[elstaci]

AMD can't really do anything, in my own opinion, since this is strictly a Gigabyte issue with the actual Motherboard BIOS. But if nothing else, by posting here, you get all AMD users with Gigabyte Motherboards information about the faulty BIOSes from Gigabyte.

Even if the BIOS bug affects AMD/Nvidia Graphics, Not much can be done as far as Graphic drivers.

[black_zion]

I've never supported Gigabyte because of their practice of releasing the same exact motherboard as a new "revision" then dropping support for the previous one, something which may work with short term models Intel uses, but not long term sockets AMD uses. After my flirtation with Shuttle and DFI way way way back in the Athlon XP days, I've always gone with ASUS.

[elstaci]

I am a big Fan of Asus. I normally try to purchase an Asus Motherboard or component when upgrading. I did have a problem once with Asus BIOS update. The previous BIOS update caused my Computer to not boot up to Windows 10 (installed 3 different times with same results). Needed to install the earlier BIOS to get it to work. But the last and so far final BIOS Update has worked like a charm.

I have the Asus Sabertooth 990FX gen.2.0 Motherboard.

[kingfish]

I just saw this notice:

ASUS ROG STRIX X470-F motherboard packaging leaked

[disturbedbrain]

As an update to my initial post I'll add these details as well that come from someone who has looked at the Gigabyte firmware in a good level of detail.

Missing options / features in F22 (AX370 Gaming 5)

Overclocking & memory related

CLDO_VDDP control

CLDO_VDDP voltage

Last present: Firmware F9f

BankGroupSwap

Last present: Firmware F9f

BankGroupSwapAlt

Last Present: Never

Channel Interleaving

Rank Interleaving

Both present but need exposing through the use of AMIBCP

General useful options missing

AMD PSP

Last present: Never

Spread Spectrum and related options

USB MSI (Message Signal Interrupt)

MsiDis in HPET

Chipset Power Saving Features

USB PHY Power Down

C1E Support

All present, but needs exposing with AMIBCP. Disabling USB MSI works around the bug some (all?) USB keyboards have of not waking from sleep if allowed to enter sleep mode while in the UEFI.

Timer Tick Tracking

Clock Interrupt Tag

EHCI Traffic Handling

Fusion Message C Multi-Core

Fusion Message C State

All present but need exposing with AMIBCP. Timer Tick and Clock Interrupt are particularly useful for pre-emptive multitasking and could potentially resolve SMT anomalies in certain applications.

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It is an absolute insult that options other manufacturers are and have been including with their firmware for a very long time Gigabyte are apparently removing for no good reason or have never given the user access to despite them being in the firmware.

[elstaci]

Nice, but I figure I have at least 2-3 more years left on my board unless the FX CPU goes south. Then I will upgrade everything.

[disturbedbrain]

Well, when you do upgrade just avoid GB. They are by far the worst manufacturer you can buy from. Even Biostar are better and I'd call their firmware on the sloppy side but its nowhere near as bad as GB firmware, not even close. GB simply leave their customers high and dry.

[disturbedbrain]

Another small update for people, I tried contacting Gigabyte UK on their Aorus Facebook page as they are very active there about all these bugs a couple days ago and still no reply... I'll update if there is a reply but it's safe to say as of now that if GB can be very active then not reply to anyone the instant the bug reports start coming it, not even an acknowledgement, that hards puts them in a good light does it?

[hardcoregames_]

disturbedbrain wrote:

Another small update for people, I tried contacting Gigabyte UK on their Aorus Facebook page as they are very active there about all these bugs a couple days ago and still no reply... I'll update if there is a reply but it's safe to say as of now that if GB can be very active then not reply to anyone the instant the bug reports start coming it, not even an acknowledgement, that hards puts them in a good light does it?

I was looking on their twitter feeds and I see lots of gripes there too