Biostar Racing X370-GTN ITX AM4

This MoBo's BIOS sucks a lot
1. Lot's of options have absolutely no explanation
2. No fan curve to control fan, only linear dependency
3. No way to set voltages manually, only offsets from predefined list
4. After booting Windows it drains all the voltage it can. My VCore is at 1.34, and VID is at 1.55, so CPU gets really hot, although there is no workload on a CPU at all, it doesn't drop it's clock either. I have to open my browser, and than voltages\clocks switch to dynamic mode from static

I agree. However, about point 4: you just have to wait a little while longer after booting Windows and then the CPU clocks down and the voltages drop. You don't have to open a browser for that. I think it's normal that during the boot process the CPU is working hard. Even at default settings, you will see the VCore jump to over 1.4V sometimes when it turboboosts.

About point 3, it especially sucks that you can't set negative offsets. My VCore is at 1.36 now because the smallest offset (from 1.35V apparently) you can use is +0.02, while I know that I can run at 1.25V at this speed.
 
I agree. However, about point 4: you just have to wait a little while longer after booting Windows and then the CPU clocks down and the voltages drop. You don't have to open a browser for that. I think it's normal that during the boot process the CPU is working hard.
I waited. CPU usage went down to 0, however clocks and voltage stayed at max. I want it to work as it should from start. I don't think I had this issue with old BIOS, though.

What are your power options? I need to check if I get similar behavior.
If you are talking about BIOS - it's optimized defaults. If you are talking about Windows power options - it's Ryzen Balanced with lowered min CPU state to 40-60% (i don't remember exactly). I tried to switch Windows power options when Windows just booted, but it had no immediate effect on CPU. On old BIOS I could see the changes immediately. I'll try to switch to balanced\power saving and reboot Windows today in the evening.
 
update to the latest bios and the vcore readouts will be the correct values (not near 1.5V)
 
I waited. CPU usage went down to 0, however clocks and voltage stayed at max. I want it to work as it should from start. I don't think I had this issue with old BIOS, though.


If you are talking about BIOS - it's optimized defaults. If you are talking about Windows power options - it's Ryzen Balanced with lowered min CPU state to 40-60% (i don't remember exactly). I tried to switch Windows power options when Windows just booted, but it had no immediate effect on CPU. On old BIOS I could see the changes immediately. I'll try to switch to balanced\power saving and reboot Windows today in the evening.

Ok, I'll also try it when I get home. I have my min cpu state set at 20%.
 
update to the latest bios and the vcore readouts will be the correct values (not near 1.5V)
I am on the latest bios. I am pretty sure, that readouts are correct - the clocks are on max, the cpu get hot, so fan starts to spin faster and louder. But when I open a browser the cpu downclocks itself, and voltages go down too
 
I find it funny that things are not consistent between our systems. For example, my 1700X clocks down from the overclock normally to around 2GHz, while St1X's CPU doesn't. And I can't set a VCore below 1.35V, but riba2233 can. That's quite strange. I wish we could just dial in the voltages manually. Also, so far it seems that increasing the SOC voltage in the BIOS has no effect. At least the reported values in HWiNFO and Ryzen Master stay at 1.1V, while I have set it to +0.300, which I believe should result in a SOC voltage of 1.2V. (Still trying to figure out what leads to the most stable way of running my RAM at 3200MHz.)

I really hope Biostar will continue to improve this BIOS, or else I might get the ASRock X370 board when it becomes available here.

In various places online, you can find opinions about Biostar's lacking build quality, often from people who have no experience with the product. If you ask me, the build quality of this motherboard is excellent. So is the layout. It even has USB 3.1, which ASRock says they can't do because of PCB routing or something, yet it has almost exactly the same layout as the Biostar board. All in all this board has the potential to be great. It even looks much better than the ASRock and Gigabyte options. The BIOS and the lack of control therein really is its achilles' heel.

I'm also curious whether the ASRock or Gigabyte boards would have a 100MHz baseclock. I really like to see round figures, but with this board, it's 99.8, 100.3, 100.8 and so on, you can't set it at 100.
 
Auto setting is 100 in theory but in reality it works slightly, below, that's common for all platforms.
For voltage, I'm almost sure that you're getting higher voltage on +.02V because 1700x has higher stock clock than 1500x.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Jspr
like this
For example, my 1700X clocks down from the overclock normally to around 2GHz, while St1X's CPU doesn't.
My Ryzen 5 1600 downclocks itself, but only after opening a web browser (or, possibly, something else
 
Last edited:
I've just checked, downclocking starts at about less than a minute after logging into win10. Not dependent of load, I would say it's time dependent. Maybe until windows loads some processes. Note: I have chipset drivers installed.
 
How do I undervolt my CPU with this MoBo?
Only option seems to be through Ryzen Master, but it's so dump. It has no offset mode and when you apply it's settings, it will disable single core turbo boost and XFR
 
the old bios enables you to set a lower VID but now Custom Pstates only does core freq.
 
I read somewhere that you shouldn't change the voltage in p-states, only freq, but I've never tried it.
We should massively write to biostar to allow for negative cpu core v offset.
 
Yes please do so. I already did. I asked for the addition of negative offset, or alternatively manual settings. What's wrong with simply dialing in 1.250V for example?

In the previous BIOS I set the voltage to the lowest option, which was 1.275V, in the P-state overclock screen. This worked well, although I would have preferred to be able to set 1.25V. I have now set it at 1.25V in Ryzen Master, because the BIOS won't let me go below 1.36V.
 
With the latest bios my system boots with CPU locked at ~500 Mhz often.
Could be it's due to fast boot option enabled. Since if I go to bios and then exit it - it boots fine.
I turned fast boot off, will see, how it goes
 
And do your fans spins normally when this happens?
 
No. It doesn't spin at all. Also HWMonitor doesn't detect, that there is CPU fan and thermal sensors on MoBo - they are simply missing from HWMonitor when my system boots with 500Mhz
 
No. It doesn't spin at all. Also HWMonitor doesn't detect, that there is CPU fan and thermal sensors on MoBo - they are simply missing from HWMonitor when my system boots with 500Mhz
Sounds exactly like the problem I described a few posts back! I'm glad I'm not the only one. Please let us know when you find out if it's related to fastboot.
 
I've had problems with running my RipJaws F4-3200C16D-16GVKB at anything higher than 2133, got them RMA'd, updated bios to agesa 1.0.0.6 version and still XMP didn't kick in.

Just got a tip from G.Skill to enable XMP and override the memory clock to 2933 and it actually seems to work for my sticks.
 
Just reporting that, after some bother, I have some Corsair LPX 3200MHz (CMK16GX4M2B3200C16 v5.39 Hynix) up and running well at 3200MHz with the latest BIOS (X37AK623.BSS). The XMP profile boots but does not configure it correctly.

I set the XMP profile, rebooted then manually changed the settings that didn't match with the exception of tRC. If I set the tRC to 54 it doesn't boot properly and I have to clear the CMOS. After trial and error I got it to work well at 60. I tested stability with the prime95 v26.6 blend setting, the system would reboot with too low a tRC value. With a tRC of 60, prime ran for 2 hours without issue so I ran MemTest86 8 passes without errors, that took almost 24 hours. AIDA memory read speed is 47202MB/s and latency is 75.8Ns which seems in-line with other tests I have seen online, I don't have the full version so don't have the write or copy figures. I also left the tRFC set to auto as it gives a value of 560 which is pretty close to 559 as reported by the BIOS on the XMP profile page.

Finally, I manually set the ram voltage to +0.144 as it defaulted higher and I wanted it to be as close to 1.35v as specified on the ram as possible.

I have attached photos for easy copying, obviously your stable setting may be different. The key is to leave the tRC setting high, it defauted to 75, then progressively lower it. This may apply to other ram too. Overall I am very pleased! :)

IMAG2027.jpg IMAG2036.jpg IMAG2075.jpg IMAG2076.jpg IMAG2077.jpg IMAG2078.jpg IMAG2079.jpg
 
I nearly sold the ram and bought some Trident-Z or Flare-X. It was really bothering my O.C.D. not having my ram running right as it seems to have a big impact on minimum frame-rates. That samsung b-die RAM is so expensive though, it would have cost close to what I payed for my processor which is madness, ram is generally so expensive at the moment... Glad I persevered with my current set :)
 
Thank you very much, I am definitely going to try this. I have the exact same RAM. For now, I'm back at 2933 MHz, because with the XMP profile, it sometimes works at 3200 MHz, yet sometimes doesn't.

Also, without fastboot, I have not encountered the problem anymore where the fans stop spinning and the CPU clocks down as soon as Windows starts loading.


Edit: copied your RAM settings in the BIOS, and did a few passes with IntelBurnTest: everything OK so far. It also booted fine on first try. Let's hope it keeps working well. Thanks again for your testing and sharing of the results. Lucky me I've got the same RAM as you.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Ok, after some bother I have come up with some great BIOS fan settings. As I'm sure you know the BIOS fan settings are quite limited. In addition to the limited settings when the CPU hits 71 degrees for a little bit the fan maxes out to 100%.

I wanted a nice steady fan speed during general usage, basically a fixed fan speed below 60 degrees and a smooth ramp up to 100% when/if it hits 71degrees.

To do that I set the fan start temperature (Fan CTRL ON) to 60degrees and the fan start value (Fan CTRL start value) to 70 which for the fan on my noctua L9a gives about 950rpm. This results in a steady fan speed of 950rpm at any temperature up to 60degrees. If you have very good cooling your fans won't actually start until it hits 60degrees for the first time but my cooler is quite small so it always does.

I then tweaked the fan ctrl sensitive value until the fan ramped cleanly from 950rpm to max speed from 60 - 71degrees. It doesn't actually reach 71 though, it hits equilibrium at 2200 at 68-69 degrees. This is much better than before when my fan would jump between 2000rpm and 2500rpm and the temperature would vary from 70-71 under prime95.

I have the fan ctrl off temperature below the minimum temperature my CPU gets to do the fan doesn't switch on and off during light usage.

Overall I am perfectly happy with these settings. You will need to vary your fan start value and fan ctrl ramp depending on your processor and fan but the overall concept of fixed fan speed below a certain temperature is the same.

Hope this helps!
 

Attachments

  • IMAG2187.jpg
    IMAG2187.jpg
    148.6 KB · Views: 93
Ok, just a bit of information for all. The Crucial MX-100 SSD is not compatible with biostar x370gtn board with either of the two firmwares the ssd comes with. It will often not be recognised during boot up which sometimes makes the machine boot to bios, sometimes causes serious boot loops and sometimes results in a screen saying missing Windows disk or something like that. Sometimes the problem is more frequent than other times but I haven't had the issue since I swapped it for a Samsung 840 Evo. To be clear the Crucial drive was great in my old sandy bridge system and is currently working great in a haswell system so drive is ok.
 
Another thing to add, the realtek alc892 sound card in the biostar x370gtn needs the drivers from the website for the microphone to work properly, with the standard Windows drives it is too quiet even when the decibels are boosted by 30% and with the microphone volume set to 100%.

With the driver from the website you still need to set the microphone volume up and boost it by 10-20 decibels but then it should fine. My modmic can hear me now!
 
Mine works well except the slow post times. It takes like between 16-18 seconds to post. It's a common problems I guess especially with the MSI boards. Couldn't find but is there any solution for this?
 
I think that it will post faster if you use default JEDEC 2133MHz memory settings. It looks like whether you set any overclocking config on CPU or memory the board will add some testing steps before the post.
 
I think that it will post faster if you use default JEDEC 2133MHz memory settings. It looks like whether you set any overclocking config on CPU or memory the board will add some testing steps before the post.

Yes, I'm using Flare X 2x8 ddr4 3200mhz cl14 rams designed for Ryzen. On bios section, XMP profile is selected also had to increase ram voltage about +0.140 V to work properly at about 1.35-1.36V
 
Yes, I'm using Flare X 2x8 ddr4 3200mhz cl14 rams designed for Ryzen. On bios section, XMP profile is selected also had to increase ram voltage about +0.140 V to work properly at about 1.35-1.36V
I would use thaiphoon burner, cpu-z and the bios xmp information screen to find out all the ram timings and then check it is configured properly. I would guess there are quite a few settings wrongly applied. Also watch that tRC value I had to increase slightly above the default value on my ram. I would guess that once properly configured you boot times will drop, mine did.
 
Did anyone else install the new BIOS update yet? Version X37AK919.BSS, which updates to AGESA 1.0.0.6b. I just put it on, but so far I see no difference. My Corsair RAM still isn't entirely stable 3200 MHz, despite using richiegore's settings. Sometimes it won't boot properly. It boot-loops a few times, and then reset the BIOS. When it does boot normally (using the same settings) it's rock solid and goes through every stress test I can find without problems. I usually leave my computer running all the time, for days, even weeks on end, so it's not that big of a deal. Still, I don't like this. I'm contemplating buying a new mobo next year when the X470 mobos come out... Since these will also be made for APUs, I hope there will be mITX options from the start.

The default tRC value my mobo sets is 76 by the way, so much higher than richiegore's recommended setting of 60. Even setting that to 80 doesn't help. I'm running at the auto voltage, which results in 1.37 V.
Right now I'm running at the default XMP values, which are wrong in a few places, but it works for now. I can't see a pattern to the boot failures, because there no consistency between some settings that always fail and some that always work. It's just hit and miss, and it doesn't really seem to matter what values I put in.
 
I totally agree with you, I couldn't find any changes either.

I have the Corsair LPX 3000 MHz and it does boot eventually with the XMP profile (or even manually with 3200) but it takes several loops. I tried several settings (including from richiegore, thanks for your work) but only on default settings the system is booting properly in one turn.

It's annoying and I don't like it :D It just doesn't feel right :(
 
I totally agree with you, I couldn't find any changes either.

I have the Corsair LPX 3000 MHz and it does boot eventually with the XMP profile (or even manually with 3200) but it takes several loops. I tried several settings (including from richiegore, thanks for your work) but only on default settings the system is booting properly in one turn.

It's annoying and I don't like it :D It just doesn't feel right :(
Supposedly there is connection between your CPU and what memory speed you can hit. Maybe you could try up the SOC voltage? I think that is what controls infinity fabric which connects to the ram... I haven't done any research into it but it's just something I have seen mentioned. Might be worth looking into.
 
Back
Top