X399 Auros 7 issues

[brianwescombe2018]

Problems I had with my first AMD build:

First board was DOA - CPU light on, no POST. Tried everything but in the end it was replaced.
Second board - all set up but wouldn't work with four Crucial Elite 8GB RAM. Worked with 2 mixed with 2 Corsair in quad channel config. This board failed after 2 days (same issue as the first).

Third board (currently using). All working with quad-channel Crucial Tactical 2666 RAM from the QVL. BUT the problem is that it will randomly freeze during boot (the circle dots stop spinning, no disk activity). Doesn't happen every time but needs a switch off/on to start it again. This is using a Samsung NVMe 960 PRO SSD as the system drive, the same drive was in the board that worked for 2 days and didn't fail to boot once (until the board died). Drive has been tried in both the small M.2 slot and the top one.

I tried a clean install of Windows. It got through the first phase on install but on the reboot, it froze again. When the machine does boot, it runs brilliantly with no freezing/BSODs or anything.


Have I got yet another faulty board?

[shadowsports]

Greetings,
Given the history, I am not a big proponent of the AB, AX or X399 series boards. 

Using 2666Mhz RAM can be tricky regardless of the platform Intel or AMD)  Many times it SPD detects at its base clock speed instead of 2133 for example.  While it often runs, it seems to do better at 2133 than at 2666.  You can certainly spend time setting thing manually and can get it to run stable, but I've read posts from a lot of people who start to have issues when their system is put under load.

Your issue seems to be unrelated to this.  Try running the RAM at a slower speed and see if this helps with stability.

[brianwescombe2018]

Greetings,
Given the history, I am not a big proponent of the AB, AX or X399 series boards. 

Using 2666Mhz RAM can be tricky regardless of the platform Intel or AMD)  Many times it SPD detects at its base clock speed instead of 2133 for example.  While it often runs, it seems to do better at 2133 than at 2666.  You can certainly spend time setting thing manually and can get it to run stable, but I've read posts from a lot of people who start to have issues when their system is put under load.


Your issue seems to be unrelated to this.  Try running the RAM at a slower speed and see if this helps with stability.

Thanks! The RAM speed is 2400 without XMP, 2666 with XMP Profile 1 and is on Gigabyte's QVL for the board. The system never crashes when running so it's stable at 2666, it just fails to boot occasionally (freezes on the Windows load screen and the dots stop). I will try disabling the XMP though to see if that makes a difference. I've moved the M2 drive to the larger bottom slot now to see if that makes a difference. The system doesn't get put under load really, I've not overclocked the CPU and the temperatures are in check. If memory was the issue would I not be seeing BSODs while I'm using the PC?

[shadowsports]

Hi Follow up:

The eight DDR4 memory sockets are divided into four channels and each channel has two memory sockets as following:
Channel A: DDR4_1_1A, DDR4_2_2A
Channel B: DDR4_3_1B, DDR4_4_2B
Channel C: DDR4_5_1C, DDR4_6_2C
Channel D: DDR4_7_1D, DDR4_8_2D

When installing the memory, make sure to begin with the second socket of each channel, such as
DDR4_2_2A, DDR4_4_2B, DDR4_6_2C, or DDR4_8_2D.

According to the manual, you should be able to use the m.2 drive in any of the m.2 ports.  Ample resources PCIe lanes exists.

I would suggest setting the controller operate mode to RAID, instead of AHCI.  This gives you more options in the future should you want to add more disks.  You can use RAID mode without marking disks as members.  They will operate as standalone AHCI drives. 

Memory timings/speed do not always cause BSOD.  Boot failures and freezing can also be by products of RAM issues.  If you have another drive, try testing with it.   

[brianwescombe2018]

Hi Follow up:

The eight DDR4 memory sockets are divided into four channels and each channel has two memory sockets as following:
Channel A: DDR4_1_1A, DDR4_2_2A
Channel B: DDR4_3_1B, DDR4_4_2B
Channel C: DDR4_5_1C, DDR4_6_2C
Channel D: DDR4_7_1D, DDR4_8_2D

When installing the memory, make sure to begin with the second socket of each channel, such as
DDR4_2_2A, DDR4_4_2B, DDR4_6_2C, or DDR4_8_2D.

According to the manual, you should be able to use the m.2 drive in any of the m.2 ports.  Ample resources PCIe lanes exists.

I would suggest setting the controller operate mode to RAID, instead of AHCI.  This gives you more options in the future should you want to add more disks.  You can use RAID mode without marking disks as members.  They will operate as standalone AHCI drives. 

Memory timings/speed do not always cause BSOD.  Boot failures and freezing can also be by products of RAM issues.  If you have another drive, try testing with it.   

Thanks for that! Memory is in the correct slots (although see my other post in this forum about the quad channel problem). I'll try setting the BIOS to RAID mode

[brianwescombe2018]

I would suggest setting the controller operate mode to RAID, instead of AHCI.  This gives you more options in the future should you want to add more disks.  You can use RAID mode without marking disks as members.  They will operate as standalone AHCI drives. 

Memory timings/speed do not always cause BSOD.  Boot failures and freezing can also be by products of RAM issues.  If you have another drive, try testing with it.

I have ordered some different RAM to try, and also another M.2 SSD to try and eliminate the problem

[brianwescombe2018]

Quick update on this. Gigabyte released a new BIOS (f3j) with updated AGESA code, since then I've not had a single boot fail/freeze problem and the memory now runs at 3000MHz instead of 2933.