Findings with Asrock W790-WS, Xeon SPR-SP D0, and BCLK OC (and lack thereof)

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RolloZ170

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Apr 24, 2016
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Ok this approach is not working for me. Setting BCLK on BIOS does not take advantage of the BCLK Engine:

For example, when I set BCLK to 112mHZ in BIOS, computer does not boot.

When I set the BCLK to 110 mHZ in BIOS, computer boots successfully but BCLK is shown as 110mHZ in CPUz/HWInfo not 100 mHZ as shown in pictures from Arabus. There are 2 pictures in the below link, check both of them please.

i just noticed you have only "CPU BCLK Frequency", not "PCH BCLK Frequency"
with Hyper BCLK Engine you should have two active BCLK sources.
one sign the Hyper is disabled/gone for some reasons.
 

mtg

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Feb 12, 2019
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I've set PL1/2 to 540W, which while read in HWINFO doesn't seem to be applying properly
There’s a good chance this doesn’t apply, but with my Supermicro x13swa, both setting the Pl1/PL2 and the current limit overrides require 2 resets. The Supermicro board makes this pretty clear because it has settings that explain that a reset is needed to set the MSR to allow the override, then the next one sets it. I have a w5-3435x sitting nice and happy at 4.8GHz all core, which I did by setting the limits for current and PL1/2 to their maximum values (lol). Without following the reset procedure, the CPU gets current/power limited to 4.4GHz.

So maybe some other boards need two resets to fully configure the override?
 

Bert

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Mar 31, 2018
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you should try a fresh programed BIOS chip to sort out NVRAM BIOS bugs
( BIOS update doesn't just overwrite the whole Flash chip, only some areas are updated )
I see that my MB BIOS chip had a mark of "3.1" on it. It seems like there are different versions of BIOS chip.

It is too much work, I returned the MB. Though just got a good deal on eBay on an another ASRock. I will try that.
 

RolloZ170

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from the manual:

Boot Performance Mode
Default is Max Non-Turbo performance mode. It will keep cpu Flex-ratio till OS handoff.
Max Battery mode will set CPU ratio as x8 till OS handoff.
This option is suggested for BCLK overclocking.
Configuration options: [Max Battery] [Max Non-Turbo Performance] [Turbo Performance]

BCLK Aware Adaptive Voltage
Allows you to set BCLK Aware Adaptive Voltage as enabled or disabled.
When it is enabled, pcode will be aware of the BCLK frequency when calculating the CPU V/F curves.
This is ideal for BCLK OC to avoid high voltage overrides. Configuration options: [Enabled] [Disabled]

Intel MEI Flash
This function can update and flash Intel MEI.
If you can't overclock BCLK or CPU turbo ratio, it can be fixed by this function.
You will need BIOS ROM file for MEI Update & Flash.
Please note that your USB storage device must be FAT32/16/12 file system.
 

Bert

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Perhaps, I should start a new thread but let me see if I can piggy back on this one:

I built a workstation with ASROCK W790 WS and + QYK8. All worked fine on bench, moved it to the case and brought it to office. Tested, installed windows and corporate credentials. All worked fine. Used it like that for 4 days; no issues. Machine was up and running close to a week.

After that, I moved the PC to a different office and now PC is shutting down and Windows is showing WHEA error in the logs. It happens consistently after running for an hour. Temps are all good, system does not go to sleep (I also tried putting machine to sleep and it resumes without any major issue).

I went back to basics, bring a new SATA drive, installed new OS and same problem. I have never seen this issue before and don't know where to start from. Bad MB? Bad CPU?

Any ideas on next steps here?

Edit: Looks like new office has power saving switches which cuts of power when there is no occupancy. Mystery is solved, onto the next one.
 
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stoots

New Member
Jun 3, 2024
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One month later, I've reverted from Asrock W790-WS to ASUS Ace.
Ace sustains 110MHz BCLK (have not tested higher yet), POSTs faster, and most importantly is able to allow me to ignore power limits on QYFU. Sustained performance is greater despite overbuilt VRM and supposed BCLK adjustment of Asrock.
CPUZ: Intel Core @ 3190 MHz - CPU-Z VALIDATOR

Q071 and RAM continue to be on hold, though I do miss low idle power. With Optane 905p and V56 driving a 4K monitor, system is idling at an eye-searing 190W (roughly).

I find it disappointing no 28-32 core MCC, unlocked Xeon W, nor EMR, seem to be in the plans for W790. Even the supposed 26c refresh has been quiet.

i just noticed you have only "CPU BCLK Frequency", not "PCH BCLK Frequency"
with Hyper BCLK Engine you should have two active BCLK sources.
one sign the Hyper is disabled/gone for some reasons.
Almost certainly true considering similar stable BCLK speeds between the ASUS and Asrock. Curiously, the Asrock R2.0 also drops all mention of the "Hyper BCLK Engine" altogether.

There’s a good chance this doesn’t apply, but with my Supermicro x13swa, both setting the Pl1/PL2 and the current limit overrides require 2 resets. The Supermicro board makes this pretty clear because it has settings that explain that a reset is needed to set the MSR to allow the override, then the next one sets it. I have a w5-3435x sitting nice and happy at 4.8GHz all core, which I did by setting the limits for current and PL1/2 to their maximum values (lol). Without following the reset procedure, the CPU gets current/power limited to 4.4GHz.

So maybe some other boards need two resets to fully configure the override?
Good observation; I notice my Ace performing on/off/on cycle if powering the system on from S5. I am much too busy to move everything over to the Asrock to try to research this particular behavior, and I'm on the verge of selling the board itself.
 
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RolloZ170

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Q071 and RAM continue to be on hold, though I do miss low idle power. With Optane 905p and V56 driving a 4K monitor, system is idling at an eye-searing 190W (roughly).
i guess you have adjusted your system not to idle.
note: idle is not doing unnecessary things, idle is doing nothing with low clocks.
i got 38W package power with windows balanced, and 64W with anti lag tweaks.
Q071bal_idle.jpg
 

Bert

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Honestly these systems are drawing me crazy! They are so hard to use. For the price they are great but the time cost of making them work is crazy. Everyone reports something different. Someone was saying that he enabled Hyper BCLK and hit 125MHz, I wasted more than 8 hours to repeat that behavior to no avail.

On the positive side, I have now one at home ASUS SAGE and one ASROCK at work. Both of them crazy fast although they are lacking memory channels (one runs on 3dimms other than one a single dimm).

A bios setting has a major impact on Windows performance. You get great CPUz benchmark ratings but Windows UI responsiveness is so bad that it is unusable. Went to BIOS , changed bunch of things from default and now it works great. What changed it? I have no idea and honestly I am spending 5x more time on tinkering the system rather than using it.

Asus and Asrock, shame on you with your stupid BIOS documentation. You put so many settings there but no clue what those settings do.

ASROCK is definitely worse than ASUS in several aspects. I put a new dimm this morning and it kept on restarting instead of giving a bad DIMM error. ASUS/SM does much better. Wasted another hour this morning on this bad dimm. ASROCK loves to get stuck into bad boot which requires you cold restart or CMOS reset. After replacing the bad dimm, had to do a cold restart to fix it but of course after wasting another 15 minutes to guess why it stopped working.

ASROCK definitely boots faster than ASUS SAGE. ASUS SAGE does not even have boot list menu so you have to go into BIOS, to switch a different BOOT drive and of course getting into BIOS, making a change takes minutes.

Here my ASROCK runs with 200Watt idling, not sure why but have no time to investigate and fix it so keep on using 200Watt idle on the package power.

1722372107573.png

and 375Watt consistently under stress so there are no problems with maintaining full power:
1722372167128.png

@stoots What is wrong with your CPUz score in ASROCK? 27K on multicore looks normal and expected. What do you expect to see?


@RolloZ170 showing what you have is great but it is definitely most helpful if you can share which BIOS setting controls the behavior and how you lower the idle package power without impacting Windows performance. Thanks in advance
 
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RolloZ170

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Here my ASROCK runs with 200Watt idling, not sure why but have no time to investigate and fix it:
no core clocks. so i can't see if its IDLE or not.
IDLE is all cores and mesh @800mhz
if you adjust you system to high.peformance it never IDLE and draw power doing nothing.
showing what you have is great but it is definitely most helpful if you can share which BIOS setting controls the behavior and how you set it.
BIOS defaults(except the antifreeze tweak) only this enables windows to control all of the CPU.
windows is configured for low core count CPUs. e.g. it needs 60% load to increase perf.state.
there is a dependency between lowest, mid and high package power at IDLE/doing nothing.
e.g. CinebenchR23
low(IDLE) 50k (38W lagging)
mid 55k (64W no lag)
high 60k (120W no lag, no IDLE.)
you can't have all together.
as anti-lag-trick can be running a small thread load, mining or something useful.
 
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Bert

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no core clocks. so i can't see if its IDLE or not.
IDLE is all cores and mesh @800mhz
if you adjust you system to high.peformance it never IDLE and draw power doing nothing.

BIOS defaults(except the antifreeze tweak) only this enables windows to control all of the CPU.
windows is configured for low core count CPUs. e.g. it needs 60% load to increase perf.state.
there is a dependency between lowest, mid and high package power at IDLE/doing nothing.
e.g. CinebenchR23
low(IDLE) 50k (38W lagging)
mid 55k (64W no lag)
high 60k (120W no lag, no IDLE.)
you can't have all together.
as anti-lag-trick can be running a small thread load, mining or something useful.
no core clocks. so i can't see if its IDLE or not.
IDLE is all cores and mesh @800mhz
if you adjust you system to high.peformance it never IDLE and draw power doing nothing.

BIOS defaults(except the antifreeze tweak) only this enables windows to control all of the CPU.
windows is configured for low core count CPUs. e.g. it needs 60% load to increase perf.state.
there is a dependency between lowest, mid and high package power at IDLE/doing nothing.
e.g. CinebenchR23
low(IDLE) 50k (38W lagging)
mid 55k (64W no lag)
high 60k (120W no lag, no IDLE.)
you can't have all together.
as anti-lag-trick can be running a small thread load, mining or something useful.
What is the anti-freeze tweak? Setting C-State to C0/C1? Perhaps next time when you boot into BIOS, would you mind taking pictures of your BIOS settings so we can apply the same settings?

Yes, I am running under high performance power plan. Switching to "Balance power" makes Windows not usable. I guess that explains the high power usage on "idle".

Is there something I can read more on the details here?
 
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RolloZ170

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What is the anti-freeze tweak? Setting C-State to C0/C1?
on ASUS BIOS higher than 0215 0403(Ace) you need package C-State C2(or C0/C1)
to impede freeze at OS loading.
you need to change C-states from Auto to enabled to make package C-State option visible.
Perhaps next time when you boot into BIOS, would you mind taking pictures of your BIOS settings so we can apply the same settings?
i sold my ASUS. i use X13SRA-TF now.
but even with the ASUS i used default settings.
Ai Tweaker_[14-50-12]KA.jpg
 
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Bert

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1722375153394.png

Yes balanced reduces package power but computer is not usable.
 

Bert

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on ASUS BIOS higher than 0215 0403(Ace) you need package C-State C2(or C0/C1)
to impede freeze at OS loading.
you need to change C-states from Auto to enabled to make package C-State option visible.

i sold my ASUS. i use X13SRA-TF now.
but even with the ASUS i used default settings.
View attachment 38127
Thanks for the pictures of your BIOS!

Ah I thought you still have your ASROCK. I am trying to fix my ASROCK.
 
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