BIOS Settings

[tp163012ab02ae]

I recently had PC repaired through company I bought it from. When they sent it back they fixed the main issue (faulty gpu) but also stated that my CPU was overheating due to aggressive BIOS default settings.

When they sent it back, they had changed bios settings, and (I think) had the RAM running at 3800 (not full capacity, but I am okay with this). Everything was working, but today I activated XMP and when I did I believe all of the other settings went to stock. Now the computer is crashing whenever I play games again.

This computer is driving me INSANE, if anyone would be able to help. Thanks in advance

My build:
MB: MSI Z590 Gaming Edge Wi-Fi
CPU: i9-11900k
GPU: EVGA GeForce 3090
Ram: TForce DDR4 4000
Power: NZXT 850w
Cooler: NZXT Kraken z63

 

[citay]

Yes, DDR4-4000 is a bit too much in a lot instances to run problem-free in Gear1 mode with 11th gen CPUs. You fail to mention your CPU cooler. Indeed it has to be very good to cope with an 11900K, a CPU model that is configured extremely aggressively from the factory by Intel, you could call it factory-overclocked. So with anything but a top-end cooler, you have to set certain BIOS options correctly in order not to overwhelm your cooling solution. Even the case cooling comes into play here. So it's a rather complex subject, you have several components which have to be configured the right way not to cause any problems, and just using certain defaults are bound to lead to problems.

So what i would suggest now is the following: First, update your BIOS to the newest version. This is not difficult, i will tell you exactly what to do. Afterwards, there will be a cooler selection screen, which is the first way to limit the power consumption of your CPU and make it behave more calmly. But one step after the other.

Update how-to:
1) Get the latest BIOS. Get the beta version, it's the topmost one, because it has a bugfix over the previous BIOS. https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MPG-Z590-GAMING-EDGE-WIFI/support
2) Extract the file and you will get a text file and the BIOS file. Put the BIOS file into the root folder of a USB stick/drive.
3) Enter the BIOS by pressing DEL during boot, go to "M-FLASH" in the BIOS.
4) Once M-Flash (the updater) is loaded, it will show a list of your drives. Select the USB stick and select the previously extracted BIOS file on there.
5) It will ask for confirmation and then update the BIOS. It's fully automatic from there, takes about two minutes.

After the reboot, enter the BIOS again, you will have a cooler selection screen. This is a thinly disguised way of setting, or rather "setting free", the power limits:

No matter your cooler, select "Boxed Cooler" there for the time being. We can fine-tune it later, according to your actual cooler's capabilities.

Do not enable XMP yet. Instead, check first if everything is stable with this baseline configuration. We will come to the RAM and CPU settings afterwards, but we need to work from a stable base.

 

[tp163012ab02ae]

Yes, DDR4-4000 is a bit too much in a lot instances to run problem-free in Gear1 mode with 11th gen CPUs. You fail to mention your CPU cooler. Indeed it has to be very good to cope with an 11900K, a CPU model that is configured extremely aggressively from the factory by Intel, you could call it factory-overclocked. So with anything but a top-end cooler, you have to set certain BIOS options correctly in order not to overwhelm your cooling solution. Even the case cooling comes into play here. So it's a rather complex subject, you have several components which have to be configured the right way not to cause any problems, and just using certain defaults are bound to lead to problems.

So what i would suggest now is the following: First, update your BIOS to the newest version. This is not difficult, i will tell you exactly what to do. Afterwards, there will be a cooler selection screen, which is the first way to limit the power consumption of your CPU and make it behave more calmly. But one step after the other.

Update how-to:
1) Get the latest BIOS. Get the beta version, it's the topmost one, because it has a bugfix over the previous BIOS. https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MPG-Z590-GAMING-EDGE-WIFI/support
2) Extract the file and you will get a text file and the BIOS file. Put the BIOS file into the root folder of a USB stick/drive.
3) Enter the BIOS by pressing DEL during boot, go to "M-FLASH" in the BIOS.
4) Once M-Flash (the updater) is loaded, it will show a list of your drives. Select the USB stick and select the previously extracted BIOS file on there.
5) It will ask for confirmation and then update the BIOS. It's fully automatic from there, takes about two minutes.

After the reboot, enter the BIOS again, you will have a cooler selection screen. This is a thinly disguised way of setting, or rather "setting free", the power limits:

No matter your cooler, select "Boxed Cooler" there for the time being. We can fine-tune it later, according to your actual cooler's capabilities.

Do not enable XMP yet. Instead, check first if everything is stable with this baseline configuration. We will come to the RAM and CPU settings afterwards, but we need to work from a stable base.

Great. I will do that now. I also updated to include my cooler. Which is a NZXT Kraken z63
Thank you for your help. I will reply shortly after I have these steps done.

 

[tp163012ab02ae]

Yes, DDR4-4000 is a bit too much in a lot instances to run problem-free in Gear1 mode with 11th gen CPUs. You fail to mention your CPU cooler. Indeed it has to be very good to cope with an 11900K, a CPU model that is configured extremely aggressively from the factory by Intel, you could call it factory-overclocked. So with anything but a top-end cooler, you have to set certain BIOS options correctly in order not to overwhelm your cooling solution. Even the case cooling comes into play here. So it's a rather complex subject, you have several components which have to be configured the right way not to cause any problems, and just using certain defaults are bound to lead to problems.

So what i would suggest now is the following: First, update your BIOS to the newest version. This is not difficult, i will tell you exactly what to do. Afterwards, there will be a cooler selection screen, which is the first way to limit the power consumption of your CPU and make it behave more calmly. But one step after the other.

Update how-to:
1) Get the latest BIOS. Get the beta version, it's the topmost one, because it has a bugfix over the previous BIOS. https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MPG-Z590-GAMING-EDGE-WIFI/support
2) Extract the file and you will get a text file and the BIOS file. Put the BIOS file into the root folder of a USB stick/drive.
3) Enter the BIOS by pressing DEL during boot, go to "M-FLASH" in the BIOS.
4) Once M-Flash (the updater) is loaded, it will show a list of your drives. Select the USB stick and select the previously extracted BIOS file on there.
5) It will ask for confirmation and then update the BIOS. It's fully automatic from there, takes about two minutes.

After the reboot, enter the BIOS again, you will have a cooler selection screen. This is a thinly disguised way of setting, or rather "setting free", the power limits:

No matter your cooler, select "Boxed Cooler" there for the time being. We can fine-tune it later, according to your actual cooler's capabilities.

Do not enable XMP yet. Instead, check first if everything is stable with this baseline configuration. We will come to the RAM and CPU settings afterwards, but we need to work from a stable base.

Hello,
I did theses steps. PC is stable.

 

[citay]

Ok. Now run HWinfo64 and show "Sensors" with all sensors expanded (click on the little <--> arrows on the bottom). First let it run a bit while in idle, so the "minimum" baselines for the values are established. Then produce full CPU load with Cinebench R23. After the CPU temperatures have stabilized at the highest level (let it run for 10 mins), take a screenshot. This will show everything at once.

Also, can you tell me your exact RAM model? Like TDZAD416G4000HC18JDC01 for example.

 

[tp163012ab02ae]

Hello, so I did this, and had someone here who was somewhat helpful. When I did it with “boxed cooling” everything ran okay. We then switched it to water cooling, which I have, and the cpu “msi game boost” was on. With these settings the cpu started the thermal throttle at cpu load.

Also when we shut off the cpu game boost, we then turned on XMP, which led to some instability issues. We changed the DDRM from 4000 to 3800 but left the timings at CL18-24-24-46 with 1.4V. At this point everything seems to be running stable. But I continue to have lower fps than one would expect, and the memory benchmark seems to be slow.

I have attached a link to 2 OCCT benchmark tests for memory and cpu. I also attached a link to the excell file for HWiNFO while running a game of war zone.

https://imgur.io/a/vADwqbe

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1v14LYbmIF0d7dgZPShjzlGN8tFb0yIwKxxOKjrW4IIs/htmlview

 

[citay]

The spreadsheet is not very useful i'm afraid, please do it with the screenshot like i described, and Cinebench R23. When you run a game, the CPU load is not very high, most load is on the GPU.

I didn't mention enabling XMP yet, you have an 11th gen CPU which most likely cannot handle the XMP profile of DDR4-4000 in Gear1 mode, which is very important for the performance. So we have to dial that in manually. And definitely keep GameBoost disabled please! It is a completely detrimental, counter-productive function. It won't be of any benefit, it only has downsides with your CPU.

First i need to see a screenshot of HWinfo64 the way i mentioned, to roughly see what your cooling behaves like.

 

[tp163012ab02ae]

The spreadsheet is not very useful i'm afraid, please do it with the screenshot like i described, and Cinebench R23. When you run a game, the CPU load is not very high, most load is on the GPU.

I didn't mention enabling XMP yet, you have an 11th gen CPU which most likely cannot handle the XMP profile of DDR4-4000 in Gear1 mode, which is very important for the performance. So we have to dial that in manually. And definitely keep GameBoost disabled please! It is a completely detrimental, counter-productive function. It won't be of any benefit, it only has downsides with your CPU.

First i need to see a screenshot of HWinfo64 the way i mentioned, to roughly see what your cooling behaves like.

Here is the screenshot of HWiNFO, first running alone to get a baseline, then with Cinebench R23 running for around 10 minutes. HWiNFO was running for as short time without Cinebench afterwards.

The exact RAM model is: TF10D416G400HC18LBK 16GB DDR4 4000 CL 18-24-24-46 1.4V

 

[laurence1211]

Here is the screenshot of HWiNFO, first running alone to get a baseline, then with Cinebench R23 running for around 10 minutes. HWiNFO was running for as short time without Cinebench afterwards.

The exact RAM model is: TF10D416G400HC18LBK 16GB DDR4 4000 CL 18-24-24-46 1.4VView attachment 162757

No info on the ram, why is that? Also what case do you have the computer built in?

 

[tp163012ab02ae]

I am unsure regarding info on the ram. I will look over HWiNFO now to see if I can include it?

The case is an NZXT H510 Elite

No info on the ram, why is that? Also what case do you have the computer built in?

The only info I see on the RAM is on the bottom left of the image. I do not see it elsewhere on the screen, I do not see an option to add it.
The case is an NZXT H510 Elite

 

[citay]

Ok. The "boxed cooler" power limits of allowing 250W for a minute and then limiting it to 125W are indeed the most sensible of the three choices. Because "Tower Air" (and of course "Water Cooler") pretty much equates to no limits at all. MSI should've just offered two options: "Intel default power limits" and "Unlimited". But they thought that users won't know about power limits, so they tried to make it more user-friendly by showing that it depends on the CPU cooler's capabilities.

MSI only made one mistake: The "Tower Air Cooler" choice applies too high power limits (i usually see 288W limits there) to have any different effect from "Water Cooler" (maxed out limits). So those two options are basically the same, except with an 11900K that uses ABT, which i wouldn't recommend enabling though. Quote: "Turning on Adaptive Boost increases the CPU Package Power by a whopping 28%. Now, we in no way shape, or form saw a 28% uplift in performance. Therefore the power demand for the small percentage in performance we got across the board in our benchmarks is completely and wholly inefficient, and just quite insane to be honest.". Or when attempting to OC, for example via GameBoost (the worst OC method), which i definitely wouldn't recommend anymore either. CPU overclocking with the top CPU models is a thing of the past, you can't squeeze water from a rock.

Anyway, for most users which will buy a lower CPU model, the second option behaves no different from the third, suggesting a difference that doesn't exist.

MSI should've gone by the average rated TDP of a lot of common tower coolers, which is not nearly 288W. Even the "be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4", a high-end tower cooler, is rated for 250W, and the smaller, but still very capable "be quiet! Dark Rock 4" for 200W. So my choice probably would've been 200W for the middle option, and maybe making use of two different limits for PL1/PL2.

But luckily we can fine-tune that ourselves. I can see that your cooler stays below 80°C, that's good. We can probably allow a maximum of mid-80s there.
For the CPU temperature, with a powerful water cooler and good case airflow, you generally don't want to see temperatures in the 90°C range, that's too high for my taste.

First, enter your BIOS, make sure it's in Advanced View (press F7 for that). Then go to OC - "Advanced CPU Configuration" in the BIOS and set:
"Intel C-State" to Enabled
"C1E Support" to Enabled
"Intel Speed Shift" to Enabled

Also listed there are the Long and Short Duration Power Limits. You can leave Short Duration limit on 250W, but raise Long Duration to 150W.

Press F10 to save & exit, then run the Cinebench test again. First let HWinfo64 run a bit on its own to get the minimum numbers. Please also pull the individual little colums apart a bit so all the text can be read. Then let Cinebench run again and make a screenshot after 10 minutes.

Once we got your CPU settings optimized, we will come to the RAM.

 

[tp163012ab02ae]

Ok. The "boxed cooler" power limits of allowing 250W for a minute and then limiting it to 125W are indeed the most sensible of the three choices. Because "Tower Air" (and of course "Water Cooler") pretty much equates to no limits at all. MSI should've just offered two options: "Intel default power limits" and "Unlimited". But they thought that users won't know about power limits, so they tried to make it more user-friendly by showing that it depends on the CPU cooler's capabilities.

MSI only made one mistake: The "Tower Air Cooler" choice applies too high power limits (i usually see 288W limits there) to have any different effect from "Water Cooler" (maxed out limits). So those two options are basically the same, except with an 11900K that uses ABT, which i wouldn't recommend enabling though. Quote: "Turning on Adaptive Boost increases the CPU Package Power by a whopping 28%. Now, we in no way shape, or form saw a 28% uplift in performance. Therefore the power demand for the small percentage in performance we got across the board in our benchmarks is completely and wholly inefficient, and just quite insane to be honest.". Or when attempting to OC, for example via GameBoost (the worst OC method), which i definitely wouldn't recommend anymore either. CPU overclocking with the top CPU models is a thing of the past, you can't squeeze water from a rock.

Anyway, for most users which will buy a lower CPU model, the second option behaves no different from the third, suggesting a difference that doesn't exist.

MSI should've gone by the average rated TDP of a lot of common tower coolers, which is not nearly 288W. Even the "be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4", a high-end tower cooler, is rated for 250W, and the smaller, but still very capable "be quiet! Dark Rock 4" for 200W. So my choice probably would've been 200W for the middle option, and maybe making use of two different limits for PL1/PL2.

But luckily we can fine-tune that ourselves. I can see that your cooler stays below 80°C, that's good. We can probably allow a maximum of mid-80s there.
For the CPU temperature, with a powerful water cooler and good case airflow, you generally don't want to see temperatures in the 90°C range, that's too high for my taste.

First, enter your BIOS, make sure it's in Advanced View (press F7 for that). Then go to OC - "Advanced CPU Configuration" in the BIOS and set:
"Intel C-State" to Enabled
"C1E Support" to Enabled
"Intel Speed Shift" to Enabled

Also listed there are the Long and Short Duration Power Limits. You can leave Short Duration limit on 250W, but raise Long Duration to 150W.

Press F10 to save & exit, then run the Cinebench test again. First let HWinfo64 run a bit on its own to get the minimum numbers. Please also pull the individual little colums apart a bit so all the text can be read. Then let Cinebench run again and make a screenshot after 10 minutes.

Once we got your CPU settings optimized, we will come to the RAM.

Hello,

So I did as you said. Did not change from 'Boxed cooling' and then changed the settings that you mentioned. Attached is the screenshot of HWiNFO

Also, just so I know you saw I updated the info to include the cooler. I have the NZXT Kraken z63 Liquid Cooler

 

[laurence1211]

I am unsure regarding info on the ram. I will look over HWiNFO now to see if I can include it?

The case is an NZXT H510 Elite


The only info I see on the RAM is on the bottom left of the image. I do not see it elsewhere on the screen, I do not see an option to add it.
The case is an NZXT H510 Elite

That case is not the best for airflow. FYI your PCH temp hit 67c while gaming. I do wonder what temps the ram is at. Either way that PCH temp is high and suggests bad case air flow.

 

[citay]

Ok, still staying below 80°C, nice results. I would even say we can keep it like that. There is no additional performance to be gained in normal workloads. Cinebench is an edge case in that it applies 10 minutes of unrelenting full multicore AVX load. In other, more realistic full load situations, you will not lose any performance from a setting like you have now. For short full load it can draw up to 250W if it wants to, and for long full load (non-AVX) it won't cause problems for your cooling.

So we should look at your RAM now. DDR4-4000 almost definitely won't work in Gear1 mode. I explain why and what that is in my RAM thread under 4).

As you can read there, the sweet spot is DDR4-3600. This is also guaranteed to work in Gear1 mode. So what you do is the following:
Enable XMP, but set DRAM Frequency manually to DDR4-3600, and set "CPU IMC : DRAM Clock" to "1:1 Gear1". Then press F10 to save & reboot.
The reboot will take longer because it will do a memory training. If it fails and you get the "F1/F2 overclock failed" message, press F1 and disable XMP again and set DRAM Frequency to Auto.
However, if memory training was successful and it boots, proceed to 5) in my RAM thread and do a full three passes of stress testing with TestMem5.

 

[tp163012ab02ae]

Ok, still staying below 80°C, nice results. I would even say we can keep it like that. There is no additional performance to be gained in normal workloads. Cinebench is an edge case in that it applies 10 minutes of unrelenting full multicore AVX load. In other, more realistic full load situations, you will not lose any performance from a setting like you have now. For short full load it can draw up to 250W if it wants to, and for long full load (non-AVX) it won't cause problems for your cooling.

So we should look at your RAM now. DDR4-4000 almost definitely won't work in Gear1 mode. I explain why and what that is in my RAM thread under 4).

As you can read there, the sweet spot is DDR4-3600. This is also guaranteed to work in Gear1 mode. So what you do is the following:
Enable XMP, but set DRAM Frequency manually to DDR4-3600, and set "CPU IMC : DRAM Clock" to "1:1 Gear1". Then press F10 to save & reboot.
The reboot will take longer because it will do a memory training. If it fails and you get the "F1/F2 overclock failed" message, press F1 and disable XMP again and set DRAM Frequency to Auto.
However, if memory training was successful and it boots, proceed to 5) in my RAM thread and do a full three passes of stress testing with TestMem5.

that all sounds great.

I set the XMP, manually changed frequency, and set clock to 1:1 Gear 1. The computer went on. I will run TestMem5 overnight and get back to you with the results.
Thank you so much for all of your help so far!

 

[tp163012ab02ae]

Ok, still staying below 80°C, nice results. I would even say we can keep it like that. There is no additional performance to be gained in normal workloads. Cinebench is an edge case in that it applies 10 minutes of unrelenting full multicore AVX load. In other, more realistic full load situations, you will not lose any performance from a setting like you have now. For short full load it can draw up to 250W if it wants to, and for long full load (non-AVX) it won't cause problems for your cooling.

So we should look at your RAM now. DDR4-4000 almost definitely won't work in Gear1 mode. I explain why and what that is in my RAM thread under 4).

As you can read there, the sweet spot is DDR4-3600. This is also guaranteed to work in Gear1 mode. So what you do is the following:
Enable XMP, but set DRAM Frequency manually to DDR4-3600, and set "CPU IMC : DRAM Clock" to "1:1 Gear1". Then press F10 to save & reboot.
The reboot will take longer because it will do a memory training. If it fails and you get the "F1/F2 overclock failed" message, press F1 and disable XMP again and set DRAM Frequency to Auto.
However, if memory training was successful and it boots, proceed to 5) in my RAM thread and do a full three passes of stress testing with TestMem5.

TestMem5 was done, with no errors found.

 

[citay]

Very good. You now have a close to optimal configuration. To confirm about the RAM settings, can you make a final screenshot in HWinfo64?

 

[tp163012ab02ae]

Very good. You now have a close to optimal configuration. To confirm about the RAM settings, can you make a final screenshot in HWinfo64?

Here is a screenshot of HWiNFO64. Do you think changing the timings would be of any benefit?

Again, thank you so much for all of your help and walking me through this step-by-step

 

[citay]

You're welcome, always glad to help. The settings are ok.
Yes, changing the timings would be of benefit, but it's also a lot of work. Trial and error and lots of stability testing in between.
You could get a couple percent of performance out of that in certain scenarios, but you're gonna spend quite some time to optimize that.

Tell you what, i could give you some quick primary settings you can try, but first you need to read out the RAM module details with Thaiphoon Burner.
Run as admin, click on the "Read" icon and read the SPD information. Then go to "File" - "Take a screenshot".

 

[tp163012ab02ae]

You're welcome, always glad to help. The settings are ok.
Yes, changing the timings would be of benefit, but it's also a lot of work. Trial and error and lots of stability testing in between.
You could get a couple percent of performance out of that in certain scenarios, but you're gonna spend quite some time to optimize that.

Tell you what, i could give you some quick primary settings you can try, but first you need to read out the RAM module details with Thaiphoon Burner.
Run as admin, click on the "Read" icon and read the SPD information. Then go to "File" - "Take a screenshot".

Hello, Attached are the is the screenshot from the Thaiphoon software, as well as screenshots of the longer Thaiphoon Report.