Severe X870 Tomahawk issues

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Leon255156302e1

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I recently bought the X870 Tomahawk to use with a 9800x3d and Corsair 2x16Gb 6000CL30 EXPO (CMK32GX5M2B6000Z30) but I'm having lots of issues...
Frequent crashes (windows sometimes shows "Clock watchdog timeout" BSOD, sometimes no blue screen), my NVME drives sometimes disappear (I need to turn off the power completely, a reboot isn't enough to show it again) making the OS unable to boot and I could not get the Wifi to work.

Today during a reboot there was a warning that the hardware changed so I press F1 to open the bios and the EXPO profile simply disappeared! I exit the bios, boot the system and now it only shows 4Gb of RAM?!? The system is very slow too.
I'm using the latest bios, but it isn't stable, please advise.
 

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MechDragon said:
I have Tomahawk X870 and 990 Pro 4TB in the first slot. The bottom thermal pad, of course, doesn't make contact with the SSD. The top thermal pad only has contact with the memory. In benchmarks, temperatures reached around 65°C for the memory and 84°C for the controller. In games, the temperatures are lower, the memory is at about 55-60°C and the controller at 60-70°C. However, these values are likely influenced by the heat from surrounding components.

To reduce the controller temperature, I added a cheap 0.5mm thermal pad above the controller. Now, in benchmarks, the controller temperature reaches around 72°C, and in games, it stays between 50-60°C.
Click to expand...
So maybe it'd be best to leave the bottom not peeled to achieve same
 
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darrylkache154102d3 said:
I'm guessing you are running the stock BIOS. I had the wireless LAN disappear on me and it had nothing to do with drivers because the device was missing in both Windows and Linux. The stock BIOS gets messed up and doesn't let the OS know the onboard peripheral exists. That is why clearing the BIOS brought the peripheral back for both you and me.

What you really want to do is upgrade your BIOS via M-Flash per MSI's instructions (don't do it from Windows). I'm on v1A2 from 2025-01-02 and my wireless LAN has been rock solid ever since I upgraded, though I still haven't gotten to overclocking the RAM. v1A2 also cleared up other very strange problems I had, like the BIOS reporting setting were cleared on boot now and then (even though they weren't).

It is too bad MSI released the BIOS in such a buggy state and continues to ship the board with that same BIOS. It really is a good board for both Windows and Linux (as long as you are using a recent kernel) but early BIOS problems have given it a bit of a bad rap for some.
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I am unfortunately not on the stock bios. I upgraded it to the latest immediately the night of the build to the latest marked from December. Mine was not the wireless also, it was the 5gbe ethernet jack.

Also, I have found that I can easily reproduce the LAN speed going to 100/100 by unplugging and plugging in different ethernet cables. This then requires power off of the power supply for 10 seconds to get it to kick itself back into gear or it will never renegotiate 2.5g or even 1g, it stays stuck in 100m. MSI has more work to do.
 
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lepardigepard159402e1 said:
Can anyone confirm if the primary M.2 slot works for the single sided Samsung 990 Pro?

Does it keep the temps below 70C in usage when you peel off the plastic in both top and bottom thermal pads and insert SSD?

Because I've read about the TOP heatsink thermal pads not making contact if you have a single sided SSD. Also read that you might have to leave the bottom thermal pads unpeeled with a single sided SSD (even though this is not mentioned in manual?)
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#1. I have Samsung 990 Pro 2TB in the M2_1 primary slot. It was detected immediately.
#2. I peeled the plastic off both the top and bottom thermal pads. In hindsight, that was probably stupid because it is single sided but I wasn't thinking about that.
#3. These are my test results running CrystalDiskMark and some temps, hope they may be of some use. Highest recorded was 67c, I ran these tests constantly for about 20 minutes.
#4. "Idle" is actually like 31c for the nand, and 38c for the controller, sorry that the benchmark picture doesn't reflect that since I was messing with crystaldiskmark just a bit before.
 

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admi154e02dd said:
#1. I have Samsung 990 Pro 2TB in the M2_1 primary slot. It was detected immediately.
#2. I peeled the plastic off both the top and bottom thermal pads. In hindsight, that was probably stupid because it is single sided but I wasn't thinking about that.
#3. These are my test results running CrystalDiskMark and some temps, hope they may be of some use. Highest recorded was 67c, I ran these tests constantly for about 20 minutes.
#4. "Idle" is actually like 31c for the nand, and 38c for the controller, sorry that the benchmark picture doesn't reflect that since I was messing with crystaldiskmark just a bit before.
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Looking at reviews of X870 Tomahawk, there clearly is even a riser block on the bottom plastic cover, that will of course disappear if you peel the plastic. So we clearly have a designed feature for single sided SSD's. But why doesn't the manual mention it at all and directs users to remove the riser? 🤦‍♂️
 
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A bit weird problem and maybe not MSI related:

Connecting my KB and mouse the the onboard Bluetooth makes then unusable in BIOS. Only in Windows (after the drivers have been loaded I guess).
Is there a way to have them in BIOS while connected to the onboard Bluetooth?
 
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lepardigepard159402e1 said:
Looking at reviews of X870 Tomahawk, there clearly is even a riser block on the bottom plastic cover, that will of course disappear if you peel the plastic. So we clearly have a designed feature for single sided SSD's. But why doesn't the manual mention it at all and directs users to remove the riser? 🤦‍♂️
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This is what happens when I put the riser block back exactly in the place that it was on the plastic (I still had it from the plastic trash.) The imprint from it was visible.
It warps the 990 nvme SD. No bueno. Instructions make sense to get rid of it here.
 

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admi154e02dd said:
This is what happens when I put the riser block back exactly in the place that it was on the plastic
Click to expand...
200.gif

For the love of god DO NOT DO THAT ever you may kill the M.2 It is transport material only toss it in the bin so your no longer tempted to see just how much bend will kill the M.2
 
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Alan J T said:
For the love of god DO NOT DO that ever you may kill the M.2 It is transport material only toss it in the bin so your no longer tempted to see just how much end will kill the M.2
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It was obvious not to leave it like that the moment I placed it in with the block... I only took a picture of it quick and removed it.
I have seen this misinformation regarding leaving the plastic and block in place in more than one forum.
 
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Hi all, can I ask, with the issues you had.

1. Would you still buy the board?
2. If not what would you buy as an alternative?

Thinking of buying an X870/or e soon but had a problem with my old X570 Tomahawk and now having second thoughts about the X870.

Thanks

W
 
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whosking6152902d9 said:
Hi all, can I ask, with the issues you had.

1. Would you still buy the board?
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Clearly, we can only advise against buying an MSI AM5 board. Too many unresolved problems. The X870 Tomahawk has now been available for almost 4 months and the number of problems is far too high. Better buy a board from another manufacturer. It will save you time, nerves and money! Don't think that problems will be solved within a short time. Most people are stuck with the board because they thought so - including me.

I would definitely recommend a board from Asus.
 
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whosking6152902d9 said:
Hi all, can I ask, with the issues you had.

1. Would you still buy the board?
2. If not what would you buy as an alternative?

Thinking of buying an X870/or e soon but had a problem with my old X570 Tomahawk and now having second thoughts about the X870.

Thanks

W
Click to expand...

Board runs great for me. My only gripe is that the bios is a bit stripped down with no ability to turn off SATA and individual USB ports. Oh and not being able to turn off the diagnostic LED is a minor inconvenience.

You're going to be hearing a loud minority of people here that are having issues and are disgruntled from not having their stuff work during the holiday. I get it, but the general concensus on this board is that its great especially for the price.
 
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Tones_Terrific said:
Board runs great for me. My only gripe is that the bios is a bit stripped down with no ability to turn off SATA and individual USB ports. Oh and not being able to turn off the diagnostic LED is a minor inconvenience.

You're going to be hearing a loud minority of people here that are having issues and are disgruntled from not having their stuff work during the holiday. I get it, but the general concensus on this board is that its great especially for the price.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, there are always loud cheers from individuals who have not understood that all the advertised features have to work and not just a few. They are not even paid by MSI for this, they do it out of blind obedience. It is also not enough if the board does not crash.

The list of problems is long and it is old. Some of the problems were already known from the 600 series boards.

1. boot time is very high. It was once reduced, but after the latest necessary BIOS update it has deteriorated again.
2. MSI has hidden common options for SATA drives and dictates options to users here. Until recently, all SATA SSDs therefore appeared as removable drives. They are now permanently set as non-removable. All other manufacturers leave this up to the user.
3. MSI has problems accessing the BIOS after warm boots if a graphics card is connected via DisplayPort. Otherwise it works with a cold boots.
4. WLAN and LAN adapter disappear from time to time. Only a CMOS reset can help here. This is particularly problematic when using Linux. With Ubuntu, for example, the WLAN adapter works after the first start of the distribution, after which the WLAN adapter is gone. Under Windows, both adapters tend to disappear after a longer energy-saving mode.
5. USB takes a very, very long time to wake up after power saving mode.
6. many problems with RAM.
7. meanwhile fixed, but it cannot be ruled out that the BIOS crashes again. Most recently in the HW monitor (fan curve).
 
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whosking6152902d9 said:
Hi all, can I ask, with the issues you had.

1. Would you still buy the board?
2. If not what would you buy as an alternative?

Thinking of buying an X870/or e soon but had a problem with my old X570 Tomahawk and now having second thoughts about the X870.

Thanks

W
Click to expand...
1. Never. The post above nailed it why. To add to that the experience with customer support is very lacklustre. They don't know how to deal with a customer.
2. Probably Gigabyte.
 
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