ASRock X470D4U

[emexar]

https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=X470D4U#Specifications
Is this board a real deal? Or I'd better go with it's competitors Supermicro X11SSM or Intel S1200SPL.
They have pretty much same specs and price. The main difference is AMD cpu and 128GB ram support. The AMD cpu is the main reason of my concerns.
Will ecc memory going to work with any of the cpus from "support list" https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=X470D4U#CPU? I can't find any info about ecc on amd official site (or all amd cpu support ecc).
Will I incur in any hardware/software compatibility issues with AMD cpu? In past I had this kind of issues with AMD cpu and since then decided to stick to Intel ones.

 

[MikeyG]

I have the board paired with a Ryzen 1700 and 64GB of ECC memory. I had some issues with it not booting properly until I set memory speeds manually, but have been running it for a few weeks without further issue.

I assume the ECC memory is doing its job properly, although I admit I don't know how to check.

 

[emexar]

Guess I'll just go with better deal a can find. I just find it strange AMD not announcing it anywhere officially that all ryzen support ECC. Then again why they don't tell max ram supported.

 

[cobrakiller58]

I'm pretty sure AMD did say all Ryzen CPU have the ability to support ECC memory but it is up to the board partners to enable and verify functionality. reddit AMA https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/5x4hxu/we_are_amd_creators_of_athlon_radeon_and_other/def6vs2/

 

[MikeyG]

FYI, I'm taking back my assessment of this board. I've had two hard crashes, and then it wouldn't boot back through the BIOS until I powered off the box completely. I'm experimenting with several settings now to try and get it stable, but at this time I'd use caution.

In my research so far, this might be caused by issues with 1st gen Ryzen (I'm using a 1700) and C6 states but can't be sure.

 

[emexar]

Since they suggest 2nd and 3rd gen, it might be the cpu.

 

[MikeyG]

Since they suggest 2nd and 3rd gen, it might be the cpu.

It's possible. I contacted them first to verify that the 1700 was compatible even though it wasn't officially listed as such and they said it was.

I have read that there were freebsd bugs that affected first gen Ryzen's, so if it comes down to it, i might pick up a newer one. That idea of this board was that I could re-use my existing 1700 without spending more $ on it. I hate to go further in if it's really the MB that's the issue.

 

[emexar]

Buy on amazon a cpu, test it, and return it withing 30 days if MB keep giving problems:D

 

[MikeyG]

Seems to be stable now. To get it working well with my Ryzen 1700, I had do two things:

1. Set memory speed to 1866 (I have all 4 slots populated) even though my memory is rated at 2400 and worked at 2400 just fine in a previous MB. This fixed issues where it wouldn't boot past the BIOS reliably. (Sometimes it worked.)
2. Disable global C-state control. I also have S6 disabled, but I believe c-state control was the major thing causing crashes every few days. With C-state enabled and S6 disabled I still got crashes. There is some kind of bug with 1st gen Ryzen and free-bsd that causes it to lock up when the CPU enters certain sleep states (or maybe any sleep states). I don't know if this affects the 2nd or 3rd gen versions.

Anyway, it uses up about 20 more watts at idle, and temps don't get below about 45c, but I haven't had a crash in weeks.

 

[poldi]

Hi,
I also bough the x470d4u recently paired with a 2nd gen Ryzen, i.e. 5 2600. I am also plagued by unscheduled reboots and lock ups. This mostly happens in the middle of the night or at other hours of no activity on the server. I was also experimented with disabling C6 power state but to no avail.
Would you be able to add some more details on what you set in the BIOS to get your system to behave?
Thanks, Simon

 

[MikeyG]

@poldi Did you try disabling global c state control yet? I think the issue is before it even gets to C6, and likely if it tries c1 or c2 which I think disabling global c state control will prevent. I think it's someplace under AMD CBS. Not in the user guide though and I can't get to the BIOS unless I reboot.

Good to know that the problem is the same on the 2000 series as well though.

 

[poldi]

No I did not try the global setting yet. I will go and have a look for it later. Good to know it is not in the manual. I was searching for it there up and down and did find any mention of it (not that the manual is very elaborative when it comes to BIOS settings).
Either way thanks for the tip. I will report back on the progress.

 

[poldi]

You remembered correctly it was under AMD CBS.
I made the following settings now (in case someone runs into the same issues and wants to replicate it):
Under
Advanced -> AMD CBS -> CPU Common Options, set 'Global C-State Control' to 'Disabled':

For good measure, under
Advanced -> CPU Configuration, set 'C6 Mode' to 'Disabled':

Screenshots are for BIOS version 3.20.
RAM speeds are on Auto still, as I have no issue booting into Freenas.
@mgittelman: Did I miss anything on the power management side?

Let's wait any see if it holds. If I get no lock up or unscheduled reboots until Monday I declare victory.

 

[MikeyG]

Those two settings are all I did in terms of power management. I had to set my memory to 1866 to fix booting issues, but then I have all 4 slots populated and this appears to be expected per the MB guide.

Hope that fixes it for you. If you have any way to tell, would be curious what your additional power usage is with the new settings.

 

[poldi]

Ok my test was interrupted due to a larger power outage :(
Regarding the power consumption I would need to borrow a power meter and install it. I think I might jump on the 11.3 beta bandwagon early on. Since this should contain the upgrade to FreeBSD 11.3 I would like to test if this improves stability. Either way this should require a restart and I could combine this with power measurements.
Regarding the CPU temp I also see a solid 45°C now where it would before dip to around ambient temperature.

 

[poldi]

Hello,
so I have a small update.
I am still plagued with instability but I did find some more hints on further BIOS settings in the AMD forum (here).
There someone reported to have better results, in Linux albeit, with also setting Power Supply Idle Control to 'Typical Current Idle', like so:

Even with this in place I had another unscheduled restart the other night. But I am getting the feeling that the overall stability has increased. I will keep on monitoring, just wanted to provide an update on the status.
I also managed to the get power meter installed. I get, with the power settings tweaked in the BIOS, 55-60W at idle (whole system). I don't have any measurements before the changes yet as I don't want to touch it at the moment. Looking at the values however I would guess a 20-25W delta is likely.

 

[MikeyG]

@poldi You are getting crashes with just Global C-State Control and S6 disabled? I never experienced any crashes with those settings off on my Ryzen 1700.

Testing Power Supply Idle set to Typical Current Idle, but with C-State Control re-enabled. I found something similar about a week ago saying that was an alternate fix to messing with the C State control setting. Will let you know how that goes for me.

 

[poldi]

@mgittelman Currently I have set 'Global C-State Control' and 'C6 Mode' both to disabled. Additionally I have set 'Power supply idle control' to 'Typical current idle'. With this I still get unscheduled reboots around every other night.
I have the feeling it has become more stable but statistics is still a bit thin here.
Funny is that the restarts seem to be clustered between 2:00 - 2:10am which appears to be the time the automatically generated emails are being sent. For testing I tried to deactivate the email sending by removing the email address from the root user account (there is no UI option for this so I don't know if this will suffice).
I did some more digging yesterday and found some people claiming that disabling 'Cool'n'Quite' in BIOS also helped for them. I couldn't find this option anymore but read yesterday that it was renamed to 'PSS Support'. So I might try disabling this as well.
I also found an old bug report (here) which was resolved after a BIOS update. But that was an ASRock board with an X370 chip set.
Btw. which BIOS version are you running on your X470D4U?

 

[MikeyG]

Running BIOS version 3.2.

I'm currently testing Power supply idle control set to current idle, but I have C-State Control and C6 mode enabled. I have yet to test with the specific combination you are using, but will let you know how it goes. Based on the fact that I was previously crashing about every 5-10 days, it's going to be a while before I can make a determination as to if this combo is stable.

 

[poldi]

Ok that sounds like an interesting test. I will be curious as to the outcome.
On a side note I also raised a support request with ASRock now in parallel. I think this looks to me like a BIOS/CPU issue. The CPU was my first bet. However that I swapped already as I was still within the returns window. Would be interesting to know if other people have similar experience with Ryzen 2nd gen but in the forums not many people have tried to run FreeNAS on Ryzen.
I aslo looked into getting a 1700 like you are using. However, for decent prices I have to get one used on Ebay and then I cannot return it. Actually quite funny that your combination is stable allthough the CPU is not mentioned as supported by ASRock.
Either way if I get anything worthwhile from ASRock I will report It here.