Monday, July 8th 2019
BIOS ROM Size Limitations Almost Derail AMD's Zen2 Backwards Compatibility Promise
AMD succeeded in delivering on its backwards-compatibility promise for the 3rd generation Ryzen processors on motherboards based on AMD 300-series and 400-series chipsets. This promise was very close to being derailed suggests a community thread on MSI forums. According to MSI representatives active on the forum, the capacity of the SPI flash EEPROM chip that stores the motherboard UEFI firmware is woefully limited to cram in the AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.3a microcode on many of its motherboards.
The company had to make several changes to its UEFI BIOS package that's currently being circulated as a "beta," to accommodate support for 3rd generation Ryzen processors along with AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.3a. First, it had to kick out support for A-series and Athlon processors based on the 28 nm "Bristol Ridge" silicon. Second, it had to [and this is a big one], kick the RAID module, breaking SATA RAID on many of its motherboards. Third, it had to replace its feature-rich Click BIOS 5 setup program with a barebones "GSE Lite" Click BIOS program, which lacks many of the features of the original program, and comes with a dull, low-resolution UI. This program still includes some essential MSI-exclusive features such as A-XMP (which translates Intel XMP profiles to AMD-compatible settings), Smart Fan, and M-Flash.
The scary part? Many other motherboard brands appear to be using 16-megabyte EEPROMs on their older socket AM4 motherboards. These companies are bound to run into similar ROM capacity issues unless they keep their UEFI setup programs lightweight. Motherboards based on the latest X570 chipset feature 32-megabyte EEPROMs. The AMD X570 chipset lacks support for not just "Bristol Ridge," but also first-generation Ryzen "Summit Ridge" and "Raven Ridge" processors.
We recommend that unless you literally possess a 3rd generation Ryzen processor, do not update the BIOS of your older socket AM4 motherboard. You may risk losing features and break your RAID volumes. Find out the latest version of BIOS that has the classic AGESA PinnaclePI 1.0.0.6 microcode, and use that instead.
Source:
MSI
The company had to make several changes to its UEFI BIOS package that's currently being circulated as a "beta," to accommodate support for 3rd generation Ryzen processors along with AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.3a. First, it had to kick out support for A-series and Athlon processors based on the 28 nm "Bristol Ridge" silicon. Second, it had to [and this is a big one], kick the RAID module, breaking SATA RAID on many of its motherboards. Third, it had to replace its feature-rich Click BIOS 5 setup program with a barebones "GSE Lite" Click BIOS program, which lacks many of the features of the original program, and comes with a dull, low-resolution UI. This program still includes some essential MSI-exclusive features such as A-XMP (which translates Intel XMP profiles to AMD-compatible settings), Smart Fan, and M-Flash.
We recommend that unless you literally possess a 3rd generation Ryzen processor, do not update the BIOS of your older socket AM4 motherboard. You may risk losing features and break your RAID volumes. Find out the latest version of BIOS that has the classic AGESA PinnaclePI 1.0.0.6 microcode, and use that instead.
88 Comments on BIOS ROM Size Limitations Almost Derail AMD's Zen2 Backwards Compatibility Promise
Wonder if this will be an issue come time of the threadripper 3 release....
I would prefer a de-bloated blue with white text UEFI but with full support for all AM4 chips than some stupid flashy UEFI.
X370 Gaming K5
AB350M D3H
I only have one Bristol Ridge, and it is an interesting CPU. But broken here and there. It is ok that they kick out support, only a handful of people used this cpu. And i can still run it on my Asus X370 if i like :)
I checked on my ASUS C7H. Luckily my board has 32MB flash size.
Though to mention that the new bios from ASUS C7H is bugged. On 2406, the USB support is not working properly. None of the mice I have works inside the bios.
Also have trouble with DOCP support for my 16GB G.Skill Trident Z RGB DDR4-3200 CL14.
I went back to 2304.
According to DigiKey, an 8-pin 128Mbit (16 MB) SPI flash ROM chip of the kind used on motherboards starts at $1.31 a piece when bought in bulk reels. A 256Mbit (32 MB) chip in the same form-factor costs $2.04 a piece. Motherboard makers have the bargaining power to bring those prices down even further. Even if not, they're literally 70 cents apart. Motherboard designers could have cut out some RGB crap to make room for a 256Mb chip. They probably wanted forced-obsolescence by telling AMD "it can't be done" when the time came, but failed at that when AMD replied "it can be done, just delete support for older processors and make your setup program smaller."
Now, if instead of UEFI anyone had the the wisdom to write a BIOS that sticks to its job... www.coreboot.org/
2. Well, there's a cost difference, so low cost boards will use low cost parts, pretty logical, no?We're way past the point of no return for this, UEFI is here to stay and it's coming to embedded ARM devices too.
This is what has been decided by higher powers and as a user, we have no choice.
UEFI is supposed to be more secure, smarter and better, but I'm not sure this is really true...Yes, but ramp this up to a million products and that's a million bucks someone could've pocketed...
This is what people in general forget when they talk component costs. This is also why companies try to save a cent on things, as it's all about the quantity, not the individual component cost.
You're absolutely right about the RGB crap though, as removing all the useless LEDs would most likely have saved even more money. But the LEDs are there for marketing purposes, no? More important that having a solid product that will last...Urgh, Olivetti made the worst PCs...
The mouse BIOS was not unique to them though, it was actually found on a lot of boards.
What you miss though, is that it only worked with PS/2 and maybe serial mice, not USB mice.
It's not problem getting the blue and white UEFI though, it's actually common on a lot of non consumer devices that use UEFI, as well as most notebooks.
ami.com/en/products/bios-uefi-firmware/aptio-4/It wouldn't quite work, as if you then want to go to the 3000-series, how would you go around updating the UEFI? Your older CPU would instantly not work with the board after you updated, which might cause some problems. But otherwise it makes sort of sense.
It doesn't take many lines of assembly to implement basic mouse support.
But the fancy BIOS GUIs is beside the point, that's not the problem. The size of that bloatware should be known to the motherboard maker, the problem is when adding support for new CPUs needing new firmware, which grows every time there is a new lineup or even possibly if they expand the current lineup.Sorry, I must have misunderstood. I thought this platform was going to last longer.
I do like Coreboot, but I don't think it will gain any adoption. UEFI is a bloated piece of crap, but that's not the worst part of it; it's also a security nightmare. It's only a matter of time before someone figures out a way to break into it remotely.
Unless gigabyte forgot to mention that in their description (haven't tried the new bios yet).