Weird fix that I found when troubleshooting BSODs with ASUS TUF GAMING B650-E WIFI

[trparky]

So, during my quest in building a 7800X3D-based system for my brother, I kept having issues with BSODs and Memory Context Restore when loading Windows. It seems that for whatever reason, ASUS puts two instances of "Memory Context Restore" in their BIOS. Yes, you read right... TWO of them! You have to enable both of them or you're going to be in BSOD hell after enabling EXPO on your memory modules. And to make matters worse, you have to use the BIOS search tool to search for the term "memory context" to find both of them.

Once I did that, no more BSODs with EXPO and Memory Context Restore enabled. Why in God's name did ASUS do this? Hell, if I know. But there it is. I'm going to chalk it up to ASUS being ASUS.

Just thought I'd pass this along for anyone else experiencing issues in the future.

 

[_roman_]

Thanks for sharing.

May I add something myself also:

The UEFI from my ASUS X670-P Prime Mainboard is a bit weird. Some settings stay disabled when you disable them once. E.g. TPM

The only fix I know of is to do a CMOS Reset and flash a newer Bios Version. Keep everything at stock and do a Windows 11 24H2 Update from the ".iso" Image and than load the settings from USB again.

I had several times the feeling, once an option is disabled in the uefi - it stays disabled even when you turn it on in uefi and "save and reset" your options in uefi. (only fix I know off. Cmos reset / or worst case just flash a newer uefi version (which very often is just by chance just a few days available) / play back your options from usb stick (when the option there was not touched before))

I suggest to disable ASUS armory Crate in the UEFI. Every UEFI Update without changing anything will enable it again. That Software had some security issues in the past.

Some stuff is really hard to find. The search helps. Only when you have a rough idea how they named the option. I suggest changing to the advanced view and not stay with the initial easy UEFI menu view. (whatever they name it)

 

[Bill_Bright]

Why in God's name did ASUS do this?

My "WAG" is each channel can be or needs to be set separately.

Did you make sure you have the latest firmware?

 

[trparky]

Did you make sure you have the latest firmware?

Yes, in fact when I was having stability issues that was the first thing I did; update BIOS. It was only after scouring the Internet and reading something on Reddit that I was able figure out what to do. I was just about ready to concede not being able to run EXPO on his system when I found someone mention that on Reddit and then like boom, instant system stability and short boot times.

Part of me wants to call up ASUS and ask them what the hell they were smoking. And here I thought that Gigabyte BIOS's were buggy.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Since it worked, hard to tell if it was a bug, or intentional design. Either way, if not fully documented in your user-guide, it should have been easy to find and understand when navigating the BIOS Setup Menu.

 

[Harlow]

Just thought I'd pass this along for anyone else experiencing issues in the future.

Ta. A handy tip. I'll file this away for future reference, when I eventually enable TPM, Secure Boot, EXPO, etc. and update from Windows 10 to 11 next October.

I suggest to disable ASUS armory Crate in the UEFI. Every UEFI Update without changing anything will enable it again. That Software had some security issues in the past.

I just found Armory Crate buggy back in December 2022, tried to uninstall it but it wouldn't play ball. Instead, I disabled it in the BIOS. Useful to know it might reappear each time I update the BIOS.