UEFI Firmware doesn't save settings

[Hybrid Vigor]

Hi there,
I just installed UEFI Version 2.50 for my Z87M PRO4 board and turned some power saving features on, choose to save settings and exit UEFI.

Next time I entered UEFI, the old settings were still active. I changed this and that, played around with some settings and noticed, sometimes it doesn't save the settings I made, sometimes it does. Sometimes after exiting, the machine turns off and on again, sometimes not. So far so good.

Yesterday I experienced that my new settings were visually saved but the machine did not execute them which I noticed by the fan behaviour.
Every time I noticed this abnormal behaviour, I loaded the default settings, made my changes, saved and exit BIOS.
I did not see this behaviour in version 2.10, but I did not change a lot in that version.

Finally it seems that the machine is now working by the parameters I set in the Firmware, but I hasseled a lot with it to make it work.
This is just to inform Asrock that something 'could' be wrong with the new version.

Cheers
Hybrid

[parsec]

Re: UEFI Firmware doesn't save settings

Interesting, let's diagnose your issue a bit if possible. This is the first we've seen this reported in this forum AFAIK, but 2.50 was released not long ago, on 7/22. Plus things can be missed for a long time before being noticed, as we saw recently. Hopefully something is not wrong the the board, such as the CMOS chip itself, although that can be replaced pretty easily if necessary.

What method did you use to change to 2.50, Instant Flash, DOS, or Windows?

I know you don't or can't change all the options in the BIOS (example, you use RAID mode/RAID array so can't change to AHCI), but does it seem like the same options all the time that won't be saved, or just random? Are the options all related to the CPU or on one page or screen of the BIOS?

Changing certain options will cause the board to shut off and restart (BCLK Ratio for example), that is normal, but those options are rare. If the board shut off after changing a fan speed configuration, something is wrong.

A bad battery in the board can cause strange things to happen to the CMOS chip and BIOS options. Mother board batteries can be goofy, I have a four year old board with the original battery that works fine, and I've had to replace batteries in boards that were a month old. I can't say your battery is bad, just something to keep in mind.

A BIOS can reset some options if they cause the system to crash on start up, like setting the memory speed to high, timings to fast, etc, depending on the BIOS. Not saying that is your situation, since you would know you had a restart of the PC after changing options like this.

I've seen in my ASRock board's BIOS, that changing one option will automatically change others. For example, changing the CPU core multipliers to values in the mid 40's will cause the CPU Input Voltage to be set higher. The CPU fan speed profile may be changed to High Performance or Full On as well. It's may be possible that you choose a value for an option that causes others to change, and then change the first option back again, but the other(s) don't get reset as they should. Just reviewing some of the possibilities before we decide that the BIOS is not saving values, rather than it seems not to be saving them due to the behavior I described.

Have you ever used the BIOS profiles option, where you save all the settings in a profile that can be restored later? That should be in the Tools section. Saving your settings just before clicking Save and Exit would be a good way to confirm that the settings changed spontaneously. You just click Load for the profile, and check if the setting changed back to what you think it should be.

Any chance that you are using A-Tuning in Windows, and applying things like fan speed settings in it is changing the corresponding BIOS options?

[Hybrid Vigor]

[parsec]

Re: UEFI Firmware doesn't save settings

Can the OS be responsible for such UEFI behaviour? I had to rollback a backup a few days before...

Cheers Hybrid

Not really the OS, but something possibly running in the OS, A-Tuning that is. If you had the Auto run at Startup box checked, and the Auto Apply box checked on the Fantastic Tuning screen, etc, that could explain the changes in the BIOS settings.

You mentioned a rollback to a backup, was that backup done before A-Tuning was removed?

[Hybrid Vigor]

Re: UEFI Firmware doesn't save settings

Hi,

A-Tuning is uninstalled, and Speedfan only reports stuff, I never configured it to change anything with it. I can't imagine any software caused this, because it's always the same tools I use. Speedfan in the backround and CS-Source. Nothing else is running. If it was any hidden residing software, I possibly wouldn't be in the lucky position to tell you that it works now.

Greetings and have a great sunny weekend!