I have registered account on MSI support center and also registered my motherboard (MSI z390-a PRO) serial number and created support ticket with info about my EMI problem, the symptoms, how I have confirmed it is electrical problem by taking my hardware to my friends place in other area of town where it works perfectly etc, and have requested that they escalate / forward my ticket to the "BIOS experts" they have to if possible, send me some beta / unofficial BIOS based on the latest version that has this RFI/PCIE Spread spectrum options unlocked,
I included links to this forum and this post and some more info in the support ticket I created and waiting answer on that, I did not include the pictures and specific info I am about to post below yet but will do that if they say they can not help me with this issue and do not want to send me some beta/unofficial bios file with this modifications / unlocked options..
also for the record I just flashed my MSI z390-A pro bios with latest official version from MSI homepage (7B98v1D) from 2021-02-08) flash process went fine but still no spread spectrum option available or unlocked for users,
so anyway, I tried to analyze the latest BIOS file for my motherboard (filename is E7B98IMS.1D0) with tools like AMIBCP (version 5.02.0031) but got this error message:
it seems like MSI is using non-standard format for their BIOS files, it seems standard BIOS files are usually *.bin or *.rom or *.cap , etc, but MSI seem to use some non-standard or custom format?
for example latest BIOS file for Z390-A pro is *.1D0 and not *.cap or *.rom or *.bin , etc..
so then I tried other tools after some googling,
with the program "UEFI Bios Editor" I did manage to open MSI Bios file without any error message , but first had to select "All Files *.*" instead of default file format when opening file, and it looks something like this in this program:
so then I tried to find some entries in the bios file that seem to be related to this spread spectrum stuff, was looking for both "RFI Spread Spectrum" and "PCIE Spread Spectrum" like @yonaxsangi mentioned in his first post in this thread that was the hidden options he enabled on his BIOS, and after some searching I found this stuff:
bingo ! it seems to be true that 1.5% is the default value , and also seems to be true that 6% is maximum value and minimum value is 0.5% if im not mistaken here,
am not sure but I think this RFI spread spectrum is enabled by default on this motherboard, because for example when I look at my BCLK in HWINFO in windows its never 100.0 stable but varies a little, 99.9-100.1 etc, this is my theory anyway, but it would be really nice to have this option unlocked and be able to test all these settings from 0.5% to 6% for some days/weeks to test if it will help me and if it will be consistent, etc...
also, it seems it is not just RFI Spread Spectrum 0.5 % to 6% that is all you can change, there are things here also like "RFI Domain" "RFI Nominal Frequency" "RFI Frequency Adjustment" "RFI Frequency Prefix" "RFI Current Frequency" and "RFI Frequency"
some of these options have values you can change like the 0.5% to 6% on RFI Spread spectrum, and some mhz/khz values on "RFI Frequency Prefix" and "RFI Frequency" , the rest of the options seem to have no values you can change, I don't 100% understand all this but just analyzing so far..
then I tried to look for more RFI spread spectrum stuff and/or "PCIE spread spectrum" like @yonaxsangi was mentioning on his gigabyte aorus bios, after some more searching I found the PCIE spread spectrum thing in my bios file:
seems this option is enabled by default? because if I understand correct, this hidden option will allow user to disable it for EMI compliance testing, so to me then it seems this is enabled by default? anyway would be good to have option unlocked to be able to test difference off vs on etc.. same as RFI spread spectrum..
after some more searching I found HPET hidden setting (!) no idea if enabled or disabled by default, but it is hidden option that I can not access when I go to BIOS myself, but its there in the BIOS file:
(But this doesn't really matter I think, you can enable/disable it from windows anyway and also default windows installation works fine as is, if I enable HPET from windows I lose like 80% of performance and insane stuttering anyway, maybe is just problem with HPET ON on this particular motherboard, but still is not big issue here, because those days/times when my EMI problems are not so bad, it works and feels really really good with default timer settings anyway so.. but would still be nice if this could be unlocked for testing purposes)
found another interesting feature, "Legacy Low IO latency" (?)
no idea what this is , but would also be very interesting to test anyway, if there is possibility of it lowering input latency :p
some more interesting stuff with spread spectrum/BCLK stuff:
this option however I don't think is really connected to RFI/EMI, but maybe it is, just showing it here for example and reference..
also BTW all this I just showed examples of was from the "Tree" section of the UEFI Bios Editor, there is also "Text" section, basically this section is what holds the info/help text that shows when you press "help" on an option in the bios, to get some description of what the option is used for and how it can be configured, here is example of the "Text" section regarding the RFI settings:
and since the text won't fit in the window here I copy paste the whole text that I can find:
"
#string STR_0x070F #language en-US "RFI Settings"
#string STR_0x0710 #language en-US "RFI Domain"
#string STR_0x0711 #language en-US "RFI Nominal Frequency"
#string STR_0x0712 #language en-US "RFI Nominal Frequency"
#string STR_0x0713 #language en-US ""
#string STR_0x0714 #language en-US "RFI Frequency Adjustment"
#string STR_0x0715 #language en-US ""
#string STR_0x0716 #language en-US "RFI Frequency Prefix"
#string STR_0x0717 #language en-US "<+> prefix will move OPVR Center Frequency higher than nominal, 139.5MHz. <-> prefix will move OPVR Center Frequency lower than nominal, 139.5MHz."
#string STR_0x0718 #language en-US "RFI Spread Spectrum"
#string STR_0x0719 #language en-US "Adjustment for OPVR RFI Spread Spectrum to mitigate EMI risk. Spread spectrum values are defined as center spread and total spread %. Default is 1.5%. Additional OPVR EMI reduction can be achieved by increasing RFI Spread Spectrum % value. The use of spread Spectrum % value larger than 1.5% may introduce Wi-Fi RFI. Check Wi-Fi (2.4GHz-2.5GH) RFI condition."
#string STR_0x071A #language en-US "0.5%"
#string STR_0x071B #language en-US "1%"
#string STR_0x071C #language en-US "1.5%"
#string STR_0x071D #language en-US "2%"
#string STR_0x071E #language en-US "3%"
#string STR_0x071F #language en-US "4%"
#string STR_0x0720 #language en-US "5%"
#string STR_0x0721 #language en-US "6%"
#string STR_0x0722 #language en-US "RFI Current Frequency"
#string STR_0x0723 #language en-US "RFI Current Frequency"
#string STR_0x0724 #language en-US "RFI Frequency"
#string STR_0x0725 #language en-US "Set desired RFI frequency, in increments of 100KHz. (For a frequency of 100.6MHz, enter 1006.)"
"
some interesting stuff there that if you go above 1.5% Spread spectrum value there may be issues with Wi-Fi, but I don't care about that since I use ethernet here at home anyway, but maybe still good info!
here is the text/help info for "PCIE Spread spectrum" thing, not much interesting here just short description:
nothing interesting there..
and here is text/help info for hidden HPET option, not much interesting here either again just short description:
here is maybe or maybe not interesting help/text info for hidden system timer option, seems default is ACPI and legacy timer disabled, would be interesting maybe to be able to test legacy timer for performance/responsiveness purposes?:
and here some more again maybe or maybe not interesting info about hidden timer and BCLK/ spread spectrum option stuff:
I copy/paste the text here since it does not fit in the window:
"#string STR_0x1A72 #language en-US "Intel ICC"
#string STR_0x1A73 #language en-US "ICC/OC Watchdog Timer"
#string STR_0x1A74 #language en-US "When enabled, the ICC/OC watchdog timer is exposed to OS as an ACPI device. WDT HW is always used by BIOS when clock settings are changed."
#string STR_0x1A75 #language en-US "ICC Profile"
#string STR_0x1A76 #language en-US "Select clock profile that corresponds to the platform configuration. Profiles are defined by the OEM and platform capabilites. Tpically, profile 0 has failsafe settings. Other profiles correspond to WiMax, 3G, or Overclocking settings."
#string STR_0x1A77 #language en-US "ICC PLL Shutdown"
#string STR_0x1A78 #language en-US "This option controls the programming of the ICC PLL shutdown flow. When enabled, this ICC PM register will be programmed on every non-Sx boot."
#string STR_0x1A79 #language en-US "BCLK Clock Settings"
#string STR_0x1A7A #language en-US " Default Clock Settings"
#string STR_0x1A7B #language en-US "100.00MHz 0.50% Downspread"
#string STR_0x1A7C #language en-US " Frequency Range Limits"
#string STR_0x1A7D #language en-US "uninitialized MHz"
#string STR_0x1A7E #language en-US " Maximum Spread %"
#string STR_0x1A7F #language en-US "uninitialized %"
#string STR_0x1A80 #language en-US " Spread Mode Adjustments"
#string STR_0x1A81 #language en-US "Uninitialized"
#string STR_0x1A82 #language en-US " Clock Frequency"
#string STR_0x1A83 #language en-US "Frequency in 10kHz increments. Specifies new BCLK frequency to be applied. Frequency is rounded to nearest valid value. Allowed range is limited by the Max/Min supported frequencies. Changes are not applied until settings are saved and platform resets. Example: For 125.70MHz, enter 12570."
#string STR_0x1A84 #language en-US " Spread %"
#string STR_0x1A85 #language en-US "Specifies the amount of spread spectrum clocking to be applied to the base clock frequency in 0.01% increments. Allowed range is limited by Maximum Spread % and supported Spread mode Adjustements. If Changes Allowed, a value between 0 and Max Spread % can be specified. Value is adjusted to settings supported by HW. If only Halt Allowed, only 0% and default spread % can be specified. Changes are not applied until settings are saved and platform resets."
#string STR_0x1A86 #language en-US " Bclk Change Permanent"
#string STR_0x1A87 #language en-US "Changes how the BCLK frequency changes are applied permanent with warm reset. 0 - Disabled. 1 - Enabled."
#string STR_0x1A88 #language en-US " Bclk Change w/o Reset"
#string STR_0x1A89 #language en-US "Changes how the BCLK frequency changes are applied. 0 - Realtime. 1 - Permanent, without warm reset. NOTE: Realtime changes will be applied when 'F4' hotkey is pressed. Uses MEI SET_CLOCK_SETTINGS command 0x1B."
#string STR_0x1A8A #language en-US "Permanent, no warm reset"
#string STR_0x1A8B #language en-US "Real Time change"
#string STR_0x1A8C #language en-US "Change Allowed"
#string STR_0x1A8D #language en-US "None Allowed""
anyway this is all I could find, there are MANY MANY options here in the bios file that is hidden from the user, perhaps a lot of these are not hidden on higher end / more expensive MSI motherboards? some settings like WiFi settings are of course hidden on non-WiFi variants of motherboard etc, but IMO things like RFI Spread Spectrum and all its sub-options + PCIE Spread Spectrum and also HPET option should be available for user to experiment with, in cases where there is EMI problems and also for performance/benchmarking in regards to HPET option etc etc...
but for sure the RFI + PCIE spread spectrum stuff is the most interesting here for us users that have EMI problems...
like I said in start of post I have registered account on MSI support center and also registered my motherboard serial number and created support ticket with info about my EMI problem, the symptoms, how I have confirmed it is electrical problem by taking my hardware to my friends place in other area of town where it works perfectly etc, and have requested that they escalate / forward my ticket to the "BIOS experts" they have to if possible, send me some beta / unofficial BIOS based on the latest version that has this RFI/PCIE Spread spectrum options unlocked,
so users in my situation with this motherboard could test different settings and try to at least improve the situation... I am not optimistic they will do it, if they say no I will try to update the ticket with this info and screenshots in this post and try again so they can see exactly what hidden options I am talking about, if they still will not agree and send me some beta / patched bios file with this options unlocked, then I will try to somehow do it myself,
my plan was to somehow compare settings that I can see and change in my bios, to the hidden settings that I can not change, and try to see where the flag for "hidden/not hidden" is, and if I can change the flag to not hidden on all these interesting settings and then build a new bios file and then do some testing, worst case I will kill my motherboard but at this point after 3 years of this EMI problem and completely killed dreams of any consistent competitive play I am willing to try anything... but obviously best option would be to get some bios expert from MSI to fix this for me so I dont have to experiment with some risky stuff...
sorry for the long post but this is some REALLY interesting stuff for me and has me again a little bit optimistic to at least be able to improve situation before I can move to new apartment in ~1 year or so...
PS. If MSI will not want to help me and send modified bios file with these options unlocked, I am willing to even pay money for someone here to do it , but at same time I do not want to kill my motherboard if I can avoid it, maybe Chief would be willing to unlock these RFI spread spectrum+PCIE spread spectrum+HPET options ?
I am sure you would be able to do it since you are like master guru of hardware and tech :p but also understand if you would not want to but I can say I am 100% aware that it is on my own responsibility and risk and you would not be liable for any damage of course, I am just desperate to try and fix this problem or at least improve the situation to be better, until I move to new place in future... thoughts on this? (quoting you here chief just so you see it)
Chief Blur Buster wrote: ↑19 Apr 2021, 18:46
*just quoting you so you can see this and to ask if you would be willing to try your hand later on to modify the bios files for my z390-a pro motherboard, just in case MSI will not agree to send me modified bios file *
kind regards , /Alex
