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guys how many of you have near your house high power lines or trafo stations?

I was thinking maybe you can add EMI shielding by yourself? Like what if you cover the mobo with an anti-electric conductive material, then cover that with copper tape (for shielding)? I don't foresee any heat problems as I don't think anything needs much cooling on the mobo, even then, if you used a heat conductive, but not electricity conductie material, that should fix it.

You could add that on both sides, then mobo would be protected from all sides. Obviously you'd have to leave a few blocks open like NVMe, RAM slots, pcie slots, cpu slot, but should be interesting to try though.

Another idea would be to add some shielding to the back of the GPU, but I think they kinda have one anyway these days (my one has a metal plate at the back).

Best would be to add some sort of shielding to the PSU though, especially if you don't have a good one, cause that one seems to produce the most EMI.

alright hello again guys, another long reply and post incoming because I will try to reply / multiquote several users here at once instead of making 3-4 new posts

Chief Blur Buster wrote: ↑

19 Apr 2021, 22:42

I am flattered you would ask: I am more of the guru of monitor motherboards (the stuff inside your monitor) rather than PC motherboards.

However, there are quite a few motherboard hackers in these forums, though they may more quickly notice a subject title "Need Firmware Hack for [MOTHERBOARD MODEL] to enable spread spectrum to resist EMI better" or such. If you wish, I could split your post into its new fresh thread, to get the thread-title highlight. On the other hand, reusing a popular thread (as long as ontopic) can stay visible longer. Pros/cons... Perhaps wait a week or two before PM-ing me to ask for a thread split. (Note: PM'ing admins/mods is only for forum support)

You could link to this post from some certain areas of Discord (HalfwayDead's Rocket Science as an example) as well as high-skill friends of Blur Busters such as Guru3D who's collaborated with Blur Busters on certain things (such as improving RTSS), though knowledge about genuine EMI issues varies between different forums. I welcome further collaboration in this area. Your permalink is as follows:

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https://forums.blurbusters.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=8532&p=66436#p66430

However, I welcome others to take upon your offer [be safe about it though, check cred/reputation/etc]

P.S. To make it easier for others to read the text in your imges, I modified the UBB coding in your post to make your images clickable/zoomable. with technique:

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[url=address][img]address[/img][/url]

Alright, Thanks a lot Chief for the help and for having these forums !

I think I will wait like you said a little while before deciding on next step,

MSI tech support replied by the way to my ticket with a kind of generic / BS answer,
that they are not intending to add these options or unlock them for end-users at this point in time,

was kind of expecting it though :p even if I explained very clearly I am aware of the risks involved,
and am giving up my right to any RMA if I fail the process or whatever lol,



So next step will be to either try to do it myself, or get someone from these forums (or places like win-raid, guru3d, etc) to do it for me I guess!


only real questionmark I have is if I should try to get ALL of the rfi-specific settings unlocked,
or only that specific one where you can change the default value of 1.5% to 0.5%-6% ... but that will be for me to find out I guess!


I'll maybe or maybe not send you a PM then in one-two weeks time about that thread-split..

cheers anyway for now and thanks again so much !

pox02 wrote: ↑

19 Apr 2021, 23:59

@alexander1986

try this

https://easyupload.io/phvfou

run export.bat
If all things correct, it should export to a txt file with all BIOS settings. Just change the * to what you want the new value to be.
Supports everything hidden (and visible)
Import.bat flashes the txt again
Reboot, and check if it worked

hm very very interesting tool!, thanks for this one!

at first it did not work to just run the export.bat from desktop,
but once I went into elevated command prompt with admin rights and ran the export.bat it did work,
and it exported the bios file with all the settings to "BIOSsettings.txt"


only problem is I don't feel 100% comfortable/safe/sure about exactly what setting(s) I should put the * on, and also not sure exactly what will happen
when I run the import.bat file, can this even be done from windows? I mean can this import.bat really flash the bios from windows like that after I make some changes and put
the * on the settings I want to modify? or maybe has to be run from a bootable USB-DOS stick somehow?



for example, here is how it looks in my exported biossettings.txt about the RFI spread spectrum, PCIE spread spectrum, and HPET options:




here is question, what do I put * to exactly hmm... so far my theory is to just put the * on the 6% setting,
as this seems to be the maximum value and in theory then should give the best EMI resistance from what I understand,

but only issue is I am not sure, when looking at the other RFI stuff in the picture, how to unlock/expose these settings in the bios menu, if you understand?

for example if I put the * on the 6% setting and reflash and lets say everything goes ok, maybe I will not still see the RFI settings in the bios just from this change,
but maybe at least it will now really be 6% active setting instead of default 1.5% and I can test like that? and then test the other 0.5% - 6% settings one by one over some time period...


did you do this yourself some time? if so you could maybe just explain a bit short and simple how you did it :p


much more simple and straight-forward stuff is the PCIE spread spectrum setting and HPET setting, example here on PCIE stuff:





this is more basic just simple on/off setting, and it seems to be enabled by default,
only question is if its worth to also experiment with this setting and put the * on disabled, also wonder if this will make the option show up in bios menu, or simply it will be changed
"in background" but will not be able to see setting in bios menu..


and last thing is the HPET stuff, also simple on/off thing:





but this hpet thing is not that big for me because like said before it can be enabled/disabled from windows, and default settings work well for me anyway
(during the days/times where the EMI problem is not so bad for me it feels very good with default settings for me anyway I mean)


so basically only the RFI and PCIE spread spectrum options are interesting for me right now, and the PCIE stuff is simple on/off thing,
only complicated part is the RFI stuff where I am not 100% sure if I should only put the * on the 6% setting, and try to reflash, and pray to god I don't kill motherboard


(but also would be interesting to know about the other options there in RFI section and how to actually expose them in bios menu, and not just enabling/disabling in background,
if that makes sense...)



appreciate the help a LOT so far though man ! getting closer and closer now !

blackmagic wrote: ↑

20 Apr 2021, 04:16

@alexander1986


you can open the bios with AMIBCP patched one that is for z390...

https://disk.yandex.com/d/vJAIK82mvATlZg


just rename the bios then to mybios.rom and you rdy to go and edit what is possible to edit.
but here im stuck and dont go further...

i better wait for @yonaxsangi before doing something by myself...

i just hope it is possible to edit our bioses. msi is not rly nice to us and hides so many stuff...
already saw msi forums where users complain about that all...


and yes hpet seems to be already enabled by default on our boards, bios.

ah yes !, the patched AMIBCP worked fine to at least open bios file without error message, but problem with this is I am not sure exactly how to read the info so to speak to determine exactly what is hidden/unhidden and also how to edit stuff using this program,

for example the RFI settings stuff looks like this for me in AMIBCP:





so I am not 100% sure how to edit here for example to unlock the options and so on,

but what I can say is the .bat files that is using SCEWIN_64.exe recommended and linked by @pox02 was very simple and straightforward, and also easily shows me already what is disabled/enabled in the textfile it exports and creates, with the * = enabled etc,

you can check examples above in the pics in my reply to @pox02 , also I read your more recent post about you did not have success reflashing your bios if I understand correct? if you want to maybe you can share with us what happened or how you did it exactly..


but like I said I am willing to try anything at this point and also don't really care if motherboard dies,
will just make sure that the new one I buy if I kill this one has the RFI settings unlocked in menu, am pretty sure ASUS motherboards have the setting unlocked,
and a good way IMO to know, is you can download motherboard manual first to some motherboard you are interested in, and try to see if you can find RFI+PCIE spread spectrum options in the manual before purchasing the motherboard,
so then you know at least before that it will be there!


if you manage to fix your motherboard bios or if you buy new one , please keep us updated how it goes with your situation man !

hardhit wrote: ↑

20 Apr 2021, 05:07

alexander1986 wrote: ↑

19 Apr 2021, 20:11

guys, * warning * for LONG post with a lot of pictures and info coming, but I think is very relevant.. anyway.



kind regards , /Alex

Apologies if mentioning another website is against the rules, however as this could be beneficial for obtaining any additional information about the bios settings I would suggest asking in win-raid community, to be exact "request a bios modding" section. Uppon request, they have modded my msi b450m bazooka max wifi bios twice, first time to expose HPET switch and second to update bios modules such as realtek and others etc.

They modify your bios so it easy to flash as a regular bios

Provide your motherboard name, the link to bios file, bios file name and what you want to be modified. From my experience I got the modifed file as soon as 2hours from my request

https://www.win-raid.com/f54-BIOS-Modding-Requests.html

hey man, thanks for reminding me of win-raid forums lol, the users there actually helped me when I bought this z390 motherboard with some modded USB drivers so that I could use my USB keyboard and mouse
when installing windows 7 , because for some reason it did not work natively,
and had to get some modded usb drivers from win-raid which I remember I put on the usb stick that had the win7 iso, and it worked fine!

long story short though in the end I just went back to windows 10 anyway :p


anyway I will definitely keep win-raid in mind if I don't have the courage to proceed myself with the reflashing of the bios, and maybe also is good idea to make a post there either way to explain situation,
and to kind of see what they have to say about it and also how it would work to expose the menus and not just enable/disable or change the 3 settings I am interested in mentioned above..

(RFI spread spectrum stuff+PCIE spread spectrum stuff+eventually the HPET on/off setting, even if that one is not really a priority for me)


thanks anyway for reminding me man !

deama wrote: ↑

20 Apr 2021, 19:27

I was thinking maybe you can add EMI shielding by yourself? Like what if you cover the mobo with an anti-electric conductive material, then cover that with copper tape (for shielding)? I don't foresee any heat problems as I don't think anything needs much cooling on the mobo, even then, if you used a heat conductive, but not electricity conductie material, that should fix it.

You could add that on both sides, then mobo would be protected from all sides. Obviously you'd have to leave a few blocks open like NVMe, RAM slots, pcie slots, cpu slot, but should be interesting to try though.

Another idea would be to add some shielding to the back of the GPU, but I think they kinda have one anyway these days (my one has a metal plate at the back).

Best would be to add some sort of shielding to the PSU though, especially if you don't have a good one, cause that one seems to produce the most EMI.

of course I am not expert in this subject just some theories from me here, but I believe at least in my case, where there are no obvious air-borne RFI/EMI issues nearby like radio/power towers etc,
I think the EMI problems are travelling via power cables most likely inside walls and stuff like that, so I think maybe even if you shield everything perhaps the interference will still get in to the motherboard
chipsets and cause problems via the cables, internally and not externally so to speak, if that makes sense...


again am not expert and just some theories, like Chief said many times there is such a wide band of frequencies and different reasons and sources of possible interference when it comes to this stuff,
in my case I live in an apartment in center of a city in Sweden, and from what I can see at least there is no obvious possible sources of big RFI/EMI near by, but in a city things like this is not always obvious of course,
and maybe there is power station nearby in some building, or 4G/5G cell phone towers nearby on some house roof, that I don't know of, etc etc..


but still doesn't explain why it will feel normal at times and not normal at other times, even with *everything* that uses power disconnected in my apartment except only my PC,
the phenomenon still happens for me.. its so strange!

but the things you suggest probably could help for air-borne RFI/EMI and such, I have no idea man... but thanks for being in this discussion anyway !


the fight continues just now to gather courage and/or some more info before proceeding with reflashing my bios lol :s

Chief Blur Buster wrote: Moderator Note: Edited images to be clickable

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[url=https://i.imgur.com/d3hp3QA.png][img]https://i.imgur.com/d3hp3QA.png[/img][/url]

@blackmagic ah that is unfortunate :/ of course all of this is at our own risk but, you probably did something you should not have done with removing those strings ? and that 255 value I don't see anywhere.. IDK but you could take a look at win-raid forums, they have some real bios experts there and subforums dedicated only for bios modding !


my plan was to do other method, with the tool that @pox02 posted about earlier in the thread , the "SCEWIN" tool,
it exports bios to textfile and looks something like this:




then my plan was to put the * at 6% so maximum value instead of 1.5% , and not do any other changes, and try to then reflash the bios somehow with only this change and nothing else, only thing I am now researching is the best way to reflash bios with only this change..

but I will wait a little bit more before doing this, because I will first try to get as good information as possible about this process and what things can go wrong and how they can go wrong etc, worst case I will also kill my motherboard but it is what it is ! don't really care at this point lol,


anyway if you will buy new motherboard you could always check manual from manufacturer website first if there is spread spectrum settings in bios first etc, so you know it will be there for testing before you buy it :d and in ~1 year when I move to new place hopefully all of this will be finally fixed ...

blackmagic wrote: ↑

21 Apr 2021, 09:14

ye i do many pretty stupid things here...
but i have good hope to make this board work again...

i already order a eeprom flash bios usb with clip only 12 euros and watched some youtube tutorials where guys manage to flash/reflash on that way there bioses and make it work for the new cpu where boards dont supported before and bios update was need...

gonna then report tomorrow if i manage to recover the black screen on that way...

the 255 value is for intel ICC spread%...

@yonaxsangi said that in one of his comments on page 1...

ahh I see well I wish you good luck sir, am still trying to figure out best way to just make this single change to 6% from 1.5% default value and then reflash..

if I can ask just for some extra info, what did you use exactly to bios file and then reflash?, did you use AMIBCP patched version to edit the file, then rename it to original name and put on USB + flash from normal bios flashing utility in BIOS after boot?


because maybe I could use your method but not remove any strings or put the 255 value, only put the 6% on rfi spread spectrum instead of 1.5% and pray it works

.

blackmagic wrote: ↑

21 Apr 2021, 16:07

i ordered a new mobo aswell here but a cheap one...dont want waste to much money on that bullshit issue i have...
but that mobo should have 1x spread spectrum option like my old mobo had too.

so in less than 2 days i gonna know for sure if that makes some differences or not and if this spread spectrum can get corrupted after a time of usage...that what is interesting for me...
because my problems started already on my old mobo which had this spread spectrum...


but i gonna try that bios tweak on z390a-pro too if the recover works with eeprom flash bios usb...

you can wait 2 days ? let me go first and mess up things here...

and then i can tell more to you and you dont need mess up with ur motherboard...

yep I can probably wait 2 days lol :d lets see what happens no stress, already have this problem for years so some extra days dont matter much.. but of course also would like to test this 6% setting ASAP but ehh lets see what happens, I posted also some questions/request about modifying my BIOS on some other forums, waiting answer there also so no stress :d

BTRY B 529th FA BN wrote: ↑

21 Apr 2021, 16:25

For me on my X570 Xtreme setting the bus clock to Auto while disabling Spread Spectrum made a positive improvement. For the longest time I thought by setting my Bus clock to 100 effectively did the disabling but it seems setting the bus clock to Auto is best with Spread Spectrum disabled.

well its good at least that you got some improvement, only question is if it will be consistent day in and day out I guess, and probably situation can be different for different users depending on the nature of their EMI/RFI problem I guess...


cant even change the setting on my mobo without doing this bios hacking lol, ah well ! it is what it is

.

BTRY B 529th FA BN wrote: ↑

21 Apr 2021, 21:35

alexander1986 wrote: ↑

21 Apr 2021, 20:11

BTRY B 529th FA BN wrote: ↑

21 Apr 2021, 16:25

For me on my X570 Xtreme setting the bus clock to Auto while disabling Spread Spectrum made a positive improvement. For the longest time I thought by setting my Bus clock to 100 effectively did the disabling but it seems setting the bus clock to Auto is best with Spread Spectrum disabled.

well its good at least that you got some improvement, only question is if it will be consistent day in and day out I guess, and probably situation can be different for different users depending on the nature of their EMI/RFI problem I guess...


cant even change the setting on my mobo without doing this bios hacking lol, ah well ! it is what it is

That sucks man. I hope you get it to work. I feel if I didn't happen to check out this thread and dig deeper into my own Spread Spectrum settings with both my boards, I would of jumped on a Rocket Lake system. I was kinda relating the USB issues with the inconsistency in online gaming while all the long thinking I had properly configured Spread Spectrum to disabled. To me this experience has literally been 'night and day.'

It feels as consistent as having the bus clock set to 100.00Mhz wasn't consistent. Yes, it's been better the past 24hrs and improvement with online gaming was immediately noticeable.

I'm hoping the effect will improve my IF clock max stability. I've been limited to 1866/3733 so I'm hoping I'll be able to do 1900/3800 without any WHEA errors in stability tests. Will know pretty soon.

EDIT: Well it's a good sign passing OCCT default stress test 1hr without any WHEA errors. Still more testing to do, but before changing my Spread Spectrum configuration around I would have had a WHEA error.

ah interesting, yes spread spectrum off should be better for overclocking from what I understand, but yeah these things are strange :p some users report that enabling spread spectrum and/or setting it to maximum value (on the motherboard bioses where you can adjust values and its not just simple on/off option) was gamechanger for them and fixed their EMI problems, and for you its vice versa it seems? :p

although maybe your problem was not EMI related but maybe actually due to the spread spectrum somehow being enabled and being the source of your problem? who knows lol its so weird this stuff... but its really sad that these issues exist, for example imagine person moving in here after me in ~1 year , if that person is a competitive gamer or just a gamer they will have a bad time with this problems , etc... :/

.