24 seconds to POST screen AM5 7950X3D

Why does my new 7950X3D system take so long to get to the POST screen? 24 is seconds is rather extreme in 2024. My previous i9 system took only a few seconds. I got this from a retailer. Have they forgotten a BIOS setting?

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Iā€™m betting it something to do with the motherboard. My low end MSI one takes 30 seconds more than other similar boards to boot into windows. Sadly I did not notice this when I bought it :thinking:

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I had exactly the same problem (Asus ROG X670E-F motherboard and 7950x3d). Look for a BIOS option which says ā€œmemory context restoreā€. Mine was set to auto which meant the memory was retraining on each boot.

Try setting it to ā€˜enabledā€™ and your POST times should reduce (hopefully!)

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I just set up my new system with a 7950X3D on a Gigabyte X670E motherboard, and yesterday I moved the computer from the bench, where POST was very fast.
All I had there was a wired mouse and keyboard, and a single 1080p monitor connected to the onboard graphics chip.

Yesterday I moved the computer to my cockpit, connected all my peripherals, and also my 4K and 2K monitors to the 3090 Ti. Since then itā€™s been taking about 20 seconds to POST. I donā€™t know why connecting everything would change things like that, so Iā€™m going to check the BIOS for the ā€˜Memory Context Restoreā€™ option. Thanks.

I wonder why they choose to retrain memory every time it boots?

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Had the same problem with my 7950X3D on a RogStrix board.
Also tried Memory Context Restore to no avail and then simply started disconnecting all the internal drives. Turns out the culprit was the internal HDD that I used for backups. (Rest was SSDs and NVMe)
Threw out the HDD and my POST times are down to 2-3 seconds.
Use it as an external drive now

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I have one M2 NVME and one SSD. My motherboard is a TUF Gaming B650-PLUS. Seems this is something that affects motherboards in all price categories and brands then.

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I think it is more to do with DDR5 than the model of motherboard (from what Iā€™ve read).

So a memory setting, or just the fact that it uses DDR5 (badly)?

Why it happens, I donā€™t know (not exactly an expert in these things!)

All I know is that it fixed my problem and I have read reports of it being an issue with a number of different motherboards, the common element is they all use DDR5.

Iā€™ve been reading a bit since this I first saw this thread. I think it has more to do with the AMD memory controller. Hereā€™s a Reddit post I found:

"Memory training doesnā€™t set the timings that you see in the BIOS. Itā€™s purpose is to get good signal quality between the memory controller and the memory chips. To achieve this the memory controller can change termination resistances, termination and reference voltages, drive strengths and signal skews. The requirements for these may change slightly from reboot to reboot. So if the memory controller trained a set of settings that were borderline they may not be good enough if you try to apply them the next boot.

DDR3 and DDR4 didnā€™t take so long to train because they ran at lower speeds so thereā€™s more margin for error to still correctly read/write data. At DDR5 speeds that margin is a lot smaller so memory training needs to get closer to ā€œperfectā€.

Arguably if the memory controller had a better memory training procedure it wouldnā€™t have to retrain all the time as it would come to a set of settings that always work well enough."

I can live with a 30-60 second POST if Iā€™m getting max stability from my RAM.
My AM4 system was nearly CTD proof. My goal is to get same from this AM5 system. As of now Iā€™ve only enabled XMP-1 and a setting on my motherboard called ā€˜XMP/EXPO High-Bandwidth.ā€™

I experimented a bit with the latter, in combination with another BIOS setting called ā€˜Enable Low Latency Compatibility.ā€™ There wasnā€™t much difference between (Low Latency / High-Bandwidth) OFF/OFF, ON/OFF, OFF/ON, ON/ON, but the best DRAM read/write and latency speed was ā€˜Low Latencyā€™ OFF, and ā€˜High-Bandwidthā€™ ON.

So thatā€™s what Iā€™m going to stick with unless I have stability problems.

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Moved to User Support Hub Hardware & Peripherals as this category is more appropriate.
For better clarity where to post, see this thread.

Iā€™m building a 7950x3d system. I hope this isnā€™t a problem!

It depends on the chipset and the type of memory.
For example on the X670E chipset it takes longer. The memory profile is also important - booting with XMP will take longer than with EXPO.

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My proposed mobo is the MAG X670E Tomahawk WiFi and 6000mhz memory. Iā€™ll set EXPO soon as I receive it if they donā€™t when they build it?

I upgraded my PC last weekend using the X670E Tomahawk WiFi and 6000CL30 memory (7800X3D).
Make sure you upgrade the BIOS to latest before setting EXPO as it might not boot otherwise.

It does take a fair bit longer to boot than my previous AM4 5800X3D system.

Iā€™ll try that BIOS setting (Memory Context Restore) to see if it makes a difference.


Power on to Windows login screen:-
Memory Context Restore: Auto - 44 seconds
Memory Context Restore: Enabled - 20 seconds

Like you my AM4 board with the 5800X3D and DDR4 RAM booted very quickly.

Iā€™ve read a lot about this topic, and personally, Iā€™m not messing with Memory Context Restore.

The long boot times are due to memory retraining. DDR5 is not like DDR4, and turning on MCR can have a negative impact on performance.

After making changes to anything RAM-related, my Gigabyte X670E board (known for slow boots) has taken up to 5 minutes to boot. Then it goes back to a normal 30-60 seconds, which Iā€™m fine with.

YMMV, of course. :wink:

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You forgot to specify the exact model of the memory modules.

Iā€™m setting it back to Auto. I only cold boot once a day when I switch on my PC in the morning. Other times I use sleep so the extra 20 seconds boot time is no big deal.

CORSAIR VENGEANCE DDR5 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 6000MHz CL30 AMD EXPO Intel XMP (CMK32GX5M2B6000Z30)

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I bought the G.SKILL 64GB (2x32GB) 6000MHz CL30 Trident Z5 Neo RGB memory today.
// F5-6000J3040G32GX2-TZ5NR

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