Crosshair VI Extreme chipset and power plan issues and questions

[Riekopo]

So I put together a completely new gaming build the other day. I got the Asus Crosshair VI Extreme motherboard and a Ryzen 7 1800X CPU in it. And a XFX Vega 64 LC GPU. I installed the motherboard drivers from the included motherboard disc. It had chipset driver 9.0.000.8 which according to the Asus website is dated 2017/07/20.

After installing all the drivers from the disc I went online and saw that there was a much newer BIOS available. So I restarted the computer and ran the Asus "EZ Update" program which quickly downloaded and installed the new BIOS.
It's at this point that I noticed something seemed wrong. I reloaded the driver disc in order to compare the driver versions on it with the driver versions available on the Asus website. Strangely, the disc was saying that no chipset driver was installed. My only guess is that installing the updated BIOS did something to the chipset driver.

So I downloaded the chipset driver from the Asus website and installed it. It was the exact same driver version. It apparently has never been updated. I then reloaded the disc and it properly showed that I had the chipset driver installed.

Later that day I was looking into maximizing the performance of the PC. I went into the Windows Power Plan settings and noticed something very strange. There were only three options, Balanced (which was selected), Power saver, and High performance. With a Ryzen CPU I thought there was supposed to be an extra power plan option called "AMD Ryzen Balanced". That's what this official article says if you have the latest AMD chipset driver installed.

So that also makes me think something is wrong with the chipset driver. I selected High Performance, but it doesn't stay selected. Every time the PC is restarted it resets back to Balanced.

I really am sad about this. I've spent so much time researching components and hard earned money on this build. I just want it to work smoothly.

I should have all the latest drivers for my motherboard installed now. I strongly think the Asus software should be centralized instead of having a million different programs. And that it should give you the option of automatically updating all the various drivers and utilities directly from Asus servers. It's bizarre that it still has to be done manually piecemeal in 2018.
One thing I'm worried about with the drivers is the Windows Update service messing them up by downloading and installing its own things. I'm not sure how Windows Update really works, but I know there were many complaints about it in the beginning. Is this something I have to be worried about?

Another thing I'm confused about is this. I am wondering why the chipset driver for my motherboard on the Crosshair VI Extreme support section page is from July 20 2017 and hasn't been updated at all. AMD evidently has a much newer chipset driver listed on their website from 2018 for example. Which am I supposed to use? Has the ROG staff simply forgotten to update the website and put the new chipset driver on there? Or is there some other technical reason it hasn't been updated?

[FoxTech]

Hello Riekopo

For some strange reason, I had to install the chipset 17.4 to get the ryzen balanced.
From that, you can update to newer version


https://support.amd.com/en-us/downlo...%2010%20-%2064

[syldon]

Don't use EZ update for bios revision change. Look into "flashback". It is a much better option.

[Riekopo]

FoxTech, I do not understand your post. 17.4 is the latest chipset driver from AMD. So what do you mean I can update to the latest one from there? Are you suggesting I should disregard the chipset driver on the motherboard and install the one directly from AMD's website?

syldon, why can I not use EZUpdate? I already did and it worked flawlessly.

[syldon]

syldon, why can I not use EZUpdate? I already did and it worked flawlessly.

Because having the bios interrupted whilst it is updating can brick your board. Windows has too many possible interruptions to ensure security. The flashback method requires no OS running.

[FoxTech]

FoxTech, I do not understand your post. 17.4 is the latest chipset driver from AMD. So what do you mean I can update to the latest one from there? Are you suggesting I should disregard the chipset driver on the motherboard and install the one directly from AMD's website?

Sorry, my post was a bit confusing.
I ment, I had to install 17.4 twice. That activated the Ryzen balanced option.
At the first attempt, I got an error message, that one or more files couldn't be installed.
So I got rid of the current chipset, rebboted and tried it again. That worked for me.

I have a buddy, with the same problem aswell. I told him to install version 17.10, followed by an update to 17.30 and finaly update to 17.40.
This was, what helped him (Ryzen 5 1600)

I used the Chipset drivers from AMD official website.