Asus Trx40 Zenith II Extreme EC Related Bug

[Gnasherrr]

Hi there! I just want to report that EC reading will result in data stops being updated usually within a minute to a state where closing the program leaves an unkillable process, so the program can't be restarted unless the OS the resetted. Trying to disable EC sensor after it stops updating would not work either. Disabling monitoring the sensor before the program hangs and the issue is gone. I have tried all stable and beta releases since Jan-2020 and the program is persistent across the versions.

Bonus bug: the program does not work with corsair PSU sensor. The issue is basically the same with the asus EC.

Thanks!

 

[Martin]

Are you perhaps running any other monitoring tools with HWiNFO (including ASUS AI Suite) ?

 

[Forest]

Was this ever resolved? I had the same issue on Z II Extreme and now on Extreme II Alpha.
Asus EC enabled stops/crashes HWInfo within a minute. I have no other monitoring programs.

 

[Martin]

First try to reset preferences in HWiNFO main settings and then start again.
If it still crashes then please attach the HWiNFO Debug File of the crash.

 

[Forest]

I did as you ask. It crashed within 15 seconds

 

[Martin]

Is Riot Vanguard perhaps running there ?
The attached debug file doesn't seem to capture HWiNFO crashing, but it was closed by user. I need it to capture the crash.

 

[Forest]

No Riot Vanguard.
The problem here is that I have to kill the process to be able to pull that debug file, otherwise it just hangs.

It hangs the system to the point that after the reboot mobo doesn't power cycle, I have to manually power cycle the whole PC.

 

[Martin]

OK, got it. The problem here is that when HWiNFO tries to communicate with the Embedded Controller (EC), something else communicating with it as well causes a collision and hang of the EC.
This can usually happen when some other monitoring application is running, especially the ASUS AI Suite.
But since you say you don't have any other such application I have to admit that I don't know why this happens.
There are thousands of similar systems that never had any issue here, I too am running several ASUS systems and never observed any problem monitoring the EC sensor.
You will have to go with the EC Support option disabled in HWiNFO until you're able to figure out which other software or perhaps BIOS setting is causing this.

 

[Forest]

Could it be Armoury Crate from Asus? This is the only program I have that would have access to EC

 

[Martin]

Yes, it could be very well! Should be easy to test by disabling it.
But note that for some ASUS software (i.e. AI Suite) it's not sufficient to just stop as even then drivers remain active in system. It needs to be completely uninstalled.

 

[Forest]

I uninstalled the Armoury Crate and HWinfo run for 1m38s, but unfortunately hanged again. It lasted way longer than usual.
Can you check the attached .dbg file?

 

[Martin]

Still seems to be the same problem, as if something else in the system would be using the EC.

 

[Forest]

Just an update. This is in fact related to Armoury Crate, I removed the program completely and HWInfo is stable with EC enabled.
The Armoury Crate have access to EC so it can control the motherboard's mini OLED screen where you can display all kind of sensors info - temps, voltages, etc.
What sucks, I don't know any other way to control RBG lights on the motherboard without the Armoury Crate app.
I guess I'll be running HWinfo with ASUS EC disabled.

 

[Martin]

We have asked ASUS a couple of times to work together and create a mechanism which would allow their applications to run with others like HWiNFO, HWMonitor, AIDA64, etc. It would be relatively easy to include a synchronization method that is already used by many others tools.
Unfortunately they don't seem to be interested in this.

 

[happyluckbox]

Hey guys, I just wanted to say that I also have been seeing this exact issue on my asus zenith 2 extreme alpha. Hwinfo will just hang/crash, and restarting system requires a full power cycle due to the embedded EC conflicting with hwinfo.

I believe this issue is causing memory instability as well, as hcimemtest seems to be more likely to shoot off sporadic errors after the ec bug occurs.


Trying to run without ec sensor on hwinfo

 

[zyjro]

Hey guys, I just wanted to say that I also have been seeing this exact issue on my asus zenith 2 extreme alpha. Hwinfo will just hang/crash, and restarting system requires a full power cycle due to the embedded EC conflicting with hwinfo.

I believe this issue is causing memory instability as well, as hcimemtest seems to be more likely to shoot off sporadic errors after the ec bug occurs.


Trying to run without ec sensor on hwinfo

I have an exactly same problem. But my motherboard is zenith 2 extreme non-alpha. If I run the hwinfo in windows, the oled screen shows "check cpu" after restarting, I have to clear the coms to restart pc.

And if I run the aida64 and hwinfo, one of them would be frozen.

Also, in aida64, the temperture of some parts jumps from 18℃ to 124℃, and sometime it would disapper.

 

[Gompf]

Hi,

I am also using the asus zenith 2 extreme, when i use HWInfo64, the system quickly becomes unresponsive, even the ping starts to jerk and i have to reset the system manually. I don't have any Asus or other monitoring software installed.

This happend after is enabled the EC sensor through the UI. LPC=0 in the config did not help, will cleanup the registry now.

 

[Martin]

Perhaps a BIOS update might fix this. If not, you'll need to disable the "EC Support" option.

 

[Gompf]

Hi,
I did a BIOS upgrade to 1303, things remained unchanged.

I have some more information. I just changed to this Mainboard after running this for years on an (Asus as well) 2600K Mainboard, which i never faced any issue. Now I have EC=0 and LPC=0 in the config file. I can start HWiNFO normally now, but as soon as I go to Sensors in the UI (Sub Window never opens), the entire system becomes unresponsive (as mentioned even Pings get sluggish, RDP does not disconnect but no more reaction to clicks, while still alive, a script in PowerShell still outputs and the task manger still updates every now and then, login at the console is no longer possible, it doesn't react to the Keyboard or mouse, but time on the login screen does update). If i try hard enough to recover from this by sending CTRL+ALT+DEL or CTRL+ALT+END in RDP, the system will eventually Bluescreen.

I have a suspicion, this Mainboard has an OLED display, which (without any additional software) displays the entire BIOS Stage and thereafter the CPU Temp while running in the operating system. I guess the BIOS does that on the lower level since there is no Software Involved and accesses the Sensors directly. I guess this might be the conflict.

While the display is actually useful when working on the machine, it is pretty useless to me when it runs (it is a mostly headless system anyway), i'll try to see if this somehow can be disabled and if so would HWiNFO then run and be able to access the sensors.

Secondly if the former is the case ,it would leads to the conclusion that there must be a compatible access way as the ASUS Software if installed (god forbid!!) must be able to access those sensors as well be it direct or indirectly (maybe need to IDA if that's the case). Haha, I am a firmware / Software guy so forgive me my need to look for logical explanations

Great Software BTW !

If I can be of any help debugging this (if you are interested) i am more than willing to do so.

 

[Martin]

Hi,
I did a BIOS upgrade to 1303, things remained unchanged.

I have some more information. I just changed to this Mainboard after running this for years on an (Asus as well) 2600K Mainboard, which i never faced any issue. Now I have EC=0 and LPC=0 in the config file. I can start HWiNFO normally now, but as soon as I go to Sensors in the UI (Sub Window never opens), the entire system becomes unresponsive (as mentioned even Pings get sluggish, RDP does not disconnect but no more reaction to clicks, while still alive, a script in PowerShell still outputs and the task manger still updates every now and then, login at the console is no longer possible, it doesn't react to the Keyboard or mouse, but time on the login screen does update). If i try hard enough to recover from this by sending CTRL+ALT+DEL or CTRL+ALT+END in RDP, the system will eventually Bluescreen.

I have a suspicion, this Mainboard has an OLED display, which (without any additional software) displays the entire BIOS Stage and thereafter the CPU Temp while running in the operating system. I guess the BIOS does that on the lower level since there is no Software Involved and accesses the Sensors directly. I guess this might be the conflict.

While the display is actually useful when working on the machine, it is pretty useless to me when it runs (it is a mostly headless system anyway), i'll try to see if this somehow can be disabled and if so would HWiNFO then run and be able to access the sensors.

Secondly if the former is the case ,it would leads to the conclusion that there must be a compatible access way as the ASUS Software if installed (god forbid!!) must be able to access those sensors as well be it direct or indirectly (maybe need to IDA if that's the case). Haha, I am a firmware / Software guy so forgive me my need to look for logical explanations

Great Software BTW !

If I can be of any help debugging this (if you are interested) i am more than willing to do so.

This is a quite strange behavior since you already disabled both EC and LPC. A HWiNFO Debug File from the crash might be helpful.
Try to also disable SMBus Support if that will change anything.