CPU fanspeed value randomly doesn't show up

[yenic]

I'm going to attach the debug log once I catch this happening again. I wanted to get a preliminary post up here on this issue. I have a Ryzen 7 1700 on Biostar X370GTN and the CPU fanspeed sometimes doesn't show up. When I reboot, often times it will. Closing/reopening HWiNFO never does resolve it. I think it depends on when I initially open the program upon boot, if I open it too fast, it misses the sensor somehow. As if the fanspeed is too slow and not reporting or similar.

I'm on the latest stable HWiNFO64 v5.52-3161. I've tried installing the 32bit version, as well as the 32bit and 64bit beta v5.53-3170. I use the portable versions, but also tried the installer with no change.

Header is:
BIOSTAR Group X370GTN (ITE IT8613E)
and the value for the CPU fan is simply named:
CPU

I did some research on the problem and found this has been reported many times. None of the threads below gave me any solutions that worked for me.
https://www.hwinfo.com/forum/Thread-Solved-Lost-CPU-Fan-Speed-Sensor-Reading
https://www.hwinfo.com/forum/Thread-Fan-speed-not-shown
https://www.hwinfo.com/forum/Thread-Solved-No-longer-showing-CPU-Fan

 

[Martin]

Please attach the debug file if you can catch the situation again, I will need it to check this problem.

 

[yenic]

Please attach the debug file if you can catch the situation again, I will need it to check this problem.

Here is a debug file where it did it. I'm going to get a working debug on the same system to also attach shortly. My guess is that this sort of issue is one where you won't see anything wrong.. one of those hard to track down issues unfortunately.

 

[yenic]

and of course now that it doesn't show up, getting it to reappear isn't happening... guess it's just a waiting game. Usually when it disappeared a reboot caused it to showup, but 5 reboots later and no change. I'm sure it'll pop back in, when that happens, I'll post that debug log too.

 

[yenic]

Got it. Changed a fan value/setting in my bios for its default speed and that may have triggered it.

edit- the forum doesn't seem to let me attach this 2nd file.

 

[yenic]

Attached

 

[yenic]

Is there an email I can send the 2nd debug file to?

 

[Martin]

My e-mail is in the HWiNFO tool - at the welcome screen or about box.
So you think that when use automatically start HWiNFO during boot, it doesn't show the fan speed? And if you start it manually later, does it work then?

 

[yenic]

My e-mail is in the HWiNFO tool - at the welcome screen or about box.
So you think that when use automatically start HWiNFO during boot, it doesn't show the fan speed? And if you start it manually later, does it work then?

Hi Martin, I want to thank you for your attention to this issue. I now believe this is a BIOS bug though. I've noticed when my sensor doesn't appear, my CPU fanspeed / settings that I set in BIOS are not being respected. It seems the fan is running on its lowest speed and never spins up, no matter the temp.

To trigger the issue, all I have to do is shutdown the machine and start it (cold boot no sleep/hibernate). If I go into my BIOS the fan settings are just as I left them, but are not respected until I change the setting, save and restart the machine.
Given this, I can't see how this is a HWiNFO bug.

I'm waiting for a bios update for my Biostar X370GTN, but I did reflash the same bios to see if it would resolve the issue (others are reporting strange, unrelated BIOS issues with this board and reflashing fixed them). Reflashing did not work for me. I'm waiting for a completely new AMD AGESA BIOS update from Biostar. Either way I had decided to replace this board with an Asus AM4 mini-ITX when they release one anyway, before I even bought this Biostar and built the system. I may just have to wait until I can do that. My solution for now is to simply always use Win10 (hybrid) sleep mode instead of shutting it down.

I hope this information does help you with any future reports or issues, because I'm 100% sure this is not a bug with your software and could definitely pop up again or potentially even some of the links in my original post were similar issues that were never uncovered.

Apologies for late reply, not long after my last post I started to discover the root cause of this issue and wanted to be sure I didn't waste your time digging into what I've now confirmed is a BIOS bug.

 

[Martin]

Thanks for your feedback. This will be indeed useful if any other user has a similar issue.

 

[yenic]

One more followup on this, I resolved the issue. I flashed my motherboard bios multiple times. After one of the flashes, my 4-pin fan settings were no longer ignored (fan speeds were variable according to load) and the sensor was no longer missing in HWiNFO64 (5.54-3200).

If anyone one day randomly finds this thread with a similar problem, I don't know if this helped or not but be sure to set the defaults in the bios before the flash, boot into your OS, flash the BIOS using the USB on-boot option (usually F12), reset to defaults again, boot into your OS, then restart and setup your BIOS options.
May or may not be a factor, but to be safe I do this process. Basically giving the board a full boot process after each step so the chances everything is initialized as intended by the manufacturer happens.

I've been using computers since the Commodore 128 and building them since the 286. I've never seen this before. It may just be a failure by Biostar to ensure their flash process or BIOS are not up to par.

 

[Martin]

Thanks, it's indeed interesting to see your findings. Let's hope this procedure will finally solve the problem.