HWinfo sensor monitoring freezes-up after system wake from sleep on Asus Prime X470 Pro

[UnrulyUngulate]

Hi

Noticed this behaviour starting after I flashed from PinnaclePI to the ComboPI based BIOSes back in June whilst still running a 2600X.

Further to HWinfo sensor monitoring locking up, the system will no longer power down properly. Windows will shut down, but system fans keep spinning and system power on led remains lit.
I have to force power-off by holding in the power button or flicking the switch on the power supply.

After a reboot, everything is functional again until the point I run HWinfo after the system has already returned from sleep (HWinfo fails to start), or the system wakes from sleep whilst hwinfo is running (HWinfo sensors are frozen after the system waking up).
Sometimes, killing the svchost.exe process in the wait-chain under HWinfo allows it to spring back into life with the sensors updating properly, though attempting this a second time just leaves the application unresponsive and in a state where it can't be terminated.

All of the ComboPI BIOSes I have tried to date (including the current 5204 from 31st July), cause HWinfo sensor monitoring to freeze if the system has gone to sleep and then returned from sleep.
Same behaviour with Ryzen 2600x and now on a new 3600x. Exactly the same behaviour on a different system built recently for a friend, also using a Prime X470 Pro and a 3600X.
Someone else commented on experiencing the same thing with a Prime X470 Pro after I posted about the issue on a different forum.

So far, this behaviour seems to be particular to HWinfo, and only after having changed from Pinnacle PI to Combo PI firmware.
The system otherwise has no problems with sleep, and neither do any of the other sensor monitoring applications I've tried to date.

This is a particular pity, since HWinfo has been my go-to monitoring application for years.

Let me know if you need a debug dump.

 

[Martin]

This is a known issue of several ASUS X470 systems due to a problem with the IT8665E SIO. ASUS resolved this more-less by implementing a new monitoring interface (ASUS WMI).
Since X570 series are no longer affected by this problem (they use a different SIO - Nuvoton), I suppose the problem is that while PinnaclePI supports ASUS WMI, ComboPI doesn't anymore as it's mainly targeted at X570 series. This can be easily determined by looking at the sensor list in HWiNFO - do you see an ASUS WMI sensor there?

 

[UnrulyUngulate]

Yes, the WMI section still shows in the Hwinfo sensor list (see below), albeit with a reduced amount of stats monitored compared to Pinnacle PI BIOS.
From what I can recall, the Pinnacle PI BIOSes listed more temperatures, albeit without proper names in some cases.

 

[Martin]

Then I assume their implementation of WMI sensors in ComboPI is not correct as it doesn't resolve the issues.

 

[UnrulyUngulate]

Noticed in response to earlier Asus WMI queries you mentioned adding AsusWMI=0 to the hwinfo ini file, albeit with a caution that it can conflicts/lockups.
I presume this means HWinfo talks directly to the board monitoring ICs rather than going through an Asus interface.

Seems to resolve the issue with sleep/wake/power-off in my case so will just use that for the time being, as I have not noticed any issues after disabling Asus EC monitoring as the HWinfo dialogue suggests.

Whether Asus bother to address the WMI issues on their previous generation hardware is another matter.

In any case, I owe you many thanks for the Hwinfo application itself. Been in daily use on my own systems for years, and it seems I can now use it again without things freezing up.

 

[Martin]

Thanks for your feedback.
Yes, disabling AsusWMI means HWiNFO will access the sensors directly, which was the root cause of issues. So this is an unexpected behavior, as I'd expect it to behave exactly opposite..

 

[UnrulyUngulate]

A brief update on this.

Latest Asus BIOS version 5216 uploaded to their website on 9th September seems to resolve the sleep/wake/monitoring lock-up/shutdown issue with the Prime X470 Pro.

No mention of WMI fixes in the BIOS release notes, but I can run HWiNFO without that AsusWMI=0 parameter in the .ini file and entering/resuming from sleep doesn't cause monitoring/shutdown to lockup/fail.

 

[Martin]

Thanks for your feedback! This will be useful to other users as well.

 

[A.M.]

UnrulyUngulate
You feedback is very useful because it reflects the current state of ASUS X470 BIOSes while most of discussions apply to 2018 and start of 2019. You wrote that Combo PI BIOSes show less stats compared to Pinnacle BIOSes. Are there any changes in the latest firmwares (5216/5220)? Have you ever faced fan stop problem with HWiNFO started?