AMD Boot Freeze after BIOS update

digifuzzy · Saturday at 6:50 PM

System is an Asrock X870 Pro-A Wifi MB w/ AMD Ryzen 5 9600X used as a file server (headless).
It was installed with FreeBSD-14.3, updated to p7, then upgraded to FreeBSD-15

I noticed that a MB BIOS update was available. After bringing down the system normally, BIOS was updated via UEFI from 3.50 -> 4.03.

On reboot, FreeBSD would consistently freeze at the same point just after Framebuffer initialization. Note that this is a headless system so drm-kmod was not installed. Observed system response was exactly as reported in PR 256722.

No changes to video configuration at boot or console output would resolve problem. Suggested workaround mentioned in bug report, i.e.

  copy_staging enable

at boot prompt, was also ineffective.

Booting directly from a USB Drive w/ clean copy of FreeBSD-15 resulted in same boot halt condition.

Reverted BIOS back to 3.50 restored normal system boot function.

fernandel · Saturday at 7:27 PM

digifuzzy said:
System is an Asrock X870 Pro-A Wifi MB w/ AMD Ryzen 5 9600X used as a file server (headless).
It was installed with FreeBSD-14.3, updated to p7, then upgraded to FreeBSD-15

I noticed that a MB BIOS update was available. After bringing down the system normally, BIOS was updated via UEFI from 3.50 -> 4.03.

On reboot, FreeBSD would consistently freeze at the same point just after Framebuffer initialization. Note that this is a headless system so drm-kmod was not installed. Observed system response was exactly as reported in PR 256722.

No changes to video configuration at boot or console output would resolve problem. Suggested workaround mentioned in bug report, i.e. copy_staging enable at boot prompt, was also ineffective.

Booting directly from a USB Drive w/ clean copy of FreeBSD-15 resulted in same boot halt condition.

Reverted BIOS back to 3.50 restored normal system boot function.

Does new BIOS has some new settings?

digifuzzy · Saturday at 8:05 PM

fernandel said:
Does new BIOS has some new settings?

Unknown. Only information given on site linked above is update to AGESA for CPU compatibility.

blackbird9 · Saturday at 9:38 PM

Is that a dual bios board? Can you set jumpers to rollback?

digifuzzy · Saturday at 9:44 PM

blackbird9 said:
Is that a dual bios board? Can you set jumpers to rollback?

No. Manuals for MB and BIOS make no mention of Dual, or multiple, BIOS capability.

blackbird9 · Saturday at 9:56 PM

I just re-read what you wrote and realised you already reverted it. Well, I guess it breaks the freebsd video or console driver. Tricky to debug. You might be stuck with the existing bios for now if you want to run freebsd.

digifuzzy · Saturday at 9:59 PM

blackbird9 - Sad part is finding a bug report from 2021, someone adding a patch to address an issue, and the issues identified are exactly what was observed.

gotnull · Saturday at 9:59 PM

Can't help you, but it seems that you are not the only one facing issue:

AGESA firmware update ComboAM5PI 1.2.7.1 has caused serious problems on some ASUS X870E motherboards

https://en.gamegpu.com/news/zhelezo/agesa-1-2-7-1-vyzyvaet-sboi-na-platakh-x870e-bios-1804-udaljon-1805-tozhe-nestabilen

digifuzzy · Saturday at 10:03 PM

gotnull said:
Can't help you, but it seems that you are not the only one facing issue:

https://en.gamegpu.com/news/zhelezo/agesa-1-2-7-1-vyzyvaet-sboi-na-platakh-x870e-bios-1804-udaljon-1805-tozhe-nestabilen

With the exact same revision of ComboAM5PI 1.2.7.1 involved.

didal · 2026-01-25T07:20:46+0000

And with hw.vga.textmode=1 in /boot/loader.conf ?

digifuzzy · 2026-01-25T16:37:28+0000

didal - I'll try that and report back

gotnull · 2026-01-25T17:35:35+0000

digifuzzy said:
With the exact same revision of ComboAM5PI 1.2.7.1 involved.

That's the reason why I brought that up, the problem isn't necessarily the OS, especially when even Windows failed with it.
It happens sometimes, firmware can introduce bugs, just avoid the faulty ones if you can.