RETRACTION: I really should not have said that the ASRockRack X570D4I-2T motherboard has a suite of overclocking tools.
What it does however have is many confusing (including overclocking) BIOS options but literally, no normal gamer style overclocking aids/tools.
The motherboard is a pain in the arse in the respect that it has no dual BIOS, no CMOS failback, not even a CLR CMOS button, not even a miserly CMOS jumper. What is has instead is a couple of solder pads that you must short (and they are in a crap location), after...wait for it...first removing the CMOS battery.
From the manual:
Clear CMOS Pad
(CLRMOS1)
(see p.6, No. 18) | CLRMOS1 allows you to clear
the data in CMOS. To clear
CMOS, take out the CMOS
battery and short the Clear
CMOS Pad |
Here is the process:
1. TURN OFF THE POWER (at wall switch).
2. Open case (NZXT H1 in my instance).
3. Remove screws for the water-cooling radiator.
4. Move water pipes and other cables etc aside (inc PCIe x16 extension).
5. Remove 8-way power supply cable (split in 2 x 4) - as this is the only way to remove the CMOS battery from the vertical holder (cramped).
6. Pull out the CMOS battery (even difficult still).
I guess alternatively, you might be able to slide in a very thin piece of stiff plastic to insulate one battery terminal (but that would take some investigation).
7. Maneuver some metal object like a skilled surgeon onto the two pads.
Meanwhile, cross your fingers (not literally) that you are NOT damaging something in that very cramped space.
8. Check you didn't dislodge any tiny SMT resistor or capacitor.
OMG! If you did, I hope you notice it and if you didn't, that it is not supercritical.
9. Minimally reverse what you did above to test.
10 . Switch on and test it now starts (often it does not - as you did not actually clear the CMOS - it can be very difficult).
11. Reboot and fix all your CMOS settings again.
Hope like hell you remember them all and cross your fingers again as there is no ability to save different sets of CMOS configurations. OMG!
12. Plead to some higher power and wish there was a number of overclocking features as you might expect.
HINT: If you are intending to try any sort of overclocking do yourself a big favour BEFORE you setup the motherboard in a case.
I suggest:
1. definitely soldering a CMOS battery cable with an inline connector to an externally mounted battery (obviously remove the one that is in there first); and
2. VERY carefully solder a few wires and a pushbutton switch to those two CMOS clear solder pads also.
The CMOS settings are so extensive they are very confusing. Just enabling the SATA ports on the two OCulink connectors was fraught with issues. It turns out I was overcomplicating it as there are several places to do so. But it appears just doing it in the SATA config is fine and the rest change also.
BTW: I did find the ECC settings in some rather obscure place (more later).
Also, be super careful with those OCUlink connectors as they can bend off the vertical really easily (a lot easier than I was expecting...luckily it still works after gently bending it back. OMG! Another minor heart attack!) Also, particularly in the NZXT H1 case, you need to be careful the water cooler does not bend the cable as you reassemble the case.
The good news is I have now had 5 x NVME SSDs and 8 x SATA drives all working at the same time. Realy just as a test.
