I'm just making this because I noticed a number of support threads based on Ryzen and Ampere, and I just wanted to collate all the fixes I've come across/tested. Some of these fixes are very intuitive and are just a result of my own error, but I listed them regardless because they're easy to make if you're not thinking about it.
AMPERE
Issue 1 (Ampere not performing properly):
I saw this with the first 3080 and first 3070 I owned. The crux of this issue seems to stem from the fact I was on a 1080p screen, but may likely be linked to the crappy PCIe 3.0 riser included with the Core P3.
Fix:
1440p mainly, but essentially by finding a way to get the game to leverage more of the core. It seems that below a threshold of demand, the core will actually become significantly under-utilized, and only begins to perform as it should when the CPU bottleneck is alleviated by either reducing the frame buffer load or by reducing CPU demand.
Onto the second statement, I found that the 3080 Gaming Z Trio, 3070 Strix, and my current 3090 all performed somewhat normally when directly in my motherboard (Z390 PCIe 3.0 anyway). Obviously, it could have been down to the initial idea of what was causing the underwhelming performance, but I still think the riser cable had a hand in it.
Issue 2 (power failure):
The first 3070 I acquired crashed hard while in CSGO and seemed to be having weird frame fluctuations.
Fix:
Turns out that one of the PCIe cables wasn't actually clipped in all the way and the issue seemed to disappear once I re-seated them.
Issue 3 (daisy chain cables):
The first time I installed my 3090, I tried to power it with the two daisy-chained PCIe power connectors because the pins on the Palit card are flipped and were forcing me to bend my cables weirdly.
Fix (me being stupid tbh):
It turns out that you absolutely need to plug in the main power connector and not the daisy-chained end.
Ryzen
Issue 1 (PC not turning on at all):
Fix:
My buddy had to use an older Zen part to update his X470 BIOS for his 5600X. It turned out that the 2400G wasn't seated properly. Thankfully he didn't bend any of the pins (not sure how but thank goodness).
Issue 2 (his PC still not outputting VGA even though the PC was now booting with the 2400G):
Fix:
He needed to use a single DIMM because the setup didn't like the other DIMM. Please keep in mind that each board has a preferred slot for single DIMM operation. He managed to update the BIOS and everything went smoothly thereafter.
Issue 3 (soul-crushing boot loops :/, XMP not working, manual memory tuning):
XMP issues are apparently not uncommon depending on the RAM kit you own and if the BIOS you're on has this bug. XMP didn't work on my X570 Tomahawk, and in Windows, my PC was BSOD'ing at 2133 which made 0 sense. This led me to have to configure VSoC, VDDG IOD, VDDG CCD, and memory voltage manually, alongside having to make an OC profile with XMP disabled (not something I was looking forward to so soon into owning Ryzen). I own a dual-rank kit, so inherently the supporting voltages are going to have to be slightly higher than standard, but there are many guides online that explain what kind of a range those voltages should be in. What your IMC/kit requires is going to be case-dependent.
Let's backtrack a little. While I was testing out different fabric clocks, memory clocks, and memory timings, I entered a value that my setup didn't like and I ended up in a boot loop. I allowed the board time to train but it just wouldn't train or output VGA. Obviously, I just drain power and clear CMOS right? Wrong. Cleared CMOS twice and even left the battery out for like 30-60 seconds. I couldn't get VGA. I ended up having to re-seat all my DIMMs and actually rearrange the order of my DIMMs. Eventually, I managed to POST.
I ended up with VSoC: 1.15V; VDDG IOD: 1.1V; VDDG CCD: 1.1V; VDDR: 1.45V alongside the profile in my sig, and some slightly tightened secondaries/tertiaries. To note: SoC voltage needs to be at least 0.04V higher than VDDG IOD and CCD. You can try 1.1 SoC and 1.05 IOD/CCD if you want to be more conservative and safe, I honestly couldn't care to test with them lowered though. Once my config passed 300% on HCI I was done for the morning, as it was 6 AM by that point 🙃.
Issue 4 (no VGA output in BIOS ):
I decided to update to the new X570 Tomahawk BIOS because according to reports online initially (along with my own testing later), it allowed for more stable boost clocks, and seemed to alleviate even more of the USB issues. I also think it's supposed to address the XMP thing, but I couldn't be bothered to try XMP again. Well, unfortunately, after my initial boot and initial visit to BIOS to re-configure my settings (please note that on MSI, OC profiles can't be transferred between BIOS revisions = more fun 🙃), I seemed to not be able to output VGA upon trying to enter BIOS later on.
Fix:
No joke I had to use an HDMI to get into BIOS. Someone with an Aorus Master suggested this as the fix and it translated to my Tomahawk as well. Not entirely sure what the crux of this issue is, but hopefully this works for you as well. To note: I could still boot directly to Windows, and after finishing up in my BIOS with the HDMI, I swapped back to DP 1.4 again and all was well.
Alt fix:
Apparently, this dude who made a support thread and YT video exhibiting it had to re-seat his CPU to resolve this BIOS VGA output issue. He was also on a Tomahawk.
Issue 5 (USB issues...):
ROG Delta has a short USB C cable that sometimes gets tangled. I decided to unplug it, untangle it, and re-plug it. All of a sudden I see a Windows warning saying that my USB port experienced a power surge, and my headset won't turn on. I didn't think it was broken but kinda assumed this was one of those Ryzen USB bugs people have been on about. As a side note: my Commander Pro that was being powered by internal USB 2.0 also lost connection by this point 🙃.
Fix:
Literally just said fuck it and rebooted my PC. It actually worked.
Modest OC advice (curve optimizer):
If you're seeing blue screens then just reduce your negative offset. It's not the end of the world - you will find an adequate value. You may need to determine which of your cores are holding your CPU back and manually adjust the offset on each core. Also: do not go crazy on your EDC limit as it will actually reduce clocks as seen by myself, a random smaller YouTuber I came across, and according to a slew of posts online that talk about which PPT, TDC and EDC settings are optimal (not sure why and no it isn't my board's VRM).
Bonus:
Apparently HWinfo64's Corsair Link plug-in causes your Commander Pro to lose control of your fans. Guess how I found that one out.
AMPERE
Issue 1 (Ampere not performing properly):
I saw this with the first 3080 and first 3070 I owned. The crux of this issue seems to stem from the fact I was on a 1080p screen, but may likely be linked to the crappy PCIe 3.0 riser included with the Core P3.
Fix:
1440p mainly, but essentially by finding a way to get the game to leverage more of the core. It seems that below a threshold of demand, the core will actually become significantly under-utilized, and only begins to perform as it should when the CPU bottleneck is alleviated by either reducing the frame buffer load or by reducing CPU demand.
Onto the second statement, I found that the 3080 Gaming Z Trio, 3070 Strix, and my current 3090 all performed somewhat normally when directly in my motherboard (Z390 PCIe 3.0 anyway). Obviously, it could have been down to the initial idea of what was causing the underwhelming performance, but I still think the riser cable had a hand in it.
Issue 2 (power failure):
The first 3070 I acquired crashed hard while in CSGO and seemed to be having weird frame fluctuations.
Fix:
Turns out that one of the PCIe cables wasn't actually clipped in all the way and the issue seemed to disappear once I re-seated them.
Issue 3 (daisy chain cables):
The first time I installed my 3090, I tried to power it with the two daisy-chained PCIe power connectors because the pins on the Palit card are flipped and were forcing me to bend my cables weirdly.
Fix (me being stupid tbh):
It turns out that you absolutely need to plug in the main power connector and not the daisy-chained end.
Ryzen
Issue 1 (PC not turning on at all):
Fix:
My buddy had to use an older Zen part to update his X470 BIOS for his 5600X. It turned out that the 2400G wasn't seated properly. Thankfully he didn't bend any of the pins (not sure how but thank goodness).
Issue 2 (his PC still not outputting VGA even though the PC was now booting with the 2400G):
Fix:
He needed to use a single DIMM because the setup didn't like the other DIMM. Please keep in mind that each board has a preferred slot for single DIMM operation. He managed to update the BIOS and everything went smoothly thereafter.
Issue 3 (soul-crushing boot loops :/, XMP not working, manual memory tuning):
XMP issues are apparently not uncommon depending on the RAM kit you own and if the BIOS you're on has this bug. XMP didn't work on my X570 Tomahawk, and in Windows, my PC was BSOD'ing at 2133 which made 0 sense. This led me to have to configure VSoC, VDDG IOD, VDDG CCD, and memory voltage manually, alongside having to make an OC profile with XMP disabled (not something I was looking forward to so soon into owning Ryzen). I own a dual-rank kit, so inherently the supporting voltages are going to have to be slightly higher than standard, but there are many guides online that explain what kind of a range those voltages should be in. What your IMC/kit requires is going to be case-dependent.
Let's backtrack a little. While I was testing out different fabric clocks, memory clocks, and memory timings, I entered a value that my setup didn't like and I ended up in a boot loop. I allowed the board time to train but it just wouldn't train or output VGA. Obviously, I just drain power and clear CMOS right? Wrong. Cleared CMOS twice and even left the battery out for like 30-60 seconds. I couldn't get VGA. I ended up having to re-seat all my DIMMs and actually rearrange the order of my DIMMs. Eventually, I managed to POST.
I ended up with VSoC: 1.15V; VDDG IOD: 1.1V; VDDG CCD: 1.1V; VDDR: 1.45V alongside the profile in my sig, and some slightly tightened secondaries/tertiaries. To note: SoC voltage needs to be at least 0.04V higher than VDDG IOD and CCD. You can try 1.1 SoC and 1.05 IOD/CCD if you want to be more conservative and safe, I honestly couldn't care to test with them lowered though. Once my config passed 300% on HCI I was done for the morning, as it was 6 AM by that point 🙃.
Issue 4 (no VGA output in BIOS ):
I decided to update to the new X570 Tomahawk BIOS because according to reports online initially (along with my own testing later), it allowed for more stable boost clocks, and seemed to alleviate even more of the USB issues. I also think it's supposed to address the XMP thing, but I couldn't be bothered to try XMP again. Well, unfortunately, after my initial boot and initial visit to BIOS to re-configure my settings (please note that on MSI, OC profiles can't be transferred between BIOS revisions = more fun 🙃), I seemed to not be able to output VGA upon trying to enter BIOS later on.
Fix:
No joke I had to use an HDMI to get into BIOS. Someone with an Aorus Master suggested this as the fix and it translated to my Tomahawk as well. Not entirely sure what the crux of this issue is, but hopefully this works for you as well. To note: I could still boot directly to Windows, and after finishing up in my BIOS with the HDMI, I swapped back to DP 1.4 again and all was well.
Alt fix:
Apparently, this dude who made a support thread and YT video exhibiting it had to re-seat his CPU to resolve this BIOS VGA output issue. He was also on a Tomahawk.
Issue 5 (USB issues...):
ROG Delta has a short USB C cable that sometimes gets tangled. I decided to unplug it, untangle it, and re-plug it. All of a sudden I see a Windows warning saying that my USB port experienced a power surge, and my headset won't turn on. I didn't think it was broken but kinda assumed this was one of those Ryzen USB bugs people have been on about. As a side note: my Commander Pro that was being powered by internal USB 2.0 also lost connection by this point 🙃.
Fix:
Literally just said fuck it and rebooted my PC. It actually worked.
Modest OC advice (curve optimizer):
If you're seeing blue screens then just reduce your negative offset. It's not the end of the world - you will find an adequate value. You may need to determine which of your cores are holding your CPU back and manually adjust the offset on each core. Also: do not go crazy on your EDC limit as it will actually reduce clocks as seen by myself, a random smaller YouTuber I came across, and according to a slew of posts online that talk about which PPT, TDC and EDC settings are optimal (not sure why and no it isn't my board's VRM).
Bonus:
Apparently HWinfo64's Corsair Link plug-in causes your Commander Pro to lose control of your fans. Guess how I found that one out.