X399, CSM, UltraFast Boot & User profile.

MisterJ wrote: Please see my signature for my system specifications.  In preparation for a NVMe boot RAID,  I set some RAID settings such as SATA RAID mode and NVMe RAID mode.  I saved this as a profile and hit F10.  All OK.  I went back into BIOS and loaded my saved Profile, all OK.  I then set Ultra Fast Boot and F10.  Did not boot any faster but OK.  Went back into BIOS and turn off Ultra Fast Boot so I could see CSM and disabled it.  Tried to save as my Profile and nothing happened.  Rebooted OK, went back into BIOS and tried to load my Profile and it hung - mouse cursor not moving, F keys do nothing, had to Reset.  Booted OK into W10.  The explanation to the right of CSM in BIOS says W8 only.  Really?  A thread here says I must disable CSM before installing Windows or it will not work.  Really? As you can see, I need some advise.  TIA and enjoy, John.

CSM is NOT only for Windows 8. I have CSM disabled on my Ryzen PC with Windows 10, and it boots fine. The description in the UEFI for Fast Boot should be updated to include Windows 10. Actually the description should be updated so it actually makes sense, it doesn't currently IMO, and is the same in any ASRock UEFI that I have ever seen. Some information on CSM:

Install Windows 8.1/10 with CSM enabled (the default): You can only boot Windows with CSM enabled.

Install Windows 8.1/10 with CSM Disabled: You can boot Windows with CSM Enabled or Disabled.

You can also configure the available CSM sub-options with CSM enabled, but that is out of the scope of the Fast Boot option.

You cannot use Ultra Fast boot unless you INSTALLED Windows 10 with CSM disabled. Normally the UEFI just resets Fast Boot to Disabled if you set it to Ultra Fast but did not install Windows with CSM disabled. Or, it just puts you into the UEFI after you Save and Exit after selecting Ultra Fast, under the same circumstances.

To use the Ultra Fast setting of Fast Boot, you MUST have CSM disabled. As you saw, select the Ultra Fast setting, and the CSM option is hidden, as a safety feature I assume. Really to force disabling Fast Boot to get the CSM option back. IMO, it would make more sense to only display the Fast Boot option when CSM is disabled. But Fast Boot used to have two settings, Fast and Ultra Fast. Fast could be used with any CSM setting.

Actually, Ultra Fast "Boot" is a shorter POST time, so the overall startup or "boot" time is reduced. That varies depending upon the system. HEDT systems like X99, X299, and probably X399 have longer POST times. Ryzen POST is sloooow compared to mainstream Intel, I have both, my Z270 PC is at the desktop in less than half the time the Ryzen PC is. That is with Ultra Fast disabled on the Z270 and Z370. Enable RAID in the Ryzen PC, and POST is even slower.

Don't forget that from a cold boot/start, the Windows 10 Fast Startup feature is active, but ONLY on a cold start/boot. Any restart after that is without Windows Fast Startup.

There seems to be a bug in the Ryzen, and now with your experience, the TR UEFI/BIOS, when you attempt to load a UEFI profile that has the CSM option disabled. My ASRock X370 board will freeze in the UEFI when I load a profile with CSM disabled. Others in the forum have reported this too. I need to test that again with my X370 board's latest UEFI, but other versions have behaved this way. I run all my Windows installations with CSM disabled, but NONE of my many ASRock Intel boards and one AMD 970 board have the problem with loading a UEFI profile that has CSM disabled. My Ryzen PC is the first one I have experienced the UEFI freezing when loading a profile with CSM disabled.

I imagine you can understand why the Fast Boot description is not very good, since any decent explanation takes more text than will fit in a small description area.