A swath of motherboards from all vendors based on AMD's 500-series chipsets
have been affected by USB connectivity issues
AMD may finally have developed a fix - or at the very least a comprehensive work-around - for the ongoing USB connectivity issues affecting some 500-series motherboards. In a post to the /r/AMD subreddit the official AMD account both thanked the community for feedback received and revealed that they believe the root cause has been isolated and that the upcoming AGESA 1.2.0.2 will provide a solution. Public betas of UEFI BIOS builds based on this AGESA update should be available from early April.
USB connectivity issues on 500-series motherboards paired with PCIe 4.0 devices have been reported for months, affecting USB Audio (including crackling etc), VR HMDs and in some instances dropping the port entirely. There has been speculation that the cause was either PCIe 4.0 timings or poor power delivery, and community work-around's had been developed which sometimes successfully mitigated the problem. Three weeks ago AMD finally publicly acknowledged the problem and sent out a call for more data to develop a fix.
AMD's statement is reproduced below. The root cause itself isn't stated, nor the nature of the implemented fixes and if they impact other operations, but it will nonetheless come as a welcome relief to those still persevering in the face of persistent frustrating.
We would like to thank the community here on r/AMD for its assistance with logs and reports as we investigated the intermittent USB connectivity you highlighted. With your help, we believe we have isolated the root cause and developed a solution that addresses a range of reported symptoms, including (but not limited to): USB port dropout, USB 2.0 audio crackling (e.g. DAC/AMP combos), and USB/PCIe Gen 4 exclusion.
AMD has prepared AGESA 1.2.0.2 to deploy this update, and we plan to distribute 1.2.0.2 to our motherboard partners for integration in about a week. Customers can expect downloadable BIOSes containing AGESA 1.2.0.2 to begin with beta updates in early April. The exact update schedule for your system will depend on the test and implementation schedule for your vendor and specific motherboard model. If you continue to experience intermittent USB connectivity issues after updating your system to AGESA 1.2.0.2, we encourage you to download the standalone AMD Bug Report Tool and open a ticket with AMD Customer Support.
AMD has prepared AGESA 1.2.0.2 to deploy this update, and we plan to distribute 1.2.0.2 to our motherboard partners for integration in about a week. Customers can expect downloadable BIOSes containing AGESA 1.2.0.2 to begin with beta updates in early April. The exact update schedule for your system will depend on the test and implementation schedule for your vendor and specific motherboard model. If you continue to experience intermittent USB connectivity issues after updating your system to AGESA 1.2.0.2, we encourage you to download the standalone AMD Bug Report Tool and open a ticket with AMD Customer Support.
