Question ASRock Instant Flash not seeing update file on USB

Jeff H

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Oct 11, 1999
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Guys,

At Crucial's suggestion, I'm attempting to flash ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming 4 board from 1.4 to 1.7, to address flakiness in XMP2. When I first fired up the board, I was able to update flash from from 1.2 to 1.4 via Instant Flash.

My system (Ryzen 5 3600, 2x8 Crucial Ballistix DDR4-3200, WD SN 550 NVMe SSD, Radeon RX 560 4GB) is up and running fine, with the exception that XMP setting causes screen flickering and black outs. Crucial tech support suggested updating BIOS. If that doesn't address, they suggested the age-old process of running with 1 memory stick. What's interesting is I can go into UEFI and manually set the memory speed to 3200, and the system is stable.

Now my issue. I d/l'ed the 1.7 BIOS file, and put it on a thumb drive, formatted to exFAT (only option, besides NTFS). On two different thumb drives I get the message "no file detected on USB." I have Fast Boot disabled, and tried w/ Secure Boot both enabled and disabled. Same result, Instant Flash doesn't see the file on the thumb drive.

I'm sure I'm missing some setting in UEFI that's not letting the flash go forward. What might that be£ Looking forward to hearing what I'm missing, as a UEFI newbie.

TIA,

Jeff
 

Jeff H

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Oct 11, 1999
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Just completed BIOS/UEFI update to 1.7. Thanks again Iron Woode for the direction. Now to see if update allows XMP2 to behave.
 

Iron Woode

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Just completed BIOS/UEFI update to 1.7. Thanks again Iron Woode for the direction. Now to see if update allows XMP2 to behave.
I am getting the same issue on my Asrock B450 mITX board and 3600mhz ram.

My solution was to not use XMP but simply set the ram speed to 2933 rather than 3600 and it runs stable.
 

Jeff H

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Oct 11, 1999
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Iron Woode, that was my experience. I asked the sales guy at Microcenter if the Crucial Ballistix DDR4-3200 (2 x 8GB) posted at 2133. I tried XMP2, and got nothing but flakiness. I too was able to manually set the memory speed, to 3200, and it worked fine. Crucial tech support suggested updating the BIOS, and that's when I ran into the thumb drive issue. I updated the BIOS this afternoon, and new default speed is 2933. I'm not in the mood to fuss with BIOS settings today, but will get around to it early next week.
 

Iron Woode

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Iron Woode, that was my experience. I asked the sales guy at Microcenter if the Crucial Ballistix DDR4-3200 (2 x 8GB) posted at 2133. I tried XMP2, and got nothing but flakiness. I too was able to manually set the memory speed, to 3200, and it worked fine. Crucial tech support suggested updating the BIOS, and that's when I ran into the thumb drive issue. I updated the BIOS this afternoon, and new default speed is 2933. I'm not in the mood to fuss with BIOS settings today, but will get around to it early next week.
the obvious reason for the issue is that the XMP timings are making the board unhappy. There's not much that can be done about that short of Asrock making the BIOS more compatible with the ram available on the market.

Of course you can always try tweaking the ram settings and hope for stability.
 
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scineram

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I am getting the same issue on my Asrock B450 mITX board and 3600mhz ram.

My solution was to not use XMP but simply set the ram speed to 2933 rather than 3600 and it runs stable.
I have that same board. Even if it gets Cezanne support which I doubt, I might still get an A520 for the faster memory.
 
Feb 4, 2009
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Just updated to 3.6 bios, zero problems using the ez flash method. Finally recognizes my Crucial Ballistic memory and has more aggressive timings than what crucial advertised. Chipset fan seems to have more settings too however it did spin up a bit more while gaming but it is still barely audible over the other fans.
I am pretty happy with this so far.
 

Jeff H

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Oct 11, 1999
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Iron Woode, late last week I updated BIOS on ASRock B550 Phantom Gaming 4 board from 1.7 to 1.8. Didn't get around to setting XMP until this morning.
Unlike under BIOS 1.7 (flickering, black screens), BIOS verison 1.8 let me enable XMP w/o an issue.
 
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DAPUNISHER

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I thought I would lay it out for all of you here, and this goes for all motherboards in general, not specificially ASRock. Some models of motherboard manufactured come with 'buggy' or 'not working' updates to the Bios Flash Update. I have an ASRock Fatal1ty X370 Gaming X motherboard and I would like to add some reassurance too in my words that if an update is not compatible with you motherboard, the Instant Flash! BIOS update won't find the file.

I have for the last few months (3 to be exact) tried again and again, and can confirm that BIOS updates using Instant Flash for the Fatal1ty X370 Gaming X after update 5.10 do not work, and cannot be found by the Instant Flash update no matter how many times the user will try. I was updating the BIOS again with one last try this afternoon as I in theory needed it for the new(ish) Ryzen 7 5800x CPU I just ordered to install Windows 11 upgrade.

I can leave some last calm words, that the 5800x does work with BIOS 5.10 on the mentioned motherboard, even without the proper update.

This goes for all motherboards, all models. Sometimes the BIOS update file(s) is/are buggy, and it is not the formatted FAT32 USB stick that is at fault!

Merry Christmas
Welcome to the forums.

Could you clarify some things in this post? There is no official support for Zen 3 and the last official bios was. 6.00. The beta bios that add support are all 6.xx that I am familiar with.

And I have the Gaming K4 model which has ver. 5.1 for AGESA 1.0.0.6 But the Gaming X is ver. 5.2 That might explain why you can't get it to take a newer bios; if you installed one for the wrong model.
 
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DAPUNISHER

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Hello Dapunisher,
Nice alias by the way. I can only comment what I have knowledge of. I remember updating this as an OFFICIAL BIOS, but when I check this model in the BIOS downloads on ASrock website, I cannot update above my current version of the BIOS. Let me post a screen shot here of my UEFI main screen. Hold on I'll just restart sys... This is the default non OC of the UEFI.
You have the correct bridge bios for the Professional gaming, odd it won't let you go any further. Which ones did you try? And you made certain to choose the pro gaming and not gaming x correct? Because you listed your board as the X not the Pro in your first post.

And you realize a 5800X is not on the supported CPU list for your board? You would have to hunt down one of the bets bios I mentioned, or inject the CPU microcode with UEFI BIOS Updater to have any chance. Do not expect the 5800x to boot in your board as is.
 
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DAPUNISHER

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Thank you for helping me solve this mystery. You guys are the best and a special thanks to Dapunisher.

To answer your inquiry, no it does not Officially support 5800x but it does support Generation 3 Zen processors so I believe it'll run stable, unofficially! 🙂 Would you like an update if it worked here?

Sincerely,
Exsosus
Tyvm my friends at Anandtech forums.
AMD has you confused my friend. While Zen 3 is the 5000 series CPUs, it is not the 3rd generation of CPUs the BIOS update refers to. That is the 3000 series, which is as far as your board supports officially. Again, your board is unlikely to boot with the 5800x, even with the latest bios. Which is a shame since it is a nice board.
 
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Iron Woode

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Hello again! (Fatal1ty X370 Professional Gaming board) I have updated to the latest BIOS v6.40.

Ryzen 9 3900XT, a 12-core CPU also compatible for Windows 11. This baby is compatible with my board, correct!? I have ordered it, just incase the 5800X will not boot the system and I was given a free return policy until Jan 15 2022, so I am not worried incase the answer here is no. But I believe I have followed your advice correctly now.

Description from Asrock bios update-page:
BIOS ver 6.40 Supports 3RD Gen AMD Ryzen XT series CPU


I have even checked this source PC website before I ordered, and it's there:
Zen 3 is not supported on your board.

Your board only supports up to Zen 2. The XT line is only found in the 3000 series which is Zen 2.
 

Iron Woode

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Hello @Iron Woode and Waffleironhead, ty for your replies.

Iron Woode, please see the following

Iron Woode wrote:
"Zen 3 is not supported on your board.

Your board only supports up to Zen 2. The XT line is only found in the 3000 series which is Zen 2. "

Please see these notes:
Exsosus wrote:
Description from Asrock bios update-page:
BIOS ver 6.40 Supports 3RD Gen AMD Ryzen XT series CPU

I have even checked this source PC website before I ordered, and it's there:
https://pcpartpicker.com/products/cpu/?compatible_with=GMQRsY

I believe the 3900XT is on the compatibility list for this board,
so I ordered that.
That is correct.

AMD's naming bothers me. Zen 1 (1000 series) is 1st gen. Zen Plus (2000 series) is gen 2. Zen 2 (3000 + 4000 series) is gen 3. Zen 3 (5000 series) is gen 4?. This makes little sense.