How can you tell if you need a BIOS flash for Ryzen 2000-series APUs?

[VirtualLarry]

I bought a Gigabyte AB350 Gaming 3 board recently for a Ryzen APU build. I got the 2400G in today, and put it all together. The back of the motherboard box does state "New generation Ryzen CPUs", but are they referring to Ryzen 3 and 5, that came later to Ryzen 7, when they were first released last year?

I've tried clearing CMOS, but no change.

I've left it for like several minutes to complete POST, no change.

No beep on the speaker, no beeps whatsoever.

Audio trace LED lighting path lights up Red, case power switch lights up and stays on.

Using an Intel 256GB 600p M.2 PCI-E SSD, unsure if it already has a copy of Windows onboard.

But I'm not getting anything through the onboard HDMI port, and the monitor is powering off.

Edit: Tried a PCI-E Zotac GT730 GDDR5 1GB dual-slot card, still nothing out of that HDMI port either.

Tried removing the RAM altogether. On an Intel rig, that causes three rapid beeps, usually, from the speaker. (Depends on BIOS mfg.) No beeps.

Just powers on, CPU fan spins, case fans spin, power button on case lights up, goes into LA-LA land.

Let me try removing the PCI-E M.2 SSD. (Which requires removing the video card.)

No dice. Forgot to put the RAM back in, let me try that. Still no dice.

Guess this is what happens, when Ryzen's PSP doesn't find the right / compatible AGESA version in the BIOS?

Let me look up what BIOS is needed for Ryzen APU on this board.

Edit: It says right here, it needs F10 BIOS.
https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Motherboard/GA-AB350-Gaming-3-rev-1x#support-cpu

And oh so helpful Gigabyte Technologies, unlike some mainboard vendors, does NOT print the BIOS version that the board ships with, on the serial number sticker on the BIOS.

Yet, their web site has a mini-site, for "Ryzen 2000-Ready" and shows that board.

They list this:

F10
7.80 MB
2017/12/01
Asia China America Europe
Europe(Russia)

1. Update AGESA 1.0.7.2a for Raven Ridge CPU support

So this board, had a Raven Ridge-compatible BIOS since 1st of Dec. 2017. I bought my board at the beginning of Feb.

So, it could have the necessary BIOS onboard. Or, if it was "old stock", it might not.

I found on page 19 of the English manual, that there are four little boot/diag LEDs.

18) CPU/VGA/DRAM/BOOT (Status LEDs) The status LEDs show whether the CPU, graphics card, memory, and operating system are working properly after system power-on. If the CPU/VGA/DRAM LED is on, that means the corresponding device is not working normally; if the BOOT LED is on, that means you haven't entered the operating system yet.

CPU DRAM VGA BOOT
CPU: CPU status LED VGA: Graphics card status LED DRAM: Memory status LED BOOT: Operating system status LED

NONE of the LEDs light up! Ever! (I would think that the BOOT LED would light up temporarily, at least.)

So, this board and APU and RAM, are dead? I find that kind of hard to believe.

Would an incompatible BIOS version, somehow override the diag LEDs? I would think that they were semi-hardware-controlled?

Edit: Tried a DVI-to-HDMI converter, in case the HDMI cable wasn't plugging all the way in due to the case I/O block bezel. No dice.

Tried swapping in a somewhat known-good 4GB stick of Kingston DDR4-2133. No dice.

Tried clearing CMOS again, no dice.

What's going on here? Even if the CPU AGESA was the wrong version, why aren't I getting a CPU diag LED on? Or are those completely CPU/software-controlled after all?

Guess I have no choice but to pull out one of my Ryzen CPUs and drop it in, and see if it boots in this board.

 

[UsandThem]

By it doing what it's doing is probably enough to know it's needed. It sounds like the retailer you bought it from must have old stock they are sending out first.

You do have other Ryzen CPUs there that you can throw in to update the BIOS, don't you?

 

[VirtualLarry]

You know, this happened to me before once, when I was working on my friend's Athlon II X4 rig. I had just swapped in a new PSU, and it wasn't booting. I had forgotten to plug in the ATX12V connector.

Only problem is, I didn't forget this time, but let me double-check, that I didn't plug it in half-way offset or something. It was a 4+4 pin split cable off of the PSU, and it was labeled.

Using a brand-new (everything on this build is brand-new, except for the 256GB Intel 600p M.2 NVMe SSD) EVGA 450 BV PSU.

Edit: Yep, double-checked, unplugged, and re-plugged ATX12V 8-pin (4+4) connector. No change. No beeps, no diag LEDs whatsoever.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Ok, I pulled off one of my rigs with an ASRock AB350M Pro4, that purports to support Ryzen APUs.

Garbage.

I got it to boot, and show me the opening CMOS screen, but then it hung. Mouse wouldn't move either.

Managed to get it to re-flash 4.50 (newest?) BIOS overtop, and it still didn't help.

Reset UEFI settings to Defaults, Save and Exit, now I get one long beep, and three or four short beeps.

Of course, this rig, when I pulled it off duty, HWMonitor showed both R7 260X 2GB cards, hitting 99C for some reason. (Driver issue? Fans worn out?)

Of course #2, the Plextor PCI-E M.2 NVMe boot drive was sandwiched underneath both overheating video cards.

When I first moved the Ryzen APU to that box, and tried to boot Windows off of the M.2, I got five beeps.

As a matter of fact, when I rebooted the PC before I pulled it off duty, I got five beeps, just before Windows loaded. I had a SATA SSD as well as the PCI-E M.2 SSD, who knows if the SATA SSD was the one loading, if the PCI-E one was cooked.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yep, my Gigabyte B350 Gaming 3 just needed a BIOS flash

I put F21 on it, after installing an R5 1600 CPU, flashing the BIOS, and then putting the 2400G APU back on.

What a royal PITA this was.

And I'm still not sure if I cooked my ASRock AB350M Pro4, or 4.50 is just a buggy BIOS for the 2400G. Or the 2400G doesn't like my Team Vulcan DDR4-3000 RAM, although that RAM runs fine at 2933 XMP settings on the same BIOS version, with my R5 1600 CPU.

Also, Windows 10 didn't pull down the Vega APU Windows 10 64-bit drivers, like I expected. Had to do it manually.

 

[XavierMace]

I'm not 100% clear on your troubleshooting here. If you put your R5 1600 in the new Gigabyte board with just the RAM, no drives or GPU's, what does it do? If you put the 2400G in your AB350 with just RAM, no GPU's, what does it do? Did you flash 3.40 before flashing 4.50? Did you try the 4.70? Asrock's Raven Ridge BIOS support has been a bit rocky.

Edit: Nevermind, you posted your update while I was replying.

In regards to the board shipping with the current BIOS, I think people greatly underestimate how long the supply chain takes. 2 months to get a new product packaged, shipped to distributors, then shipped to retailers is not a whole lot of time and it's not like the retailers are just going to throw away any old stock. My Asrock board purchased mid-Feb did not have a Raven Ridge compatible BIOS, my Gigabyte board purchased beginning of March did.

 

[whm1974]

I'm not 100% clear on your troubleshooting here. If you put your R5 1600 in the new Gigabyte board with just the RAM, no drives or GPU's, what does it do? If you put the 2400G in your AB350 with just RAM, no GPU's, what does it do? Did you flash 3.40 before flashing 4.50? Did you try the 4.70? Asrock's Raven Ridge BIOS support has been a bit rocky.

Edit: Nevermind, you posted your update while I was replying.

In regards to the board shipping with the current BIOS, I think people greatly underestimate how long the supply chain takes. 2 months to get a new product packaged, shipped to distributors, then shipped to retailers is not a whole lot of time and it's not like the retailers are just going to throw away any old stock. My Asrock board purchased mid-Feb did not have a Raven Ridge compatible BIOS, my Gigabyte board purchased beginning of March did.

So if I was going to build a Raven Ridge based system, it would be best if I waited a few months for old stock to be sold out first? Then again, since I use Linux I will have to wait for better RR support anyway. So no loss there.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Ok, after getting the 2400G to boot and install Windows 10 on the Gigabyte B350 Gaming 3 (micro-ATX version), after XM mentioned a 4.70 UEFI for the AB350M Pro4, I tried that. I put my R5 1600 into the ASRock, flashed 3.40, then flashed 4.70, and then put in the 2400G.

No dice. Unstable as F. When I didn't get RAM and Low RAM Error beeps, and CPU Error beeps, I could get into the UEFI, and then it would freeze up withing a couple of seconds. Using several different keyboards, different sets of RAM, etc.

Avoid ASRock mobos for now, for Raven Ridge builds.

I put my 2400G back into the Gaming 3, where I'm presently using it to post this message. I guess that's where it's going to stay. I'm fed up with ASRock.

 

[whm1974]

Ok, after getting the 2400G to boot and install Windows 10 on the Gigabyte B350 Gaming 3 (micro-ATX version), after XM mentioned a 4.70 UEFI for the AB350M Pro4, I tried that. I put my R5 1600 into the ASRock, flashed 3.40, then flashed 4.70, and then put in the 2400G.

No dice. Unstable as F. When I didn't get RAM and Low RAM Error beeps, and CPU Error beeps, I could get into the UEFI, and then it would freeze up withing a couple of seconds. Using several different keyboards, different sets of RAM, etc.

Avoid ASRock mobos for now, for Raven Ridge builds.

I put my 2400G back into the Gaming 3, where I'm presently using it to post this message. I guess that's where it's going to stay. I'm fed up with ASRock.

It rarely pays to be an early adopter. I would had waited about two or three months after release so these kind of issues can be ironed out. Then again I'm a Linux only kind of guy, so I would have to wait anyway for fuller Linux support.

 

[XavierMace]

Ok, after getting the 2400G to boot and install Windows 10 on the Gigabyte B350 Gaming 3 (micro-ATX version), after XM mentioned a 4.70 UEFI for the AB350M Pro4, I tried that. I put my R5 1600 into the ASRock, flashed 3.40, then flashed 4.70, and then put in the 2400G.

No dice. Unstable as F. When I didn't get RAM and Low RAM Error beeps, and CPU Error beeps, I could get into the UEFI, and then it would freeze up withing a couple of seconds. Using several different keyboards, different sets of RAM, etc.

Avoid ASRock mobos for now, for Raven Ridge builds.

I put my 2400G back into the Gaming 3, where I'm presently using it to post this message. I guess that's where it's going to stay. I'm fed up with ASRock.

Yeah, you can see the thread I started on their forums among others there. It's also evidenced by the number of 4.x BIOS's they've had to push out so far trying to fix their Raven Ridge issues. There's a 4.63 Beta BIOS and this is at least the 4th Beta BIOS since Raven Ridge's launch. This has not been a good launch for them. It killed me to replace mine with a Gigabyte board as the Asrock is the better board. The layout of my Gigabyte board sucks balls, but at least the board is stable.

It rarely pays to be an early adopter. I would had waited about two or three months after release so these kind of issues can be ironed out. Then again I'm a Linux only kind of guy, so I would have to wait anyway for fuller Linux support.

Do you like get paid every time you mention Linux in a post or something?

 

[whm1974]

Do you like get paid every time you mention Linux in a post or something?

If I did, I would be posting about Linux in every thread, which I don't.

 

[Lordhumungus]

I just bought a 2400G and AB350M Pro4 combo and was going to put it together today, but you guys have got me wondering if I should even bother with this motherboard or not. Mine has a sticker on it saying "AMD Ryzen 2000 Desktop ready" so I am hopeful it at least has enough of an updated BIOS to get me rolling and I also noticed they have a relatively recent 4.70 BIOS update that is non-beta. Hmmm, decisions decisions.

Edit: Well, turns out I need to exchange the board anyway since apparently the mATX version only has 4 SATA ports and I need at least 6 on-board. Now to decide if I go with the full fat ATX version of this board or something else from Gigabyte.

Going to be trying to turn this into my home server/HTPC so I also am hoping I don't have problems with the SATA card I intend to use once all is said and done.

Re-edit: I also flew by the seat of my pants and bought PNY Anarachy 3200 RAM because I got a really good deal on it and am hoping this doesn't come back to bite me in the ass.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I just bought a 2400G and AB350M Pro4 combo and was going to put it together today, but you guys have got me wondering if I should even bother with this motherboard or not. Mine has a sticker on it saying "AMD Ryzen 2000 Desktop ready" so I am hopeful it at least has enough of an updated BIOS to get me rolling and I also noticed they have a relatively recent 4.70 BIOS update that is non-beta. Hmmm, decisions decisions.

Edit: Well, turns out I need to exchange the board anyway since apparently the mATX version only has 4 SATA ports and I need at least 6 on-board. Now to decide if I go with the full fat ATX version of this board or something else from Gigabyte.

That's actually too bad. I am curious now, if my problems are something to do with my specific board (did I burn it out, mining on it, with GPUs hitting 99C when I wasn't looking), or did I get thermal paste (MX-4) on the SMT resistors / caps near the CPU ZIF socket?

Or is it indeed the fault of ASRock's BIOS engineers?

It just seems weird, that it was running fine with the R5 1600, and the 2400G in question runs fine in the Gigabyte Gaming 3 mATX board.

 

[whm1974]

What about MSI boards? I was looking at the Mortar board over at Newegg due to having both HDMI and DisplayPort. Something that is lacking on too many boards.

 

[alexruiz]

They have stickers that say "Ryzen 2000 series ready"
However, even with the sticker it is not guaranteed. I had a Gigabyte board with the Ryzen 2000 ready sticker, and it had BIOS ver F4!

 

[Lordhumungus]

Alright, kicking around options for the past few hours and I think I am going to roll the dice on the full ATX ASRock Pro4.

My gut tells me even if it has problems right this second, it's going to be the better long term option and from what I have seen ASRock isn't going to throw in the towel until everything is working correctly. Fingers crossed I don't get proven wrong.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Are you getting an APU? If so, the extra slots / capability of the ATX B350 Pro4 will be largely wasted, as you won't be able to use the second video card slot at all, I don't think, because the APUs only have PCI-E x8 coming from them, instead of x16 like the Ryzen CPUs.

And the last slot conflicts with the PCI-E M.2 x4.

 

[Lordhumungus]

I am going to be using a 2400G. In theory I only need 1x PCI-E x16 sized slot, 1x m.2 and 6x SATA. Beyond that I don’t really care what it does or doesn’t have feature wise.

Feel free to drop some knowledge on me if you think I’m missing something though.

 

[mikeymikec]

I used an ASUS B350M-A for my first Ryzen-G build. After a BIOS flash, the Ryzen-G (2200G) worked.

 

[VirtualLarry]

OzTalksHW YT vid, he builds a Ryzen 2200G APU build with an ASRock AB350M Pro4, and ... doesn't have any issues? Managed to OC too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzYXMtcq10k

Now I really wonder if my board is bad? But it works with my R5 1600?

His board came with the 4.63 (beta?) BIOS stock, though, and he refers to it as the "newest BIOS".

I didn't use that BIOS version.

Sigh. Time to re-build my AB350M Pro4 board, this time with the 4.63 BIOS? I'm dying to get that board working with a Ryzen APU.

He's also using a 2200G, which probably places a lower load on the secondary-plane VRMs.

Also, the heatsink covering the secondary-plane VRMs, on my board in question, is loose.

 

[whm1974]

OzTalksHW YT vid, he builds a Ryzen 2200G APU build with an ASRock AB350M Pro4, and ... doesn't have any issues? Managed to OC too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzYXMtcq10k

Now I really wonder if my board is bad? But it works with my R5 1600?

His board came with the 4.63 (beta?) BIOS stock, though, and he refers to it as the "newest BIOS".

I didn't use that BIOS version.

Sigh. Time to re-build my AB350M Pro4 board, this time with the 4.63 BIOS? I'm dying to get that board working with a Ryzen APU.

He's also using a 2200G, which probably places a lower load on the secondary-plane VRMs.

Also, the heatsink covering the secondary-plane VRMs, on my board in question, is loose.

Can you tighten the heatsink?

 

[Lordhumungus]

@VirtualLarry when I was looking at BIOS revisions, they had a 4.70 BIOS on the website. In either case, I'll be joining the adventure here shortly as I have the full size AB350 on the way to me.

 

[Lordhumungus]

Aaaand it's looking more and more like my choice was a bad one. I've had my system more or less setup for a few days now and I'm getting all kinds of weird hangs with artifacting and black screens.

I took the memory out of XMP settings and put it on something low speed to take that out of the equation (blue screened when installing windows otherwise).

I'm also having an issue where Windows says no audio devices are installed but both the AMD HDMI Audio driver and the Realtek on-board show-up as installed and working correctly in device manager.

Fun times!

Edit: Going to give the Gigabyte board a go and see how that works out for me

 

[XavierMace]

I remember having that audio issue with my Asrock board too, but I forgot about that because that was outweighed by the BSOD's when using the wireless. I've had zero issues with my Gigabyte board, been using it all afternoon the past 3 days.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I was using my ASRock AB350M Pro4 board, with 4.70 UEFI, and my shiny new 2200G, just fine last night and today. It dropped in, booted fine, installed Windows 10 1709 fine, even overclocked to 3.90Ghz fine (so far).

Sometimes, PCs do the darn-dest things...

Anyways, weird that my board, doesn't like my 2400G at all (hangs in BIOS, after first screen), but accepts a 2200G just fine.

I'm thinking that my secondary VRM plane issue might hold weight, and that heatsink is loose, but ... kind of inconclusive, without scoping it out or something.