Motherboard Group Buy/Crowdfunded Modded BIOS for the Asrock A300m (Deskmini A300)

carlothan

Minimal Tinkerer
New User
May 19, 2020
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Does anyone know when ASRock is announcing the successor for the a300 that will support the 4XXXG APUs? If possible I would like to try and get my current a300 resold before it loses too much resale value when the revision drops.
 

ConsolidatedResults

Average Stuffer
May 4, 2019
66
72
See my post above:

As of right now, no one has gotten any Zen 2 CPU to work on the Deskmini. Why would you expect a Zen 2 APU to work? If a board supported Zen 2 already, then sure I see your point, but to date no one has gotten any Zen 2 architecture CPU to boot. And that Anandtech article says the A320 doesn't support Zen 2, which is the "chipset" that the Deskmini uses.

This is false in two ways

1. ASRock bottom of the barrel A320 boards support Matisse / Zen2 Ryzen 3000 Series, see e.g. the CPU support list for A320M-HDV R4.0 https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/A320M-HDV R4.0/index.asp#CPU

2. The Deskmini A300 does not use the A320 chipset, the official designation for the Deskmini A300 chipset is, you guessed it, "A300" which indicates a chipsetless mainstream (no OC) AM4 platform. All IO is served directly from the CPU SoC. Outside of electrical / thermal / mechanical / BIOS ROM size / product tier constraints, all support for CPU generations is solely in the BIOS code. Support for non-APUs and Zen2 is probably something at ASRock's discretion, OC lockout is likely enforced by AMD.
 

ExecutableFix

Cable Smoosher
May 14, 2020
10
17
This is false in two ways

1. ASRock bottom of the barrel A320 boards support Matisse / Zen2 Ryzen 3000 Series, see e.g. the CPU support list for A320M-HDV R4.0 https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/A320M-HDV R4.0/index.asp#CPU

2. The Deskmini A300 does not use the A320 chipset, the official designation for the Deskmini A300 chipset is, you guessed it, "A300" which indicates a chipsetless mainstream (no OC) AM4 platform. All IO is served directly from the CPU SoC. Outside of electrical / thermal / mechanical / BIOS ROM size / product tier constraints, all support for CPU generations is solely in the BIOS code. Support for non-APUs and Zen2 is probably something at ASRock's discretion, OC lockout is likely enforced by AMD.
For anyone that has a bios flasher and DeskMini: I would love to get the results of a A320 bios with Matisse support flashed on. This is the first step to bios "unlocking" to see if there aren't any hardware restrictions in place to prevent non-APUs from posting. Since every CPU has built-in IO this is the best starting off point

Let me know if anyone is able to get me some results :thumb:
 
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rook

Average Stuffer
Jul 9, 2018
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Support for non-APUs and Zen2 is probably something at ASRock's discretion...
@ConsolidatedResults
You are correct. AMD sent me the following, "Please understand we provide the common AGESA to all the motherboard manufacturers and they will customize the BIOS files according to their hardware requirements and needs hence the CPU compatibility completely depends upon the motherboard hardware with their customized BIOS. "

For anyone that has a bios flasher and DeskMini: I would love to get the results of a A320 bios with Matisse support flashed on. This is the first step to bios "unlocking" to see if there aren't any hardware restrictions in place to prevent non-APUs from posting. Since every CPU has built-in IO this is the best starting off point

Let me know if anyone is able to get me some results :thumb:
@ExecutableFix
I've already tried this and, unfortunately, it doesn't work. If you go to the A320 BIOS page, AsRock has done a weird thing and created a bridge bios starting at 3.20. I couldn't find details on what or why this exists & no other manufacturers have done something similar. I could get 3.20 to flash and boot, but the system acted peculiar. It double booted (some kind of internal troubleshooting on the first boot) and then, in Windows, not all the I/O features worked (for instance LAN and Wi-Fi)...pretty sure I even tried replacing these drivers with the A300 ones before flashing. I could not flash any more recent bioses and have the mobo boot, it simply acted like a dead board, no standby power. I've also tried a range of other manufacturer bioses/ agesa versions.
 
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ExecutableFix

Cable Smoosher
May 14, 2020
10
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@ConsolidatedResults
You are correct. AMD sent me the following, "Please understand we provide the common AGESA to all the motherboard manufacturers and they will customize the BIOS files according to their hardware requirements and needs hence the CPU compatibility completely depends upon the motherboard hardware with their customized BIOS. "


@ExecutableFix
I've already tried this and, unfortunately, it doesn't work. If you go to the A320 BIOS page, AsRock has done a weird thing and created a bridge bios starting at 3.20. I couldn't find details on what or why this exists & no other manufacturers have done something similar. I could get 3.20 to flash and boot, but the system acted peculiar. It double booted (some kind of internal troubleshooting on the first boot) and then, in Windows, not all the I/O features worked (for instance LAN and Wi-Fi)...pretty sure I even tried replacing these drivers with the A300 ones before flashing. I could not flash any more recent bioses and have the mobo boot, it simply acted like a dead board, no standby power. I've also tried a range of other manufacturer bioses/ agesa versions.
That's actually perfect. It's expected that not all ports work because the addresses between both boards are different. You tried this with a normal Zen CPU?
 

ExecutableFix

Cable Smoosher
May 14, 2020
10
17
Hi, I can try it, but how can be sure it's AGESA 1.0.0.4B once installed? I've got only Ryzen 5 2400G, can I expect some difference in daily use?
Maybe it displays it in the bios, but if it boots you can be sure it uses the newer agesa. Be careful tho, because if it doesn't you won't be able to get the bios back without a flasher. I can't test it myself so I'm just making sure you're not bricking your board
 
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Hifihedgehog

Editor-in-chief of SFFPC.review
May 3, 2016
459
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Due to everything under table, I can't comment about new AMD processors condition.
But I have a good news that we will have new DeskMini product very soon. :D

*edit typo 0.0
Official B550 motherboard announcements were made today by all the major players, including ASRock. Are you now at liberty to speak about the upcoming DeskMini, @ASRock System?
 
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TomHC81

Trash Compacter
May 21, 2020
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www.sitepoint.sk
Maybe it displays it in the bios, but if it boots you can be sure it uses the newer agesa. Be careful tho, because if it doesn't you won't be able to get the bios back without a flasher. I can't test it myself so I'm just making sure you're not bricking your board
Ok, will make a BIOS dump first, I've got CH341A and also Raspberry with SPI / Flashrom, using them to fix motherboards.
 

Xe_CREATURE

What's an ITX?
New User
Apr 13, 2020
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Maybe it displays it in the bios, but if it boots you can be sure it uses the newer agesa. Be careful tho, because if it doesn't you won't be able to get the bios back without a flasher. I can't test it myself so I'm just making sure you're not bricking your board

I just tested it, it fails to boot.
It doesn't power down though, the power light just shuts off and it hangs.

On a side note, I've also been trying to mod the bios on this for awhile (mainly update the SMU FW so I can OC).
What's strange is that after updating the micro code for the 3400g my system seems to get less stable on both windows and linux with random crashes on both.
 

Sailren89

Cable Smoosher
May 24, 2020
11
2
pls consider a toslink out asrock! i need 5.1 audio on my deskmini and those hdmi audio extractors are bu**sh**, there should be space on those boards for such a little connector
 
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ASRock System

Trash Compacter
ASRock
Aug 29, 2016
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pls consider a toslink out asrock! i need 5.1 audio on my deskmini and those hdmi audio extractors are bu**sh**, there should be space on those boards for such a little connector

We got an e-mail which highlights "toslink" as well, maybe it comes from you :D
Consider product announce schedule and PCB layout, I think that there is a possibility on "next Gen" (Maybe)
We are always to improve versatility of mini PC.
 

ExecutableFix

Cable Smoosher
May 14, 2020
10
17
I just tested it, it fails to boot.
It doesn't power down though, the power light just shuts off and it hangs.

On a side note, I've also been trying to mod the bios on this for awhile (mainly update the SMU FW so I can OC).
What's strange is that after updating the micro code for the 3400g my system seems to get less stable on both windows and linux with random crashes on both.
Okay, that's helpful. It stinks that there's no way to check the post codes on these things as there's no TPM header available. I'll do some more research, but it's going to be hard to get it modded properly. It might need to wait untill the newer deskmini is out to get an idea of what exactly is needed for this platform. Thanks for trying it tho :)
 
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Sailren89

Cable Smoosher
May 24, 2020
11
2
We got an e-mail which highlights "toslink" as well, maybe it comes from you :D
Consider product announce schedule and PCB layout, I think that there is a possibility on "next Gen" (Maybe)
We are always to improve versatility of mini PC.

yeah marcelmarsha89 [at] gmail . com is my used email in this case

what do you mean with next gen? the one after the device which is in development or in fact the one which is in development?

big question that others want to know too? are u going to sell the board seperately? DIY deskmini anyone?
 
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