Prebuilt [SFFn] ASRock's DeskMini A300 - Finally!

[rubicoin]

until the ordered m.2 egpu adapter arrives i started to prepare my A300 to accept it. i'm currently trying to find the best spot for the pciex ribbon cable to exit the case. anyone has thoughts about it? where would you mod the case? cutting i/o shield seems to be the easiest way, but i'm not sure about the exact spacing. also i can only hope that the adapter will fit in the rear m.2 slot above the mobo tray and that the cable will have enough room to enter here with the m.2 connector part:

i guess this will be tight if not impossible

 

[yuusou]

These cables are flexible, that should be more than enough space, remember the PCB sits a few milimetres away from the IO shield, so there's room for the cable to curve down and out, and the cable only foes to about half way of the USB port. Just remember to, instead of cutting out a box on the IO shield, cut a little further in, cut the corners, then fold the shield so it doesn't cut the cable.

 

[rubicoin]

These cables are flexible, that should be more than enough space, remember the PCB sits a few milimetres away from the IO shield, so there's room for the cable to curve down and out, and the cable only foes to about half way of the USB port. Just remember to, instead of cutting out a box on the IO shield, cut a little further in, cut the corners, then fold the shield so it doesn't cut the cable.

cutting in further and folding metal is a great advice. i'll definetely do the mod this way, thx!

but i'm more concerned about fitting the adapter itself between the mobo and the tray. not sure about exact clearances, i did not open the case yet (just examining photos taken earlier). cutting in the edge of the i/o shield really seems to be the only good option as the whole i/o shield can be popped out anytime. so the actual thickness of the m.2 connector part can be no issue and an even smaller cut is needed (the hole has to accept only the cable thickness not the whole adapter his way).

 

[yuusou]

The motherboard is raised, it'll be fine. Maybe it'll put a little bit of pressure but nothing worth worrying about, remember there's supposed to be clearance between an NVMe and the motherboard try usually anyway.

 

[rubicoin]

another concern i mentioned earlier is the number of pcie lanes available in A300 (and their distribution), but got no real answer so far.
as i'm just about to utilize all expansion slots available with an egpu, it's worth counting theoretical bandwidth available i guess.

see hwinfo screenshot of my system for example:

and see anandtech's info about renoir apus:

so in theory 4650g has 20 pcie 3.0 lanes (=20GB/s) available and my A300 would have the following setup:
- 1x m.2 front nvme ssd (pcie 3.0 x4 4GB/s - not fully utilized, ~3GB/s) on x16 bus #1
- 1x gigabit nic (pcie 3.0 x1 1GB/s - not fully utilized, ~0.128GB/s) on x1 bus #2
- 1x igpu (pcie 3.0 x8 8GB/s? - really not sure about that, it's reported as pcie 4.0 x16 8 GT/s) + 2x usb3.1 ports (2x5=10 Gb/s) + HD audio on x16 bus #3

- 1x sata raid0 (pcie 3.0 x1 1GB/s - almost fully utilized, possible bottleneck for sata raid?, ~0.9GB/s based on measured speeds below) on x16 bus #4

- 1x m.2 rear egpu adapter (pcie 3.0 x4 - fully utilized, ~4GB/s) on which bus? is it the same as sata on x16 bus #4 or as m.2 front on x16 bus #1?

so it's a bit confusing to me. it seems that rear m.2 slot shares pcie bus with another storage bus. anyone with rear m.2 (and sata ssd) installed can confirm it? i'm afraid that eventually the 16+4 lane setup ends up being not good for me. i guess i'll see but i hope i won't be forced to change 256GB m.2 nvme + 2*240GB sata raid storage to one 512GB/1TB m.2 ssd or something like that

 

[Valantar]

another concern i mentioned earlier is the number of pcie lanes available in A300 (and their distribution), but got no real answer so far.
as i'm just about to utilize all expansion slots available with an egpu, it's worth counting theoretical bandwidth available i guess.

see hwinfo screenshot of my system for example:

and see anandtech's info about renoir apus:

so in theory 4650g has 20 pcie 3.0 lanes (=20GB/s) available and my A300 would have the following setup:
- 1x m.2 front nvme ssd (pcie 3.0 x4 4GB/s - not fully utilized, ~3GB/s) on x16 bus #1
- 1x gigabit nic (pcie 3.0 x1 1GB/s - not fully utilized, ~0.128GB/s) on x1 bus #2
- 1x igpu (pcie 3.0 x8 8GB/s? - really not sure about that, it's reported as pcie 4.0 x16 8 GT/s) + 2x usb3.1 ports (2x5=10 Gb/s) + HD audio on x16 bus #3

- 1x sata raid0 (pcie 3.0 x1 1GB/s - almost fully utilized, possible bottleneck for sata raid?, ~0.9GB/s based on measured speeds below) on x16 bus #4

- 1x m.2 rear egpu adapter (pcie 3.0 x4 - fully utilized, ~4GB/s) on which bus? is it the same as sata on x16 bus #4 or as m.2 front on x16 bus #1?

so it's a bit confusing to me. it seems that rear m.2 slot shares pcie bus with another storage bus. anyone with rear m.2 (and sata ssd) installed can confirm it? i'm afraid that eventually the 16+4 lane setup ends up being not good for me. i guess i'll see but i hope i won't be forced to change 256GB m.2 nvme + 2*240GB sata raid storage to one 512GB/1TB m.2 ssd or something like that

I believe you're overcomplicating things. SATA and NICs aren't normally connected to the PCIe lanes that are listed on the spec sheet, simply because these are never exposed to the user in a configurable manner, only as various features implemented. My understanding is that the PEG+NVMe lanes are in addition to the internal SATA controllers, connections for NICs and WiFi, etc. As you can see in AMD's block diagram here, they list separate blocks for PEG, 2x NVMe/SATA and GPP (General Purpose ... PCIe? In this case I'm interpreting this as WiFi, Ethernet, etc.).

This is of course for the mobile APUs, and due to the pinout of AM4 things can't quite be routed in the same way (no off-chip lanes for the second NVMe block to connecto to, among other things). But the gist of it is that all slots provided should be full bandwidth and not shared with anything else - WYSIWYG, so to speak. I would expect the second m.2 slot on the A300 to be part of the x16 PEG lanes, as those are otherwise unutilized on that platform. The most reasonable interpretation of the block diagram AMD provided is that there are actually two x16 PCIe controllers on board, one of which supplies the PEG lanes while the other is split into x4/x4/x4/x4 or some such for NVMe+NVMe+USB+GPP (possibly with the option for further bifurcation of each of those blocks to allow for x1 links for WiFi/Ethernet etc.).

I would expect the layout for your system to be something like this:
-iGPU: "PCIe x8", actually IF
-m.2 #1: One of the two NVMe/SATA blocks
-m.2 #2: Four of the PEG PCIe lanes
-WiFi: GPP
-SATA: either GPP or the second NVMe/SATA block
-Ethernet: GPP

 

[rubicoin]

if i wanted to oversimplify things i'd say pcie 3.0 x20 = x16 + x4 = x8 for igpu, x4 for m.2_1, x4 for m.2_2 + x4 shared across sata/usb/nic.

if i'm correct A300 mobo is basically chipless, just wires cpu to peripherials (pcie to sata conversion, networking, usb etc). my confusion came from hwinfo listings with one x1 and three x16 pcie bus #.

 

[Valantar]

if i wanted to oversimplify things i'd say pcie 3.0 x20 = x16 + x4 = x8 for igpu, x4 for m.2_1, x4 for m.2_2 + x4 shared across sata/usb/nic.

if i'm correct A300 mobo is basically chipless, just wires cpu to peripherials (pcie to sata conversion, networking, usb etc). my confusion came from hwinfo listings with one x1 and three x16 pcie bus #.

As I said, the iGPU according to AMD's block diagrams is connected over IF and not any of the user facing PCIe lanes. I have no idea why the connections are listed that way, but it certainly doesn't match either the spec sheets or published diagrams, suggesting that it might be just a quirk of how Windows identifies these things or some such.

 

[alles_alles]

i'm sure it has been removed prior renoir beta, so i guess i have to flash x300 1.40 to have this option again.

three things i don't know for sure about it:
- do i have to rename and flash 1.40 bios file with msi uefi flash tool, or just try it with asrock instant flash in setup?
- does x300 bios reportedly work with a300, and is it ok for 4650g daily use?
- can x300 bios be reverted back to 3.60S just by reflashing it?

update:
based on this chinese forum thread translated by google i'll skip flashing x300 for now (no AMD PBS menu and risky comeback to a300 beta bios).

sorry that i answer now. i make tomorrow any answer of your posting. i don't have seen your posting before. Sorry for that.

 

[alles_alles]

it would make sense, but i'd like to know it for sure. here is my advanced tab with no external gpu connected:

anyone can confirm me, that no AMD PBS option is present running igpu only? (on official 3.50/3.60 bios for example)

update:
it seems that this PBS option was removed in beta bios 3.60K/L or even in official 3.60
see comments under this video (google translated to english below)

allesNorris
@CLP tutorials I looked up AMD pbs and cbs are available up to BIOS version 3.60k AgesaV1 1004b. From 3.60L AgesaV2 1.002 the AMD CBS / Pbs function is missing. Instead, you will find AMD firmware version from 3.60O and CPU SOC voltage

allesNorris
@CLP tutorials so with the 3.60 (AGESA 1001 was available. Then I had one version 3.53 (AGESA 1003). The other BIOS AGESA 3.60 H? I still had that.. I hadn't tested AGESA 3.60K. With AGESA 3.60 L up it disappeared. Would have to test the K Bios again. Well, I think it's a shame that it was taken out. I would have liked to test other switches in the R bios as soon as I have my 4000 apu whether you can get standby with AMD PBS / CBS with any switch. We'll wait and see if something else comes up

CLP tutorials
Hello allesNorris,
As far as I know, these functions were already removed in the normal 3.60 release. Or am I wrong?
As soon as the X300 is available, I will make a comparison with the latest BIOS versions.
Best regards
Christoph from CLP Tutorials

maybe it's time for me to check x300 bios? someone can confirm that AMD PBS option is present in 1.40? (X300 manual won't help, same section/screenshot as in A300 manual)

AMD CBS and PBS were removed in deskmini a300 3.60L.
On Renoir follow doesn*t work

SOC Voltage you can't set, S3 Standby don*t work

on deskmini a300 in N and R Bios you can set the SOC Voltage till Picasso based APU .

I belive the problem is that that the function isn't released in agesa v2 bios .

On X300 bios you can't set soc on renoir on the a300 because the board has the wrong board ID code. ((Maybe I don't konw)

To use renoir with higher RAM Speed you have to set an higher SOC Voltage but if its doesn't work...... On 4650 the most sais after 3600 ram frequenz it is close.

On 4750g i don't know 2667 is the highest voltage.

It should work with an x300 Board .. But you have to know ... the board can use 120 watt power consumption at total. it doesn't matter if its the a300 oder x300. thats why the soc voltage is on the 4750 is tooo low to use more than 2667 frequenz with vega. Note: with cpu only and the microsoft display adapter you can use 4200 ram frequenz...

the problem is..... because the board is total usage of 120 watt at total they have to set the frequence of cpu 150 mhz lower and that cpu voltage they should be use on soc----. because on other cpus you can set soc till 1,237 voltage. .. and there is another problem.. the 4750g have one more core on gpu so that voltage is there but the board doesn't use it for that soc where you need it . Note : soc and ipgu are the same voltage becaus ipgu sit on voltage of soc of ram...

if you install the x bios you can get back to a bios without any problems. with the msi V1009 uefi flasher tool. with newer version i don't know if its works.

 

[rubicoin]

AMD CBS and PBS were removed in deskmini a300 3.60L.
On Renoir follow doesn*t work.

so no AMD CBS and PBS in X300 1.40 bios either?

 

[pappl]

I'm back to 3.60K from 3.60S with Ryzen 3400G. Had random freezes with 3.60S, else all perfect. ?

 

[alles_alles]

so no AMD CBS and PBS in X300 1.40 bios either?

yes so it is . It isn't aviable . if its comes to bios . i don't know.

 

[alles_alles]

I'm back to 3.60K from 3.60S with Ryzen 3400G. Had random freezes with 3.60S, else all perfect. ?

another said that to me to . with my cpu it works fine. which ram do you have??

 

[fadsarmy]

Hi. My mouse keeps waking up my A300 and I want to disable it but I can't find the option in the bios. I have unchecked "allow this device to wake the computer" in device manager but this doesn't work. I have the option to disable USB wake up in my H270 Asrock bios but it still doesn't work after disabling it. It's strange that this doesn't work on all my Asrock motherboards but works on all my MSI ones.

 

[Euod92]

I have a300 with 3200G build now, and i want to buy the h470 version. Do anybody know where i can buy it in Europe? I only found 2 online stores, but googling about seems a scam. We are in the end of october but i still cant buy it.

 

[rubicoin]

I have a300 with 3200G build now, and i want to buy the h470 version. Do anybody know where i can buy it in Europe? I only found 2 online stores, but googling about seems a scam. We are in the end of october but i still cant buy it.

your country? JZ has it for €170,59.

 

[dj_Duff]

I am also surprised in a bad way for H470 availability.
Not available in Amazon.de

JZ can't ship to Finland

Proshop also has it - but for higher price, but can ship to Finland and some other EU countries
https://www.proshop.fi/Kategorisoimaton/ASRock-DeskMini/2881240

Anyway, just couple of shops in EU have H470

 

[rubicoin]

I am also surprised in a bad way for H470 availability.
Not available in Amazon.de

JZ can't ship to Finland

Proshop also has it - but for higher price, but can ship to Finland and some other EU countries
https://www.proshop.fi/Kategorisoimaton/ASRock-DeskMini/2881240

Anyway, just couple of shops in EU have H470

we have it here in hungary for €185 (incl. vat) but no widespread availability yet and only ships first week of november. will be cheaper in a couple of weeks once more stock arrives i guess, be patient. this stands for X300 as well, arrives mid/late november, will be cheaper with time. and price of A300 will increase as it gets discontinued

 

[Euod92]

your country? JZ has it for €170,59.

Im from Spain, thanks for the link, dont understand nothing, no english version on the site .-(

I am also surprised in a bad way for H470 availability.
Not available in Amazon.de

JZ can't ship to Finland

Proshop also has it - but for higher price, but can ship to Finland and some other EU countries
https://www.proshop.fi/Kategorisoimaton/ASRock-DeskMini/2881240

Anyway, just couple of shops in EU have H470

Wow, that price. Thanks.

we have it here in hungary for €185 (incl. vat) but no widespread availability yet and only ships first week of november. will be cheaper in a couple of weeks once more stock arrives i guess, be patient. this stands for X300 as well, arrives mid/late november, will be cheaper with time. and price of A300 will increase as it gets discontinued

Surpsisingly bad availability and expensive prices. Hope you right and in the next weeks its appears in more stores.