Prebuilt [SFFn] ASRock's DeskMini A300 - Finally!
- Thread starter confusis
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I just wish we could get our hands on them now, in the UK. They make sense at £150 with the case, PSU, and motherboard- but if you buy the only easily available M/B and a case (you could make a case) the cost of a PSU makes it sort of questionable. At the moment I can get a ITX 16000 system for about £230 for the CPU and motherboard (and that will run 65TDP) and that gives me the benefits of ITX, add £90 for DDR and I’m sort at SFX price but with more power- ultimately it doesn’t add up unless I put a premium on SFX form factor.
I am totally sold on the A300 SFX, because there is so little to do, use a SATA slot just to keep storage prices down- pity about no USB 3.2.1 but the graphics make up for that. Just need cheap M.2 NVME or one that is locked down to just boot the OS. Apart from no super fast USB 3 or Thunderbolt the A3000 is like the AMD NUC. But all the bits it is missing I can gat with ITX…
What with Ryzen series 3 on the way, and that big discount on the Ryzen 1600 (£125, same as the 2400G I worry the A300 might get a bit lost in the noise)
I am totally sold on the A300 SFX, because there is so little to do, use a SATA slot just to keep storage prices down- pity about no USB 3.2.1 but the graphics make up for that. Just need cheap M.2 NVME or one that is locked down to just boot the OS. Apart from no super fast USB 3 or Thunderbolt the A3000 is like the AMD NUC. But all the bits it is missing I can gat with ITX…
What with Ryzen series 3 on the way, and that big discount on the Ryzen 1600 (£125, same as the 2400G I worry the A300 might get a bit lost in the noise)
Anybody try the A300 with a Ryzen 1000/2000 series CPU? This can make a lovely little 6/8 core ( AMD 1700, 2600 are 65W ) Nas/VM station.
A shame that they do not sell the MB separately. You can only order the MB directly from Asia, in 300 lots... The problem is, that the price was 90 dollar. When you add import tax, shipping and local tax, your paying the same as simply buying the entire MB/Case/PSU locally.
A shame that they do not sell the MB separately. You can only order the MB directly from Asia, in 300 lots... The problem is, that the price was 90 dollar. When you add import tax, shipping and local tax, your paying the same as simply buying the entire MB/Case/PSU locally.
The APU's need a newer linux kernel. I've tried Ubuntu 18.04.2 flavors, as well as the latest Solus 4.0 release, and they've worked fairly well. I was getting occasional GPU crashes in Kubuntu and Ubuntu MATE, though. I'm on Solus now, and haven't experienced another crash but it's only been a few days so far.
User W4RR10R has tried the 2600, and I've tried a 1600. Neither worked; it seems non-APU parts are blacklisted in the BIOS.
Yes, but I have an RX Vega 56 connected with a powered m.2 riser (pcie 3.0 x4 to a x16 slot) and the card work just fine with the 200ge I bought to troubleshoot, the board and BIOS has no problem not using onboard graphics as I can get into the BIOS with display out of the card and I even went through a hole fresh windows install (so no amd gpu specific drivers pre-installed) and the card was detected and used as a default display adapter. Also I've heard (not certain) that there distros of Linux that don't require a display adapter, they can run headless, like as a NAS or other home server, so there legitimate use cases for not wanting/needing on board graphics, other than "I want to build a ridiculous console computer".
I'm still trying to contact Asrock, at higher levels than the sales and tech support emails, to see if I could get/buy an unofficial BIOS update that allows the use us the non APU chips. If any can/wants to help feel free, I really don't want buy a 2400g, compromising the vision for my project and effectively wasting the ~$160 spent on the 2600. I think if we show interest in these uses cases they may be more inclined to help out.
What's wrong with using a 2400G instead of a 2600? Are the extra two cores really going to be a rate limiter here?
This was originally intended to replace my laptop, a Lenovo y510p with sli gt755m's and a i7 4700MQ, I currently use my laptop for school so a lot of CAD and some FEA, both are capable of taking advantage of more cores, I also have been interested in streaming and more cores definitely could be beneficial for that. So it's less that the 2400g would bottleneck the 56 more than the x4 connection already does, I just also intend to use this pc for CPU intesive tasks.
Its 50% more CPU power in the 65W power envelop. Or if you go with a AMD 1700 ( non-x ... 65W ), you are running a 8 core...
Those A300's, if they also added supported for ECC ( no reason not too, its just bios settings ), you have yourself a darn powerful mini server.
A GPU is nothing but a { useless } power and memory consumer when your running headless. Unless you X up or run into a real issue, you do not need a GPU.
Most server only OS like Debian with minimal install do not need a graphical chipset. I have run mITX boards without a GPU installed on Ryzen chips, they work perfectly. Even cloning that disk and installing it in a other identical system... instant boot. Is it professional? No
The only real "issue" is installing the OS for the first time. And like what you did, just install a m.2 extender temporary when you need to fix something in the bios / boot, when you do not have network / ssh access.
The question is more: What is Asrock their vision for this project. If for instance the board has only a 16MB bios, they simply prefer to keep the space free, for future 3000 series APU chipsets. They already have issue with AM4 boards with only 16MB bios, that may be unable to support the 3000 series CPUs because of this lack in space.
Another issue is simply, from Asrock their position, a few people is not worth it for them to create a custom bios or update the existing bios. So i fear your not going to get a lot of traction.
On the not of 16MB, I was trying to get help from the BIOS modding community, one person took a look at and said that the microcode for all of the current AM4 parts (Athlon 9000s and 200ge aswell as Ryzen 1000 and 2000) is already in the BIOS, he said he couldn't help more as he only really messes with intel BIOSs and I haven't been able to get anyone else to help out over there. He said there is likely what is essentially a white list of SKUs and that the non APU SKUs aren't on it.
Although its very true that if it doesn't align with what Asrock wants from their product, they just won't do it. We/I can still hope that they quietly release a bios update that "unlocks" the other SKUs, without adding them to the list of officially supported parts.
Got any links or resources for BIOS modding? I haven't messed with BIOS stuff before, but I have some experience with microcontrollers/disassembly. I can't promise anything, but I'd love to take a look at it to see if I can maybe figure something out.
I'll also do my part and send Asrock a support message. Personally, I'd like to set the A300 up with some 10gb nics and a 1700. It'd make for a very spiffy little network appliance or VM server.
I'll also do my part and send Asrock a support message. Personally, I'd like to set the A300 up with some 10gb nics and a 1700. It'd make for a very spiffy little network appliance or VM server.
I don't have any tools myself but the forum is https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/ (sorry if that's against a rule, mods)
Thank you for the help too.
I think that they are blocking aspects of this product that could be very useful and cool.
Maybe we should "crowdfund" a professionally modded BIOS for this board? I'd definitely be interested in doing something like that.
If its withing a reasonable price and adds support for the Ryzon 1000/2000 series plus ECC, then i am also interested.
Thanks for the testing. Which linux kernel worked for Ubuntu 18.04 and which one worked for Solus 4.0?
Finally back in stock at Newegg:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856158064
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856158064
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