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

gustav

Cable-Tie Ninja
Jun 18, 2020
193
90
... Well, it seems I won't be happy with A300 anymore. So sad that issues, support, and bad quality product - in that regard.

Thought to switch:
- MSI B550 Mortar
- 600W modular 80%+ Gold
- g.Skill 32GB ddr4, Cl16, 3600
- ITX Case
---------- about 400€

Later dedicated Gfx.

Taking my M.2 & SSDs with, also Ryzen 2400G.

Later a300 -> VM. Sadly SO-DIMM have to be used somewhere
 
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hroschch

What's an ITX?
New User
Oct 27, 2020
1
1
Dear All,

I’m new in town and I have really enjoyed reading this thread, however, I’m still not sure I understand the state of A300 with Renoir CPUs. I’ve got a 4650g and I would like to build a small, quiet office PC with 2x8 GB RAM and a SSD. I’m not interested in gaming nor in OC. My top priority is system stability. Still, I’m not sure that A300 is the right choice for me (especially after reading gustav’s last post). So what should I do:
  • get an A300 with flashed bios (which version in the most stable for my needs? the X300 one?) + Noctua NH-L9a-AM4
  • wait for an X300 (+ Noctua NH-L9a-AM4)
  • get a ASRock A520M-ITX/AC motherboard (I don't need the extras of B550) and a nice mITX case
Thanks for your thoughts!
 
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dj_Duff

Cable Smoosher
Oct 22, 2020
10
0
... Well, it seems I won't be happy with A300 anymore. So sad that issues, support, and bad quality product - in that regard.
Could you share your thoughts on why you are not happy with A300?
And what nice ITX case you are planning to use?
 

dj_Duff

Cable Smoosher
Oct 22, 2020
10
0
Surpsisingly bad availability and expensive prices. Hope you right and in the next weeks its appears in more stores.
It could be days.. weeks or even months.
Hard to say when it will be available at least on Amazon.de
And what is MRSP for it? 150eur?
I mean, it would be a good deal for 150 eur for X300 or H470, but 200+ ... uhmm.. not sure
 

gustav

Cable-Tie Ninja
Jun 18, 2020
193
90
Could you share your thoughts on why you are not happy with A300?
And what nice ITX case you are planning to use?

Thank you very much for asking.
There are in fact some issues till this day present that unsatisfy my experience.
I will provide some examples, as quotes from my posts before.

1. Software:
1.1 Here is the recent one: driver used in first, then the error THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER in the second.

Well, unfortunately I experienced today more like 4 BSODs. Each one by itself also hung and did not recover. Error: THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER.

Did anyone else experience this?
BIOS: 3.60R, A300

It happens repeatedly with following apps opened up simultaneously; windows 10, x64, latest updates, latest chipset&apu drivers on stable branch, dual screen setup, both FHD, @60Hz and @144Hz:
-discord (mainly)
-whatsapp desktop
-vscode (even just opened up, no project loaded)
-chronium
-as well as sometimes with the built-in clipboard when making screenshots using "Print" key.

There is no madness on my system, even this discord thing is only one group with usual text and media. Nothing special. The setup is also rather common.

There is kinda no specific trigger for this. It may happen while typing in any of those apps or while moving them around and sometimes, but not that frequent while just sitting there idle.
Often is WhatsApp and non-work related in full screen on the left 60Hz side, and vscode or chrome is big in front on 144Hz.

Very unsatisfying and unpleasant experience.

I actually think it is still the driver. While it got overall better - there seem some issues to be present.

The driver may struggle relocating gpu-powered workload between two screens resulting in a timeout. But me no AMD developer.

Thanks in advance

1.2 Virtualisation issues / bootloops / nvme*
Workaround: disassemble the system, take out M.2, restart couple of times, put M.2 back in, then you could boot again.
* by now have been fixed in a newer BIOS version

2. Hardware - particular the quality of the power delivery system on the mainboard
2.1 The VRMs are noisy when in standby or on (at higher freq.), I can pick it up. (not that bad in fact, I could live with that)
2.2 This point is more crucial one:

As members already pointed out several times. The SoC rail on the mainboard supplying +1.0V to the SoC section of Ryzen CPU is a very busy one
when the APU starts to access it (Vega 11 in my case). This leads to a massive (in terms of those dimensions) voltage drops on the SoC rail.
This makes the whole system instable. While I'm certanly sure that my G.Skill modules would perform fine at 3466MHz or such - resulting in a better
3d-performace, since more memory bandwidth - it struggles with keeping the 3200 XMP profile.
Due to more memory bandwith, as the clock rises, the internal transistors have to switch faster. This sucks more power. The mainboard should take care of the calibration which it does not. (Edit: Some quality boards provide even a BIOS setting called "LLC". It's Load Line Calibration with levels e.g. [0-5]. It is there specifically to take care of the voltage drop) Well, it does if you go Zen (Raven Ridge) -official 2933MHz.

But then instead of taking some steps and trying to optimize it with a BIOS update (how long we have waited for it) they throw X300 on the market,
which (based on pictures) is barely different. (Edit: I'm speculating about X300, I do not know, but from what I can see) This leads to last view...

3. Philosophical

I think here I am at a point, where I can tell I won't support this manufacturer in this class of devices with any further purchase.
The system is also SO-DIMM based (sadly) but it's fine for example as a VM station. There is not much APU you need in this usecase,
two internal s-ata ports allow installing FreeNAS (or TrueNAS) with some additional VMs and enough memory this is fine small machine.

Mainly because in middle of my work it decides to hang (see 1.). Maybe Linux is better optimized, as AMD's drivers - I believe - are open source.
There are just constantly some issues. Currently it's fine, when you figure everything out, apply some voltages as you're overclocking to achieve stock,
and then they release X300 and remove the SoC VID option in BIOS so I can not run stock anymore. It's just a bad joke.
It is my personal opinion and it's fine :)

Edit 2: And for now, the Ryzen 2400G is still a good CPU for me! And I have no intentions to replace it. Maybe of the better iGPU go for a 4750G but then not on the A300. It's just a no go. And before investing in a new 400€ (exxagoration) -CPU I will better invest 400€ in a new "sub-system" and give the APU "more room to breathe" by going with 3600MHz modules. Afterall I can O/C the Vega 11 (which is not that worse in comparison to 4750G's) and at least hit the (here also speculating) 4750G's-levels. At least it won't hang up anymore, I hope.

Edit 3: The case is a good question. I do not know for sure. I was not able to find a case as small as the A300. I have two local suppliers.
- https://www.caseking.de/cooler-master-masterbox-q300l-mini-gehaeuse-schwarz-geco-292.html -- this seems interesting
- https://www.mindfactory.de/product_...e-304-Wuerfel-ohne-Netzteil-weiss_931990.html
Those are interesting. I tend to the first one in the list.
 
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m4758406

Caliper Novice
Oct 13, 2019
31
20
Thank you very much for asking.
There are in fact some issues till this day present that unsatisfy my experience.
I will provide some examples, as quotes from my posts before.

1. Software:
1.1 Here is the recent one: driver used in first, then the error THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER in the second.




1.2 Virtualisation issues / bootloops / nvme*
Workaround: disassemble the system, take out M.2, restart couple of times, put M.2 back in, then you could boot again.
* by now have been fixed in a newer BIOS version

2. Hardware - particular the quality of the power delivery system on the mainboard
2.1 The VRMs are noisy when in standby or on (at higher freq.), I can pick it up. (not that bad in fact, I could live with that)
2.2 This point is more crucial one:

As members already pointed out several times. The SoC rail on the mainboard supplying +1.0V to the SoC section of Ryzen CPU is a very busy one
when the APU starts to access it (Vega 11 in my case). This leads to a massive (in terms of those dimensions) voltage drops on the SoC rail.
This makes the whole system instable. While I'm certanly sure that my G.Skill modules would perform fine at 3466MHz or such - resulting in a better
3d-performace, since more memory bandwidth - it struggles with keeping the 3200 XMP profile.
Due to more memory bandwith, as the clock rises, the internal transistors have to switch faster. This sucks more power. The mainboard should take care of the calibration which it does not. (Edit: Some quality boards provide even a BIOS setting called "LLC". It's Load Line Calibration with levels e.g. [0-5]. It is there specifically to take care of the voltage drop) Well, it does if you go Zen (Raven Ridge) -official 2933MHz.

But then instead of taking some steps and trying to optimize it with a BIOS update (how long we have waited for it) they throw X300 on the market,
which (based on pictures) is barely different. (Edit: I'm speculating about X300, I do not know, but from what I can see) This leads to last view...

3. Philosophical

I think here I am at a point, where I can tell I won't support this manufacturer in this class of devices with any further purchase.
The system is also SO-DIMM based (sadly) but it's fine for example as a VM station. There is not much APU you need in this usecase,
two internal s-ata ports allow installing FreeNAS (or TrueNAS) with some additional VMs and enough memory this is fine small machine.

Mainly because in middle of my work it decides to hang (see 1.). Maybe Linux is better optimized, as AMD's drivers - I believe - are open source.
There are just constantly some issues. Currently it's fine, when you figure everything out, apply some voltages as you're overclocking to achieve stock,
and then they release X300 and remove the SoC VID option in BIOS so I can not run stock anymore. It's just a bad joke.
It is my personal opinion and it's fine :)

Edit 2: And for now, the Ryzen 2400G is still a good CPU for me! And I have no intentions to replace it. Maybe of the better iGPU go for a 4750G but then not on the A300. It's just a no go. And before investing in a new 400€ (exxagoration) -CPU I will better invest 400€ in a new "sub-system" and give the APU "more room to breathe" by going with 3600MHz modules. Afterall I can O/C the Vega 11 (which is not that worse in comparison to 4750G's) and at least hit the (here also speculating) 4750G's-levels. At least it won't hang up anymore, I hope.

Edit 3: The case is a good question. I do not know for sure. I was not able to find a case as small as the A300. I have two local suppliers.
- https://www.caseking.de/cooler-master-masterbox-q300l-mini-gehaeuse-schwarz-geco-292.html -- this seems interesting
- https://www.mindfactory.de/product_...e-304-Wuerfel-ohne-Netzteil-weiss_931990.html
Those are interesting. I tend to the first one in the list.

Hello from Austria.
You are using G.Skill 3200 CL18 or ?
This RAM (16GB G.Skill 3200 CL18) did work bad at my A300 3400G (3.40, 3.50 and 3.60 BIOS).
Sold it after some months, half year ago.
MemTest86 showed no error but had S3 freezes and huge start problems.

Switched to 32GB G.Skill 3000 CL16, this RAM works for me up to 3.60K.

At unofficial 3.60S BIOS G.Skill 3000 CL16 did not work for me (A300 3400G).
MemTest86 showed no error but every ~10 Minutes THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER blue screens.

G.Skill 3000 and 3200 is cheap but not at Asrock Compatibly List !
Actually using this with 3.60K.
For me 3.60K is very stable, i am happy.
 
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gustav

Cable-Tie Ninja
Jun 18, 2020
193
90
@m4758406 thanks for sharing. Seems, for me the same as me with the voltage drop. But again, I did explain above. Start HWInfo64 and see for yourself :) even on 3000 MHz there should be a small noticable vdrop. Curious how much that is. In case with 3200, CL18 (yes) it's about 0.12V (10%!) Maybe for you it's only 0.5V on 3000MHz resulting in stable system (basically ryzen-official 2933MHz which the board was built for, as I think, and the higher 3000MHz is still in the margin where 3200MHz is not).

BIOS ist 3.60R in my case. I pinpoint the problem to the mainboards power delivery system.

Edit: Maybe I was just lucky one to boot with XMP profile first of all. Straight from the start with 3.00(?) BIOS (I don't remember, will have to open the case to read the label) Memtest 2x 4-runs with 0 errors.
Edit: What is also wondering me, as you were running your 3200, you did not manually adjust SOC VID? - kinda where I stated: I had to o/c to be able to run @stock XMP.

But other than that you kinda say you also had troubles. I think almost everyone in this thread experienced somewhere somehow an issue with this system.

Specifically to the memory comparability list:
It makes most sense for laptops and notebooks. There is an issue. The SPD timing are written in a flash on your memory module. Not every Notebook is able to read the data hence the compatibility list. What I want to say - this is important, but mostly on the mobile market... It may be important for our mainboard as well. But still. (first of all, modules are being recognized, SPD timing read correctly and applied, no memtest errors hinting at corrupt ram, repeatedly reports of bad ram modules - but it's overwhelming how many of the G.Skills 3200,CL18 SO-DIMMs are bad and how may 3000, CL16 are not - just a bitter side note here, again the "margin") Not the kinda of a quality I think is required for my use case :)

And in the long run, before spending any further money on this semi-working setup with a semi-working 4750 (based on feedback and unofficial support/official unsupport) it makes more sense to me to upgrade the underneath to unleash it's full potential.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong :)

Edit x: my background is IT, and I had the possibility to work with many mainboards and computer setups. There are kinda also 'bad' mainboards. I have never had experience with AsRock tho. I was always thinking they are more of a budget line. It seems to correspond to my assumptions. Running at 2933/3000 is fine. I bet if I downclock the 3200,CL18 ram to the official ryzen IMC frequencies it will work as good as 3000,CL16. The mainboard will be able to catch the vdrop. But I want to use what I have paid for. That's why the "in the long run" is the most heavy argument for me :)
 
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rubicoin

Cable-Tie Ninja
Jan 12, 2020
164
104
@m4758406 thanks for sharing. Seems, for me the same as me with the voltage drop.

sad to hear that you are about to abadon A300.

anyways, i think the main memory problem with g.skill sticks and also high vdrop values come from the cpu as well, not only from the motherboard itself. i'm the perfect example for this as i've had ram issues and bsods with 2200g + g.skill 3000 cl18 with all bios versions, but after switching to 4650g 3200 cl18 worked like a charm even with 3.60S.

so if you can borrow a renoir apu (except 4750g, lol) or get one somehow, it may worth giving a shot. i'm pretty sure that it would solve all major problems. ok, maybe it's only a false assumption based on the fact that i've never had any kind of problems with 4650g. but i guess if one wants performance (ram oc) with A300/X300, renoir has to be used anyway.

also stay tuned for my egpu test, i managed to source a sapphire pulse 5500 xt 4gb + adt-link m.2 adapter with a dell psu brick, all for €159. if i combine it with the sum cost of my highly cost effective sub €500 build (base A300 w/o wifi, 4650g, 2x8 g.skill 3000 cl18 with custom heat spreader mod, adata sx8200pro 256gb with delock heatsink, 2x240gb used sata ssd, noctua nh-l9a with 25mm chromax fan swap, silverstone magnetic dust filter, deskmini vesa mount - all parts purchased on sale separately. no wonder it took so long to build, including the 6 months waiting for renoir), i guess it is very competitive compared to an itx build. or even to an entry level atx gamer pc considering its size (1.92 L vesa mounted to the side of my desk + an external gpu hidden somewhere behind it).
 
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yosoywilson78

Chassis Packer
Aug 26, 2020
15
12
Dear All,

I’m new in town and I have really enjoyed reading this thread, however, I’m still not sure I understand the state of A300 with Renoir CPUs. I’ve got a 4650g and I would like to build a small, quiet office PC with 2x8 GB RAM and a SSD. I’m not interested in gaming nor in OC. My top priority is system stability. Still, I’m not sure that A300 is the right choice for me (especially after reading gustav’s last post). So what should I do:
  • get an A300 with flashed bios (which version in the most stable for my needs? the X300 one?) + Noctua NH-L9a-AM4
  • wait for an X300 (+ Noctua NH-L9a-AM4)
  • get a ASRock A520M-ITX/AC motherboard (I don't need the extras of B550) and a nice mITX case
Thanks for your thoughts!
I have zero problems with my A300/4650g on BIOS 3.60S. My RAM runs fine at 3400c16. I play a little PUBG and COD on it. I have had zero BSODs in the 2 months I have had it. Dont know what the issue is for anyone else?
 

gustav

Cable-Tie Ninja
Jun 18, 2020
193
90
Dang, you're right. It's a point I did not regard.

The CPU is of course labeled to support upto 2933MHz, so it could be also a barrier on it's own. Knowing the IMC was generously upgraded in Ryzen 4000G series it makes very much sense.

Thank you for the input!

I think going for 4650G at least, basically resulting in 300€ instead of 400€ (kinda, when they become available, because for now there is enough performance)

But then again, I was following up @rubicoin's idea of expanding the A300 with a dedicated GPU, which I find is a very interesting topic. And for this price it's very nice. PSU and 5500XT + goodies for 159€ is just sweet.

Kinda hard for me to make a decision here. Both seem to be reasonable at this point. ( >=4650G or new "underneath" )
 
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paul

Cable Smoosher
Aug 6, 2020
9
8
Thank you very much for asking.
There are in fact some issues till this day present that unsatisfy my experience.
I will provide some examples, as quotes from my posts before.

1. Software:
1.1 Here is the recent one: driver used in first, then the error THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER in the second.




1.2 Virtualisation issues / bootloops / nvme*
Workaround: disassemble the system, take out M.2, restart couple of times, put M.2 back in, then you could boot again.
* by now have been fixed in a newer BIOS version

2. Hardware - particular the quality of the power delivery system on the mainboard
2.1 The VRMs are noisy when in standby or on (at higher freq.), I can pick it up. (not that bad in fact, I could live with that)
2.2 This point is more crucial one:

As members already pointed out several times. The SoC rail on the mainboard supplying +1.0V to the SoC section of Ryzen CPU is a very busy one
when the APU starts to access it (Vega 11 in my case). This leads to a massive (in terms of those dimensions) voltage drops on the SoC rail.
This makes the whole system instable. While I'm certanly sure that my G.Skill modules would perform fine at 3466MHz or such - resulting in a better
3d-performace, since more memory bandwidth - it struggles with keeping the 3200 XMP profile.
Due to more memory bandwith, as the clock rises, the internal transistors have to switch faster. This sucks more power. The mainboard should take care of the calibration which it does not. (Edit: Some quality boards provide even a BIOS setting called "LLC". It's Load Line Calibration with levels e.g. [0-5]. It is there specifically to take care of the voltage drop) Well, it does if you go Zen (Raven Ridge) -official 2933MHz.

But then instead of taking some steps and trying to optimize it with a BIOS update (how long we have waited for it) they throw X300 on the market,
which (based on pictures) is barely different. (Edit: I'm speculating about X300, I do not know, but from what I can see) This leads to last view...

3. Philosophical

I think here I am at a point, where I can tell I won't support this manufacturer in this class of devices with any further purchase.
The system is also SO-DIMM based (sadly) but it's fine for example as a VM station. There is not much APU you need in this usecase,
two internal s-ata ports allow installing FreeNAS (or TrueNAS) with some additional VMs and enough memory this is fine small machine.

Mainly because in middle of my work it decides to hang (see 1.). Maybe Linux is better optimized, as AMD's drivers - I believe - are open source.
There are just constantly some issues. Currently it's fine, when you figure everything out, apply some voltages as you're overclocking to achieve stock,
and then they release X300 and remove the SoC VID option in BIOS so I can not run stock anymore. It's just a bad joke.
It is my personal opinion and it's fine :)

Edit 2: And for now, the Ryzen 2400G is still a good CPU for me! And I have no intentions to replace it. Maybe of the better iGPU go for a 4750G but then not on the A300. It's just a no go. And before investing in a new 400€ (exxagoration) -CPU I will better invest 400€ in a new "sub-system" and give the APU "more room to breathe" by going with 3600MHz modules. Afterall I can O/C the Vega 11 (which is not that worse in comparison to 4750G's) and at least hit the (here also speculating) 4750G's-levels. At least it won't hang up anymore, I hope.

Edit 3: The case is a good question. I do not know for sure. I was not able to find a case as small as the A300. I have two local suppliers.
- https://www.caseking.de/cooler-master-masterbox-q300l-mini-gehaeuse-schwarz-geco-292.html -- this seems interesting
- https://www.mindfactory.de/product_...e-304-Wuerfel-ohne-Netzteil-weiss_931990.html
Those are interesting. I tend to the first one in the list.

Sorry to hear you're having difficulties. For what it's worth, I picked one of these up a few months ago, and couldn't be happier.

- Ryzen 5 3400g
- G.SKILL Ripjaws SO-DIMM 16GB (2 x 8GB) 260-Pin DDR4 SO-DIMM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Laptop Memory Model F4-3200C18D-16GRS
- Crucial P1 1TB 3D NAND NVMe PCIe - CT1000P1SSD8
- Noctua NH-L9a-AM4 Cooler
- Intel AX200 WiFi

I never updated the BIOS, it says "A300M-STX P 3.60", and for the memory, the XMP profile did the work for me, no sweat: "DDR4-3200 18-18-18-43 1.20V". I've not done any tweaking whatsoever, because, well, I'm happy with the performance and have had no issues whatsoever. I installed Win10 Pro, nothing extraordinary for the drivers, and I'm good to go.

Also, I did a price/performance analysis (plus risk) regarding the 4x50 series, and at least based on US prices, couldn't justify chasing those. At some point (depending on use case, but if you're talking about an external GPU anyways, I'm guessing games fall into it) you're just not going to be able to justify any iGPU on DDR4, so the $130-140 price tag for the 3400g is still the value king right now as far as I could tell, but not enough to justify moving on from a 2400g.
 
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rubicoin

Cable-Tie Ninja
Jan 12, 2020
164
104
But then again, I was following up @rubicoin's idea of expanding the A300 with a dedicated GPU, which I find is a very interesting topic. And for this price it's very nice. PSU and 5500XT + goodies for 159€ is just sweet.

after so much hype made here i hope it'll all work though :p i'm eager to find out but still waiting for the m.2 adapter to arrive from aliexpress.

and regarding psu and gpu: they can be found used very cheap sometimes. i bought my dell brick for ~15€ locally and even a new 5500 xt can be the best deal right now (no black friday or pre 6000 series sale needed). the trick is to get it through amdrewards promo which gives you free godfall game key (+wow: shadowlands if you can ask someone to activate it for you with at least a 5600 xt o_O these titles run for 59.99€ and 39.99€ respectively!). seems to be a pretty good opportunity to expand the 3d capabilities of A300 considering how much less you get from a costly 4750g upgrade (~10% igpu increase coming from 4650g for +100€, which is funny compared to the 2-300% increase you can get from an entry level dgpu, even for the ~170€ full new price).
 
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gustav

Cable-Tie Ninja
Jun 18, 2020
193
90
Sorry to hear you're having difficulties. For what it's worth, I picked one of these up a few months ago, and couldn't be happier.

- Ryzen 5 3400g
- G.SKILL Ripjaws SO-DIMM 16GB (2 x 8GB) 260-Pin DDR4 SO-DIMM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Laptop Memory Model F4-3200C18D-16GRS
- Crucial P1 1TB 3D NAND NVMe PCIe - CT1000P1SSD8
- Noctua NH-L9a-AM4 Cooler
- Intel AX200 WiFi

I never updated the BIOS, it says "A300M-STX P 3.60", and for the memory, the XMP profile did the work for me, no sweat: "DDR4-3200 18-18-18-43 1.20V". I've not done any tweaking whatsoever, because, well, I'm happy with the performance and have had no issues whatsoever. I installed Win10 Pro, nothing extraordinary for the drivers, and I'm good to go.

Also, I did a price/performance analysis (plus risk) regarding the 4x50 series, and at least based on US prices, couldn't justify chasing those. At some point (depending on use case, but if you're talking about an external GPU anyways, I'm guessing games fall into it) you're just not going to be able to justify any iGPU on DDR4, so the $130-140 price tag for the 3400g is still the value king right now as far as I could tell, but not enough to justify moving on from a 2400g.
Thank you for your kind words. Basically I have the same setup except the CPU.
"I never updated the BIOS" - this leads me to the fact, that your usecase may differenciate from mine.
At least as how many people are using the system, there is a unique way of interacting with it for each one. - Maybe it's said a bit unlucky, but usecase is important factor. I use this little power-house as dev-machine with VMs (there I store the dev-env, in some cases).
Additionally, I don't game that frequent, and of that what I game are like games which are 10y+ - like 4-5 favs.
Nothing special / crazy. If it would crash in-game, I would understand, but in 2D-Desktop is bitter. :)

Vega 11 is satisfying for me, dGPU is interesting project on it's own. In terms of the versatility. It's interesting to me, but not required to be happy with A300 :)

after so much hype made here i hope it'll all work though :p i'm eager to find out but still waiting for the m.2 adapter to arrive from aliexpress.

and regarding psu and gpu: they can be found used very cheap sometimes. i bought my dell brick for ~15€ locally and even a new 5500 xt can be the best deal right now (no black friday or pre 6000 series sale needed). the trick is to get it through amdrewards promo which gives you free godfall game key (+wow: shadowlands if you can ask someone to activate it for you with at least a 5600 xt o_O these titles run for 59.99€ and 39.99€ respectively!). seems to be a pretty good opportunity to expand the 3d capabilities of A300 considering how much less you get from a costly 4750g upgrade (~10% igpu increase coming from 4650g for +100€, which is funny compared to the 2-300% increase you can get from an entry level dgpu, even for the ~170€ full new price).
Even if dGPU does not work (- it does not matter / it is not making me sad, and you don't loose that much money, which is also nice). You made the experience, and we were able to catch your first-hand-reports and getting your thoughts is a good experience when dealing with this topic on it's own. :) Thank you
 
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Hammerfest

Trash Compacter
Jul 15, 2019
47
40
With all of these posts one thing has stood out to me, stay away from gskill... from people reporting issues with the desktop dimm's, to these laptop dimms

Been running the latest (beta, so R and S) BIOS with my 3400G and Crucial memory kit at 3200Mhz with no issues, might not be doing exactly what others are doing however, but some of these look horrid.

BL2K8G32C16S4B - Crucial Ballistix 3200 MHz DDR4 DRAM Laptop Gaming Memory Kit 16GB (8GBx2) CL16
 
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LostEnergy

Caliper Novice
Sep 25, 2019
31
22
Apologies for interrupting.

This is how on Linux I got the combined headphones-microphone jacks, specifically the bottom one (left one), to properly work as output and input:

Add this line to any file in /etc/modprobe.d, but ideally /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf (power_save=0 is not essential here, but it prevents the odd crack whenever something needs to be played after a stretch of silence). Don't get mislead by snd-hda-intel—it's a driver that covers more than just Intel sound setups:
Code:
options snd-hda-intel model=headset-mic power_save=0

0x19 is the Headset Mic by the way. You might want to add it to “overrides” (check the checkbox) using HDAJackRetask (part of alsa-tools on Ubuntu). It's not been necessary for me, but I did encounter a device with a different BIOS version that has needed it.

In order to have a reasonably low latency and best possible audio quality, I recommend adding this to your /etc/pulse/daemon.conf:

INI:
default-sample-format = s16le
default-sample-rate = 48000
alternate-sample-rate = 44100
default-sample-channels = 2
default-channel-map = front-left,front-right
resample-method = soxr-vhq

# Fortunately about 24ms playback latency is possible on the A300.
tsched=0
default-fragments = 4
default-fragment-size-msec = 5
 
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A300

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Jul 13, 2019
96
14
Is there a user here that runs 4750G on A300?

Would like to know if temperature and power brick on A300 able to handle this CPU without throttling?
Thanks.
 

yuusou

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Mar 16, 2019
115
70
Is there a user here that runs 4750G on A300?
Would like to know if temperature and power brick on A300 able to handle this CPU without throttling?
The X300 has the same power brick as the A300 and is essentially the same motherboard. ETA prime recently ran the 4750G on the X300 and measured a peak power draw of 138W, so the 120W brick really isn't enough. You can always get a better power brick and an adapter for the A300 barrel plug size (such as the Delta 330W brick), or talk to @REVOCCASES to hook you up with a custom 12V brick. Although not advertised, the Deskmini works fine at 12V input.

Another issue with the 4750G on the A300 is in some configuration the memory doesn't run faster than 2933, though I haven't gotten a good understanding of it. There's some talk of it being due to the adrenaline drivers but I don't know for sure.
 
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REVOCCASES

Shrink Ray Wielder
REVOCCASES
Silver Supporter
Apr 2, 2020
2,057
3,331
www.revoccases.com
The X300 has the same power brick as the A300 and is essentially the same motherboard. ETA prime recently ran the 4750G on the X300 and measured a peak power draw of 138W, so the 120W brick really isn't enough. You can always get a better power brick and an adapter for the A300 barrel plug size (such as the Delta 330W brick), or talk to @REVOCCASES to hook you up with a custom 12V brick. Although not advertised, the Deskmini works fine at 12V input.

Another issue with the 4750G on the A300 is in some configuration the memory doesn't run faster than 2933, though I haven't gotten a good understanding of it. There's some talk of it being due to the adrenaline drivers but I don't know for sure.

Also have one 400W 19V brick on hand, but that's probably overkill. ?