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

pappl

Caliper Novice
Oct 13, 2019
24
17
More quiet and much better thermals:
In BIOS:
-Underclock: Set Pstate0 MHz manual to a lower max. clock speed. E.g. 3300 MHz
-Disable Core Performance Boost! This is generating insane heat.
- Save and reboot into bios and now:
-Undervolting CPU in BIOS to 1.1V or even 1.05V maximum.

This lowers temps a lot on my passive cooled Deskmini with 3400G (Bios 3.60K)
I get 105°C CPU core temp on max load stress test with NO fan running for hours. Works since years no problem. Prior the Deskmini was shutting down because too much heat.
 

limsandy

Average Stuffer
Jul 3, 2020
71
31
[Solved: Stay tuned for updates]

I got my 4650G in the mail, installed the new CPU and my A300 would go completely blank after the BIOS screen. Any ideas why?

I was using 2200G previously. Please help?
 
Last edited:

yuusou

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Mar 16, 2019
115
70
[Solved: Stay tuned for updates]

I got my 4650G in the mail, installed the new CPU and my A300 would go completely blank after the BIOS screen. Any ideas why?

I was using 2200G previously. Please help?
Did you update your bios to one of the beta versions? 3.60R or 3.60S? Have you tried resetting CMOS?
 

limsandy

Average Stuffer
Jul 3, 2020
71
31
I have 3.60S since last week. Apparently installing a new CPU will force you to go into the BIOS and I forgot to plug my wireless keyboard USB into the back A300, which is the root of my problem. So now I am trying to play around with new memory speed. What's a good memory timing for 3200 MHz? I had mine at 2933 with CAS 16-18-18-34-52 @ 1.2V before.
 

Bakaban

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Nov 13, 2020
120
110
I'm at the brink of pulling the trigger and ordering an A300 with 3400G for a quick portable workstation. However, the one thing holding me back is I can't seem to find any portable monitors that can attach to the A300 and run without a seperate powersupply. Are there any that can take power + displaysignal through the displayport connector? As I believe the USB-c front connector doesn't support displaysignal output?
 

yuusou

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Mar 16, 2019
115
70
I'm at the brink of pulling the trigger and ordering an A300 with 3400G for a quick portable workstation. However, the one thing holding me back is I can't seem to find any portable monitors that can attach to the A300 and run without a seperate powersupply. Are there any that can take power + displaysignal through the displayport connector? As I believe the USB-c front connector doesn't support displaysignal output?
You're going to need something like the AOC I1659FWUX
 

limsandy

Average Stuffer
Jul 3, 2020
71
31
I have 3.60S since last week. Apparently installing a new CPU will force you to go into the BIOS and I forgot to plug my wireless keyboard USB into the back A300, which is the root of my problem. So now I am trying to play around with new memory speed. What's a good memory timing for 3200 MHz? I had mine at 2933 with CAS 16-18-18-34-52 @ 1.2V before.

So I had a generic RAM with Hynix chips and previously I can't set my memory speed at 3200 even with retarded timings like 18-20-20. I haven't spent much time tuning the memory speed/timing but currently I have mine set at 3200 with CAS 16-18-18-34-52 @ 1.35. Memtest86 measures bandwidth of 17.26GB/s.

I ran Cinebench R20 once and I got 3 points higher than my main desktop PC with Ryzen 3600.
 
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rubicoin

Cable-Tie Ninja
Jan 12, 2020
164
104
4650g with ram settings 16-18-18-43-61 @ 1.2V here (same on bios 3.60S):
 

Serj47

Efficiency Noob
Oct 3, 2020
5
0
More quiet and much better thermals:
In BIOS:
-Underclock: Set Pstate0 MHz manual to a lower max. clock speed. E.g. 3300 MHz
-Disable Core Performance Boost! This is generating insane heat.
- Save and reboot into bios and now:
-Undervolting CPU in BIOS to 1.1V or even 1.05V maximum.

This lowers temps a lot on my passive cooled Deskmini with 3400G (Bios 3.60K)
I get 105°C CPU core temp on max load stress test with NO fan running for hours. Works since years no problem. Prior the Deskmini was shutting down because too much heat.


-In Pstate0, I set the processor frequency to 3300mhz, and it really works, the CPU frequency does not rise any more than the specified one, but this only works in BIOS 3.60K. I checked the performance of Pstate0 in the release BIOSes 3.60 and 3.70, and it does not work there! Those. you can set the cpu frequency, but bios simply ignores this, you can see it in hwinfo.
-CPM was already disabled for me earlier.
- I also set the SOC voltage = 1.05.

According to the result of aida64 stress 20min (standard profile of cooler rpm in BIOS):
CPU + FPU + CACHE = 55-57 degrees, 1500rpm.
CPU + FPU + CACHE + GPU = 96 degrees, 2000rpm.

Is there anything else you can do about the power consumption of the iGPU? At least 1500rpm under load would be great :)

105 degrees is probably a bit too much even for stress :-) IMHO
 

limsandy

Average Stuffer
Jul 3, 2020
71
31
So I had a generic RAM with Hynix chips and previously I can't set my memory speed at 3200 even with retarded timings like 18-20-20. I haven't spent much time tuning the memory speed/timing but currently I have mine set at 3200 with CAS 16-18-18-34-52 @ 1.35. Memtest86 measures bandwidth of 17.26GB/s.

I ran Cinebench R20 once and I got 3 points higher than my main desktop PC with Ryzen 3600.

So I guess I am done tuning my system with new APU. Because I thought the new Ryzen generation has better memory controller I can overclock my memory and run it at 3200 MHz. I was wrong. I have been testing my memory at 3200 MHz @ 1,35V but while memtest didn't return any error, Windows sometimes will not load or post error message.

So now I am back at my old 2933 MHz speed @ 1,2V.


BTW, how do I set VRAM from 2GB to 1GB in the BIOS?
 

rubicoin

Cable-Tie Ninja
Jan 12, 2020
164
104
Okay, even though I have set my memory timing to previous setting @ 2933 MHz, my system is not totally stable with the new CPU.

Sometimes, but not all the time, windows will load to desktop. Sometimes it would show blue screen.


Anybody knows what's causing this? The only element I changed was the CPU.

i had consistent bsod issue during windows bootup after upgrading 2200g to 4650g. i thought it was caused by bad chipset driver, see posts about it starting here. maybe it was not related to drivers at all. the only thing i know for sure that i tried everything but only a complete windows reinstall solved it. not a single problem occured ever since. even with 3000 to 3200 mhz ram oc.
 
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alles_alles

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Aug 11, 2020
107
28
i listend if JZ build a optimal UEFI A300-Firmware, then the X300 is dead. i am hoping JZ ignore that and build one!
maybe. because the a300 deskmini cost 90 euros ... and the board is til 99% the same. I think if there release a firmware that fix this.... but there is no reason why .. because the x300 replace the a300
 

asrock_mini_stx

Cable Smoosher
Sep 4, 2020
10
0
Got myself my X300 the other day and set it all up with my 4650G, Crucial Ballistix BL2K16G32C16S4B 3200MHZ (2x16), 2TB SSD, and noctua LH9a AM4 cooler.

Turn it on, fans speeds up but can't get into POST - at most i see a amber blinking light. Probably will try the stock cooler as well, but do you think the RAM might be faulty here (or can't handle it)? From a keyboard perspective i only have a MAC wired one i can use but don't think that's the cause of it as it should at least show me some video without any usb peripheral connected.

As a last resort, to see that it is indeed the memory (tried them both in dual and single mode), im thinking of getting a cheap second hand sodium with lower mhm
 

limsandy

Average Stuffer
Jul 3, 2020
71
31
i had consistent bsod issue during windows bootup after upgrading 2200g to 4650g. i thought it was caused by bad chipset driver, see posts about it starting here. maybe it was not related to drivers at all. the only thing i know for sure that i tried everything but only a complete windows reinstall solved it. not a single problem occured ever since. even with 3000 to 3200 mhz ram oc.

Okay, so the CPU wasn't the only thing I changed. I also switched from SATA SSD to NVMe. So I installed a fresh win 10 into the NVMe drive. Did you install AMD driver for the 4650G? It's 456MB and I want to avoid downloading it if I can. I'm sure it has all the bloatware in it too.

 

limsandy

Average Stuffer
Jul 3, 2020
71
31
Got myself my X300 the other day and set it all up with my 4650G, Crucial Ballistix BL2K16G32C16S4B 3200MHZ (2x16), 2TB SSD, and noctua LH9a AM4 cooler.

Turn it on, fans speeds up but can't get into POST - at most i see a amber blinking light. Probably will try the stock cooler as well, but do you think the RAM might be faulty here (or can't handle it)? From a keyboard perspective i only have a MAC wired one i can use but don't think that's the cause of it as it should at least show me some video without any usb peripheral connected.

As a last resort, to see that it is indeed the memory (tried them both in dual and single mode), im thinking of getting a cheap second hand sodium with lower mhm

I'm thinking Renoir APU had shitty memory controller. Start from 2400 MHz and work your way up. Don't get your hopes up after 2666 MHz. :(
 

Valantar

Shrink Ray Wielder
Jan 20, 2018
2,201
2,225
Got myself my X300 the other day and set it all up with my 4650G, Crucial Ballistix BL2K16G32C16S4B 3200MHZ (2x16), 2TB SSD, and noctua LH9a AM4 cooler.

Turn it on, fans speeds up but can't get into POST - at most i see a amber blinking light. Probably will try the stock cooler as well, but do you think the RAM might be faulty here (or can't handle it)? From a keyboard perspective i only have a MAC wired one i can use but don't think that's the cause of it as it should at least show me some video without any usb peripheral connected.

As a last resort, to see that it is indeed the memory (tried them both in dual and single mode), im thinking of getting a cheap second hand sodium with lower mhm
That memory kit needs an XMP profile to be enabled to hit 3200, so it's highly unlikely for that to be the issue - without that it likely defaults to 2400 or 2666 at JEDEC timings, which the X300 should handle no matter what.

Does the X300 originally ship with a BIOS with Renoir support? If not, it might just be that you need a BIOS update. Peripherals don't matter in this case (unless they are somehow faulty).