AMD Ryzen 2nd generation processors

[ivan]

I'm at it again.  By that I mean upgrading hardware.  A friend gave me some equipment that he bought not realising it wasn't what he wanted.

So, I now have an ASRock B450M Pro 4 motherboard with an AMD Ryzen 3 3200G 2nd generation processor with Radeon graphics.  Added to that is a Crucial 250GB SSD drive, 8 GB Memory with a 250GB WD Green SATA SSD M.2.

Install was a bit of a problem until I setup the partitions on the Crucial SSD with DFSee on my test computer.  With those setup the install DVD saw them and everything went ahead as it should.

The fact that the motherboard doesn't have any real USB 2 ports (those it does have are a subset of the USB 3 CPU/chipset) did make things a little 'sensitive' to start with - the trackball kept on locking up if I tried to click on something while waiting for something else to happen.

There are a few other 'problems' which I think I can workround with some thought, things like getting NoScript and AdBlock plus to install in firefox and needing to change the TZ in config.sys and add OSLEXAM.DLL to OS2\DLL to get the spell check in EPM to work - all things I have done in the past but forgotten about since all the installs with Ryzen processors prior to this have been from already setup images.

[guzzi]

With an add-on video card you will get around 3.5 gb available.

[Dave Yeo]

Firefox might need add-on signing turned off. Forget the pref right now.
Even with only 1.5 GB of ram accessible, things should be fine with a swap file on the ram disk. I only had that much memory for a while after a DIMM died, just about never noticed the swapping and a ram disk should be better.

[ivan]

Hi guzzi,

Maybe, maybe not.  The Mem output is similar to what I had with my first Ryzen processor before I started tweaking the mass of junk related to memory usage in the UEFI Bios, most of which is not documented.  Doing that I was able to get:
[C:\]mem -v

Total physical memory:      7,906 MB
Accessible to system:       3,311 MB
Additional (PAE) memory:    4,595 MB

Resident memory:              185 MB
Available virtual memory:   3,944 MB

Available process memory:
  Private low memory:         216 MB
  Private high memory:      2,240 MB
  Shared low memory:          152 MB
  Shared high memory:       2,178 MB

With the built in video and I expect I will get something like that with this 2nd gen processor which is supposed to have superior graphics.

Hi Dave,

I think I had to do something like that before and if that doesn't work I can try playing with parts of an old profile which I will need to do to get all my bookmarks and login info back.

[Tom]

Firefox might need add-on signing turned off. Forget the pref right now.

Do you mean xpinstall.signature.required set to false in about:config ?

[Andreas Schnellbacher]

And to disbale the update message:
   browser.disableResetPrompt = true

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi Ivan

Thanks for the report.

I had created this page on the wiki: https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php/ASRock_B450M_Pro_4
Please let me know if my assumptions are alright.

I have some questions:
- Which driver are you using for Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller / 10EC:8168 ?
- Are you using only Panorama, or did you also tried SNAP?
- Is Audio (AMD Family 17h (Models 10h-1fh) HD Audio Controller / 1002:15E3  ) working fine with UNIAUD ?

Regards

[Olafur Gunnlaugsson]

The fact that the motherboard doesn't have any real USB 2 ports (those it does have are a subset of the USB 3 CPU/chipset) did make things a little 'sensitive' to start with - the trackball kept on locking up if I tried to click on something while waiting for something else to happen.

This board has real USB2, just not the actual connectors on the back plate

Connect a USB1/2 slot plate connectors or case connectors to the USB_3_4 or USB_5_6 headers on the motherboard, and you will have a working USB 2 slots that are hooked up to the AMD USB 2 implementation on the SOC, not the ASMedia USB 3.2 built into the B450. These are connectors 19 and 20 on the motherboard drawing, between the COM port header and the clear CMOS jumper.

[Olafur Gunnlaugsson]

P.S. These are useful to have connected under any OS, Realtek based USB 3 Wi-Fi sticks and a number of USB audio solutions for instance, are prone to dropouts under USB3.

[ivan]

This board has real USB2, just not the actual connectors on the back plate

Connect a USB1/2 slot plate connectors or case connectors to the USB_3_4 or USB_5_6 headers on the motherboard, and you will have a working USB 2 slots that are hooked up to the AMD USB 2 implementation on the SOC, not the ASMedia USB 3.2 built into the B450. These are connectors 19 and 20 on the motherboard drawing, between the COM port header and the clear CMOS jumper.

Are you sure of that?  At the moment I have those headers connected to USB 2 ports on the case and a backplain strip and they require the XHCI USB 3 driver to work - I have not found a combination of USB 1.1 and 2 drivers that load and see them.

There are two boards that appear to be based on the same design - the B450 Pro 4 and the B450M Pro 4.  The B450 has 6 SATA connectors ( which is what my friend wanted) and supports a standard Ryzen processor.  The B450M has only 4 SATA connectors and supports Ryzen 2nd and 3rd Gen processors.

As an aside I might end up with a MSI B550-A Pro board as well if he can't find a Ryzen 3 Pro 4350G processor for it - I managed to find one on a French retailers site but they were sold out and they don't know when/if they will get more.

[ivan]

Hi Martin,

I am waiting for the delivery of a few more parts so I can finish assembly (at the moment it is laid out on my workbench with cables all over the place).

The network driver is the one for that chipset from AOS 5.0.6.  Video is Panorama to drive a Samsung S24E650 monitor at 1920x1200.  Sound will have to wait for speakers and my ability to sort out which of the various sound sections actually work.

[Olafur Gunnlaugsson]

This board has real USB2, just not the actual connectors on the back plate

Connect a USB1/2 slot plate connectors or case connectors to the USB_3_4 or USB_5_6 headers on the motherboard, and you will have a working USB 2 slots that are hooked up to the AMD USB 2 implementation on the SOC, not the ASMedia USB 3.2 built into the B450. These are connectors 19 and 20 on the motherboard drawing, between the COM port header and the clear CMOS jumper.

Are you sure of that?  At the moment I have those headers connected to USB 2 ports on the case and a backplain strip and they require the XHCI USB 3 driver to work - I have not found a combination of USB 1.1 and 2 drivers that load and see them.

Disabled by default in the UEFI configuration I believe, it is a subfolder under the AMD CBS tab

[ivan]

Thanks, as I said I have to do a lot more digging in the UEFI pages but that will be later when I have everything in a case and no fear of shorting something out.

[ivan]

I have been looking around in the UEFI pages and there is no mention of USB 2.  There is only mention of USB 3 in there so I left it at 'auto'.

[guzzi]

Hi guzzi,

Maybe, maybe not.  The Mem output is similar to what I had with my first Ryzen processor before I started tweaking the mass of junk related to memory usage in the UEFI Bios, most of which is not documented.  Doing that I was able to get:
[C:\]mem -v

Total physical memory:      7,906 MB
Accessible to system:       3,311 MB
Additional (PAE) memory:    4,595 MB

Resident memory:              185 MB
Available virtual memory:   3,944 MB

Available process memory:
  Private low memory:         216 MB
  Private high memory:      2,240 MB
  Shared low memory:          152 MB
  Shared high memory:       2,178 MB

With the built in video and I expect I will get something like that with this 2nd gen processor which is supposed to have superior graphics.

With the B450 M S2H I'm running the memory does become available.