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It's been 2 weeks since the release of the Ryzen 3000 series, and it's also been 2 weeks since I've been holding out on assembling my new PC. For my new build, I decided to go with a Ryzen 3700x and an MSI B450 Carbon motherboard. X570 boards are just too expensive with little to no performance gains.
The reason why I haven't built it yet, is that based on user experience at the official MSI Reddit account, a lot are having compatibility problems with their older B450 and X470 boards- specifically their BIOS since they're very much new and were probably rushed when they were coded.
Regardless the reason, it is clear that MSI has gotten the short end of the stick here. Among the issues reported are: PC's not booting, not posting, not being able to flash their BIOS, and for those that were able to, their computers crash, have unstable voltage, temperature and clock speeds for both CPU and RAM, etc.
On the other side, there have been success stories so that gives hope for me. It's just really hard to account what percentage of the population are indeed having problems because I'm sure most of those who have working machines won't bother to post about it online.
MSI said on an official statement, that they're working on this around the clock, but it's a bit hard for them right now because their boards are "playing nice to them" therefore making it hard for them to replicate the problems the users are experiencing.
For my board, the MSI B450 Carbon, I'd say chances are split in thirds- 1/3 are working, another third are working but with problems, and the last third can't even make their BIOS work.
On that note, I finally decided to roll the dice- after a whole day of assembling and troubleshooting, then a week of testing, I can say I was successful in making my B450 Carbon and Ryzen 3700X work.
Here's what I did:
It's been 2 weeks since the release of the Ryzen 3000 series, and it's also been 2 weeks since I've been holding out on assembling my new PC. For my new build, I decided to go with a Ryzen 3700x and an MSI B450 Carbon motherboard. X570 boards are just too expensive with little to no performance gains.
The reason why I haven't built it yet, is that based on user experience at the official MSI Reddit account, a lot are having compatibility problems with their older B450 and X470 boards- specifically their BIOS since they're very much new and were probably rushed when they were coded.
Regardless the reason, it is clear that MSI has gotten the short end of the stick here. Among the issues reported are: PC's not booting, not posting, not being able to flash their BIOS, and for those that were able to, their computers crash, have unstable voltage, temperature and clock speeds for both CPU and RAM, etc.
On the other side, there have been success stories so that gives hope for me. It's just really hard to account what percentage of the population are indeed having problems because I'm sure most of those who have working machines won't bother to post about it online.
MSI said on an official statement, that they're working on this around the clock, but it's a bit hard for them right now because their boards are "playing nice to them" therefore making it hard for them to replicate the problems the users are experiencing.
For my board, the MSI B450 Carbon, I'd say chances are split in thirds- 1/3 are working, another third are working but with problems, and the last third can't even make their BIOS work.
On that note, I finally decided to roll the dice- after a whole day of assembling and troubleshooting, then a week of testing, I can say I was successful in making my B450 Carbon and Ryzen 3700X work.
Here's what I did:
STEP BY STEP PROCESS:
1.) Reset motherboard CMOSRemove the battery of the motherboard for a good 30 minutes, and then put it back. While waiting for your board's CMOS to reset, you can do the next few steps indicated below.
2.) Flash Motherboard
The MSI B450 Carbon has a USB bios flash feature so one can update their bios with just the bare motherboard, a power supply unit and a USB drive containing the update. Those without this feature would need a previous generation CPU to access their board's bios, and do the flash update there.
List of steps in flashing my board's bios:
- Reformat and re-partition your USB drive to FAT32 using BootIce
- Download the Ryzen 3000-compatible bios update for your motherboard (MSI B450 Carbon)
- Extract bios file from the zip file you downloaded and rename it to MSI.ROM
- Put the MSI.ROM on the root folder of your USB
- Get your PSU and connect the ATX and 4-pin CPU power cables to the motherboard
- Turn the PSU on, insert the USB to your board's USB bios flash port, and press the flash button
- Your board should blink for a few minutes. Turn it off when there's no more blinking
- Voila! Bios flashing done
3.) Assemble PC
Now that your motherboard is ready for action, you can now assemble your computer and try booting it up and see if luck will work on your favor.
4.) Set BIOS Settings
I was able to boot the first time around, but after that it only had a 50-50 chance. A lot of times it would turn on but I would only get a black screen.
On the off-chance I was able to boot and get into the bios, I set the following settings:
- BIOS boot to UEFI only and not UEFI-Legacy
- Set RAM to XMP Profile 1
- Enable Cool & Quiet in AMD CPU Features
5.) Install Windows
Download the latest Windows 10 Media Creation Tool and use that to create a UEFI-bootable Windows 10 installer. It's about 3-4GB so a 8GB USB should suffice. Install Windows 10 using said USB.
6.) Set Windows Power Settings
There have been talks that voltages of Ryzen 3000 CPU's are a bit wonky due to idling at a very high 1.4-1.5v. I'm not sure if this is a glitch in the monitoring system, a bug in the BIOS or something else. But just to be safe, I set mine to Ryzen Power Saver. With that I only get around 1.3-1.4v.
To set it, go to Settings > System > Power & Sleep > Additional Power Settings > select Ryzen Power Saver
AMD has officially addressed the issue in this Reddit thread.
7.) Other Software Installations
For the finale, I installed these important pieces of software right after:
- Windows Update (Go to Settings > Update & Security > Check for Updates- multiple times!)
- Preferred Anti-virus (mine's Avast)
- Latest drivers for your hardware (usually at your motherboard and video card's sites)
- Download and Install Direct X using DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer
- Download and Install Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5
- Install your favorite games and productivity software
8.) Test Stability
Time to see if your machine is really working 100% now. Try these:
- Shutting your PC down, turning it on, then restarting
- Cold boot- turning your PC on after being turned off for around 6 hours
- Keep your PC on for long periods of time (1-2 days)
- Monitor clock speeds, temps and voltages (Ryzen Master and HWInfo)
- Run games and productivity software for long periods of time
- Run stress tests and benchmarks (Cinebench R20, V-Ray and UserBenchmark)
AFTERMATH:
With all that's been said and done, I started with a machine that posts only 50% of the time. But now it's fully operational. Not saying that it's free from bugs, errors and whatnot- something may show up sooner or later, but yes, I'm at least able to do my work now.If you're having problems with your B450 or X470 motherboard along with your Ryzen 3000 CPU and you've tried everything here, I suggest you go to the Reddit channels of MSI and AMD to get help from the professionals over there.
Anyway, that about wraps it up! I might post a comparison benchmark between my old rig and my new PC. Maybe even a review about that SpecterPro monitor I just bought.
Hope this post helped you in a way!
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