Odd Bios Issue

[targetrasp]

Either I've been really lucky in the past or I've just ran across a really odd board.

The whole fam (there's three of us) got computers either bought or built around the same time, almost exclusively using AMD. All are socket AM4. I've upgraded processors two or three times now and it's just been take old one out, put new one in, bios figures it out and computer is running...

This most recent Christmas project didn't follow suit.

my daughter's mobo is an asrock a320M/ac. It came with a Ryzen 3 and it's been fine until recently. I found a ryzen 7 5800x on sale for a reasonable price and gave it to her for Christmas. I put it, and this sweet noctuna cooler on her pc and went to fire it up... lights and fans all good, no hdd, video card, or cpu. Cables good, everything seated properly, eggnog still nonalcoholic, no joy!

After trying everything imaginable I went to ASRocks website. Vermeer cores only work with bios p7.20. well f it all i didn't update the bios because the last several iterations said not recommended if system is running stable. Simple fix, put old processor in, update bios, swap out... The old processor is still stuck to the stock cooler and I cannot get it off! already bent a few pins trying to pry it. may have to get the hair dryer out, this thing is glued.

TLDR - I thought AM4 CPUs worked in all AM4 motherboards. Guess that statement comes with a * now. Will be playing with a heat gun and something to straighten pins tomorrow...

[BLUEVOODU]

@targetrasp - what a crazy ride!  I know we already talked about some of this. However, how did this turn out?

[CreepinDeth]

TLDR - I thought AM4 CPUs worked in all AM4 motherboards. Guess that statement comes with a * now. Will be playing with a heat gun and something to straighten pins tomorrow...

Yep, unfortunately updating the bios has always been the case when updating to a new CPU on an older board. I did it way back when I went from an Sandy Bridge i5 to an Ivy Bridge i7 and then had to do it when I upgraded my Ryzen 5 3600X to a 5600X.

I still remember the massive backlash that AMD got caught in when they decided before the 5000 series CPUs released that they were not going to support 3xx motherboards. They eventually conceded and motherboard manufacturers put out bios updates to support them. Well, almost all of them, there are some boards that I believe did get left behind.

I'm glad your board was able to be updated. That would've sucked.

My cooler also got stuck on my 3600X and when I got it off I dropped it and that bent some pins. I fixed them and I'm using it right now but that could've been a lot worse. I wish you luck and hold on to that CPU tight.

I also recommend keeping an eye on the stability of the PC. That CPU is a 105W CPU and that motherboard supports up to that but sometimes the VRMs aren't up to the task even if they say it supports that wattage. From the pictures on Asrock's site, it doesn't look like they have heatsinks on them. It'll probably be fine but if you notice instability this could be why.

[targetrasp]

I ended up putting the 5800x in my computer and giving my 3000 series to the daughter. Even with the bios update I couldn't get it to work on her board. There were some posts online where some people were able to get it to work on the asrock board and others couldn't. I'm guessing Creepin is on to something, and this specific board may have been an earlier run, where the newer revisions were capable, and the older ones couldn't do it. Complete speculation, not worth spending any more time on it!

It seems like small gains at best. I don't notice a difference in the daily operation. I can play the newest Warhammer and Starfield now without turning the graphics down to toaster but it feels like AM4 is getting log in the tooth.