[SOLVED] Asus Prime B450M-A display issues

Nov 4, 2020
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Hi, I've just built myself a new desktop. Admittedly, it's been a few years since I last did so, and I'm a bit out of my depth this time.
Got an Asus prime b450M-A (CSM) partly for the sake of it's 3 varied display ports. The processor is an AMD RYZEN 5 3400G.
I've installed windows 10, and things seemed fine until I installed the display drivers. It seems that whether I install that driver via windows update, or find the Radeon driver on the AMD website itself, the machine works for a few seconds, then all screens go blank, and the backlight to the keyboard as well as the light to the mouse are on and off intermittently. Reboots lead to a repair dialogue screen but I can't get back in, even in low res/ safe mode. Reinstalling the OS and keeping the machine disconnected from the internet and not installing display drivers seems to run fine.
I'd found the processor on the mobo's compatibility list, and I'm not a gamer, not looking to do any advanced graphics performance, I just use software that works best with multiple displays and needed more speed/ram. Honestly if the Microsoft basic display adapter supported multiple displays (it doesn't seem to detect any second screen being connected) I would be fine just using that. Tempted to put my old video card in and just use it that way, but it seems like a waste when there's surely a way to make this work.
There must be something obvious I'm doing wrong, please help?
 
Solution
I have.
Sadly, same result.
You mentioned earlier the drives you are using are old HDD's? Are they formatted to MBR or GPT?
If they are MBR try converting them to GPT. I have a Ryzen APU and using an MBR boot-disk caused serious problems for me.

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Nov 4, 2020
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full system spec? include make and model of the psu
Oh! Sure, um:
PSU is Cooler Master Elite 400 ver.3
Mobo is Prime B450M-A (CSM) ["AMD ryzen 3000 desktop ready]
Proc is AMD Ryzen 5 3400G 2nd gen with Radeon Vega 11 Graphics
Ram is G.SKILL Aegis 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 2666 (PC4 21300)
..am I forgetting anything? It's all in a cooler master n200 mini tower case, old optical drive, have tried a couple of different old small (250gb or so) HDDs I had around, ultimately planning on investing in an SDD, just not there yet.. financially.
 
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Nov 4, 2020
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Does the retail box for your motherboard have a "AMD RYZEN 3000 DESKTOP READY" sticker?
The Asus prime b450M-A (CSM) motherboard does support the 3400G but only with BIOS version 1201 or later, not the original BIOS release 0219.
The box does indeed have that label on it.
Checking the bios now and it says it's ver. 2202. Which is too bad, would've been a fairly easy fix.
next line says "AMD Ryzen 5 3400G with radeon vega graphics"
so, I guess it's at least recognizing that much.
 
Nov 4, 2020
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If you go to "Control Panel > Device Manager > Display adapters" does it list "Vega 11 Graphics"?

No, it only lists the "Microsoft Basic Display Adapter".
When connected to the internet (currently is not), and I update driver for this, it'll briefly change to something involving "Radeon" but very shortly thereafter shuts down, irreparably. Same as my seeking the correct drivers from the amd site.
Left it on last night without prompting the update myself, and after a half hour it still happened, must've been automatic with windows update. I've had it on all day today, without any internet connection, and it's stayed up no problem. So something is getting installed that's a major conflict, I think.
 
Nov 4, 2020
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Have you installed the B450 Chipset drivers from AMD ?
If not, install them and see if that helps with the Video Driver issues.
https://www.amd.com/en/support/chipsets/amd-socket-am4/b450
it's weird, I had installed everything off of the cd included, which has the chipset drivers.. but when I went to check just now it lists the chipset for some reason as not installed. I have to wonder if that had also been omitted with previous failed attempts. I'll give that a try now and make sure that the chipset drivers get installed!
 
Nov 4, 2020
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Have you installed the B450 Chipset drivers from AMD ?
If not, install them and see if that helps with the Video Driver issues.
https://www.amd.com/en/support/chipsets/amd-socket-am4/b450
Alright, so I'd confirmed that the chipset drivers were installed, then went online to the amd site and got their installer. Installer said it be installin', had 6 minutes or so left it said and the machine reboots, windows starts to load, reboot again, blank screen.
I reboot, I get repair dialogue.

Is it possible my PSU doesn't have enough wattage available to load windows with graphics drivers?
 
Nov 4, 2020
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Update:
I've been able to navigate the repair dialogue until I was let back into windows. Got a message about rolling back a recent install preventing startup. So now I can tell you that in the device manager, the display adapter is listed as "AMD Radeon(TM) RX Vega 11 Graphics", but there's an error message that reads "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)" I'm assuming this is the repair mechanism removing its path. So, now what, hrm..
 
Update:
I've been able to navigate the repair dialogue until I was let back into windows. Got a message about rolling back a recent install preventing startup. So now I can tell you that in the device manager, the display adapter is listed as "AMD Radeon(TM) RX Vega 11 Graphics", but there's an error message that reads "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)" I'm assuming this is the repair mechanism removing its path. So, now what, hrm..
Have you tried updating your graphics drivers the "Auto-Detect and Install" option?

https://www.amd.com/en/support/apu/...processors-radeon-vega-graphics/amd-ryzen-5-1
 
Nov 4, 2020
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You mentioned earlier the drives you are using are old HDD's? Are they formatted to MBR or GPT?
If they are MBR try converting them to GPT. I have a Ryzen APU and using an MBR boot-disk caused serious problems for me.

400959787853a8076f8350bac8584088.png
Oh really? Great tip, this never would've occurred to me. I'll give it a try first thing in the morning. Thank you!
It's also occurred to me to try a different version of the operating system, to maybe rule that out.
 
Nov 4, 2020
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backup your data before trying to convert
thanks for the tip, but there's no data to backup.
I've already re-formatted/re-partitioned this drive 10 times in the past few days just trying different variants of installing things trying to get it to work.
Attempting an install of windows 8.1 now, failing that, I'll convert this little 250gb hdd to GPT