Question No Display - GA-A320M-S2H - Athlon 200GE - Latest BIOS

Nov 18, 2019
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Hello,

I'm a little stumped here. I have the following hardware and cannot get any display to show.

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-A320M-S2H
CPU: AMD Athlon 200GE
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (2400 MHz CMK8GX4M1A2400C16)
SSD: Toshiba XG3 THNSN5128GPU7 128GB M.2 NVMe
Power supply: Corsair CX650

According to Gigabyte , the motherboard supports the Athlon 200GE since BIOS revision F30, https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-A320M-S2H-rev-1x/support#support-cpu

MOBO was shipped with BIOS vF42. I could not get the system to show any display on this BIOS version. I have a Ryzen 5 1st Gen that I put in the MOBO, and it was able to boot with a PCIe graphics card attached. So I updated BIOS to F43d, I was able to boot, system POSTed, and brought me to screen stating to install OS. I restarted PC to make sure I was good to get to OS install screen (No OS found on drive insert boot disk and try again).

I remove the Ryzen 5, install the Athlon 200GE, system POSTs, but I have no video output on VGA, DVI, or HDMI. I shut down, connected graphics card that I used prior, thinking I needed to force motherboard to enable video output for onboard VGA. and I get no video out on the graphics card with Athlon processor. I am kind of stuck, what else should I look for, or should I return the MOBO and purchase one that supports Raven Ridge out of box?

Thanks.
 
Nov 18, 2019
6
1
15
Looking over this its almost worth picking up the Ryzen 3 2200G instead of the Athlon 200GE , the system was to be used as a pfSesne router. For $20 im sure the router would see a bit of a performance gain.
 

boju

Titan
Ambassador
The 200ge is not the same as the 7th generation APUs. AMD actually ships 200ge CPUs to update systems to 3rd generation bios versions, which wouldn't make sense if all of the 3rd gen bios versions removed 200ge support.

Yeah you're right. Thought the 200GE was included (miss read) that can use the cpu to update one time and afterwards install the intended cpu. Not all mobos, but thought for A320M specifically. Think im wrong here.

Anyway, downgrading bios would soon tell if cpu is defective or it's something else. Was bios reset (clear cmos) after update?

Looking over this its almost worth picking up the Ryzen 3 2200G instead of the Athlon 200GE , the system was to be used as a pfSesne router. For $20 im sure the router would see a bit of a performance gain.

1600 is a better cpu unless you have other plans for it and want to use igpu instead for your purposes.
 
Nov 18, 2019
6
1
15
Yeah you're right. Thought the 200GE was included (miss read) that can use the cpu to update one time and afterwards install the intended cpu. Not all mobos, but thought for A320M specifically. Think im wrong here.

Anyway, downgrading bios would soon tell if cpu is defective or it's something else. Was bios reset (clear cmos) after update?



1600 is a better cpu unless you have other plans for it and want to use igpu instead for your purposes.


No, I didn't clear CMOS after BIOS update, but the motherboard is already back in its box ready to be returned. The 1600 is currently being used as a Proxmox hypervisor, was looking to migrate to physical pfSense box instead of virtual, that's why I was shooting for the Athlon at 35W but the specs on the Ryzen 3 2200G are nice but higher TDP (65W) may be overkill for firewall/router/VPN.