No boot, no BIOS but not dead. Basic components like NVME, RAM and an AMD 9700X are placed in an ASRock DeskMini X600. A BIOS update has to be performed to get it working but, of course, without a screen and keyboard, you never get into the BIOS itself. No information to be found on the net and there are fears that one of the components could be broken. Today: 2024-11-06
Table of Contents
Ryzen from the dead
ASRock’s page on BIOS updating lists actually two ways to update the BIOS and it is easy to overlook the second alternative named “FlashBack”. On YouTube, ASRock explains the procedure. I’m going to summarise:
- BIOS files can be found here:
- Download the latest BIOS file from “global” under heading “BIOS”
- This is a ZIP file, unpack in order to get the .ROM file
- Rename the .ROM file to “PSPBIOS.IMG”
- Download the file under “BIOSUBU”, from “global” and make sure you pick the right one, AMD 9700X is “Granite Ridge”.
- This is a ZIP file too, unpack in order to get the .BIN file
- Download the latest BIOS file from “global” under heading “BIOS”
- Prepare a USB device, stick:
- 32 GB or bigger (isn’t this overkill for these small files?)
- Formatted FAT32, 16 kB allocation unit size, and empty
- Copy the files BIOSUBU.BIN and PSPBIOS.IMG to the USB device
- Prepare boot:
- Unplug, count to 10 and plug-in the power.
- Insert the USB device into the corresponding port, front port.
- To start BIOS Flashback: Press the power button for about 3 seconds until the blue LED near the button starts blinking. Ventilator should be running too.
- When the light stops flashing, the update is complete
So far no success. Let’s ask on the forum, here: https://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=76299
Specs:
Initial configuration:
- ASRock DeskMini X600
- AMD Ryzen 7 9700X
- Noctua NH-L9a-AM5
- Kingston Technology KVR56S46BD8-48 SODIMM DDR5-5600 (2x)
- WD Black SN850X 4TB NVMe M.2 80mm PCIe G4 (1x)
To be added later:
- 8TB SSD for Rsnapshot
- 4TB NVME for data
- FrankenNIC