PowerSpec ASRock A320M-HDV R4.0 + Ryzen 5 3400g BSOD

Ernest

Hi there
I recently bought the ASRock A320M-HDV R4.0 + Ryzen 5 3400g PowerSpec PC. From the start I would randomly get "Thread stuck in driver" blue screens of death. I updated all the drivers using WinZip Driver Updater. That slowed the BSODs down a bit, but I still get at least one daily, just playing Minecraft. I found a discussion of the problem on this forum: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/720158/thread-stuck-in-device-driver-bsod-error-almost-daily/page-5

Out of the box it had BIOS 3.7 which they say had issues. Instead of downgrading, I upgraded to BIOS 4.0 which was released recently. The upgraded was successful, but after playing for less than 30 minutes, Minecraft crashed again with the same BSOD. What should I do?

-e

ekloot

Hi, did you ever find a resolution to this problem? 

TSTDavey

Hello @Ernest we apologize for just now responding to your post. We have more resources now dedicated to Community Forum Posts. So we're now better able to reply to posts on the Forum. I'm not sure if you have found the answer to your BSOD errors. One thing you can do is update you Graphic card drivers. Seem like its giving a BSOD when playing a game which will increase your graphic card usage which could get you the BSOD when playing Minecraft. The drivers may need to be updated.
Another area to look at is the motherboard chipset driver.  Looks like the Asrock a320M has a AMD Chipset Driver update. You could also download and install that chipset driver update as well. Make sure your windows is update as well. After looking at those few items mentioned above and it still gives you the BSOD. The last option would be to do a PC reset to reinstall windows internally or do a clean install of windows if you have a installation disk or USB.

ekloot

For anyone who needs this...we recently got the Powerspec B245 pc for my nephew that has this Asrock a320m HDV R4 motherboard and Ryzen 3400G CPU.  The first one we got quickly started having intermittent crashes/random reboots.  I tried about everything under the sun to resolve the problem including all the suggestions listed in the post above but nothing solved the problem.  I generally build my own PC's so I'm fairly experienced with these things fortunately.  Eventually though, I gave up and returned this system to Microcenter and exchanged it for another new one of the same model...thinking that maybe I just got a bad apple.  The new one seemed like it was fine for a day or two but then started having similar intermittent crashing issues as well...particularly when my nephew started playing Roblox on it, but also sometimes when he wasn't even playing any games.  If you look at the link that Ernest posted in the first post...there are a number of people in that thread with this same motherboard/cpu combination suffering from similar issues and the only way they solved it was by downgrading the bios on this motherboard from version 3.7 to 3.3 (as a side note, bios version 4.0 apparently doesn't solve the issues so don't bother trying to upgrade to that).  So after again trying a ton of the normal things to troubleshoot my nephew's pc crashing, I finally decided to go to the Asrock support site for this motherboard, download the 3.3 version bios, and followed their procedure for installing the older 3.3 version bios.  It's only been a couple days since we did this, but so far so good.  I think Microcenter should consider using a slightly better motherboard in this build which doesn't have these issues...but hopefully installing the older bios can solve any problems for current owners of this pc.  Also, an extra tip for anyone who plans to do any light gaming on this system (minecraft, fortnite, roblox, rocket league)...adding a second stick of matching ram will just about double your framerate in games because having a second stick of ram will automatically enable dual channel memory mode.  This effectively doubles your memory bandwidth which the integrated graphics really needs to be able to perform better.  This is true for any computer with integrated graphics...so long story short...if you're playing light games on a pc with integrated graphics, make sure to have 2 sticks of ram to get the best performance out of it.

TS_CalebS

This is an issue on this motherboard, that effects some but not all of the units. The BIOS update fix is the correct, the issue does not occur on 3.30. We can and will provide a custom BIOS for our PowerSpec B245 and B244 upon request. 

IAAA

Also leaving a comment.  Also had this exact configuration with the 3400G and a320m-HDV 4.0.  Official model designation: Powerspec B245 R5-3400G/8/500/10P.  Downgrading the BIOS from supplied 3.7 to Asrock's 3.3 fixed the issue for me.  

Just to provide context (and search string help), my son started having the problem with black screen restarts on Win 10 Minecraft (bedrock) and Minecraft Java.  Occasionally it took the form of a blue screen but overall it was black screen reset 90% of the time.  Took forever for me to see it b/c the particular usage combos were hard for him to repeat and it would be only during relatively light gaming.  Amazingly it didn't reset for Cinebench R20 or Furmark stress testing.  After tinkering I got it repeatable on Minecraft Java within 30 seconds of load.  (Loaded game, loaded server, then started moving around the area specifically to a place on the server where there were fewer people, jumping continuously.  This always resulted in a black screen.)  Tried changing the PSU and RAM: still crashed.  Reloaded Windows: still crashed.  Full system format and reinstalled Windows: still crashed. 

Thinking I got a bad APU I sent it back to MicroCenter.  Twice.  They stress tested it and couldn't repeat the issue.  But it kept happening so they replaced the APU the second time.  I would have preferred a refund at that point but I had bought it more than 3 months prior.  Got it back after the APU replacement and it black screens AGAIN within 30 seconds using prior repeatable method.  This less than one minute after boot, external temp in the house is 22 C, processor never went past ~50 C.  No shorts, no weird power usage.  Well within nominal operational ranges.  

At that point I went in to tinker with C-states and P-states.  Set C-state to C0 and forced P-state to stable 3700 MHz.  I was figuring that the board was sending some dirty voltages as it ramped up or down.  Still crashes.  Adjusted P-state down to 3200 MHz: still crashes.  Autoed C-state and P-state and forced voltage to never go past 1.35/1.30/1.25 volts: still crashes on all voltages, though harder to reproduce the lower the forced voltage.  Added another fan: still crashes.  Added beefier CPU cooling (spare Wraith Prism cooler): still crashes.  Upgraded BIOS to 4.0: still crashes. 

Finally I downgraded the BIOS to 3.3 and no more crashes.  Operated this entire weekend without a crash and I couldn't repeat the issue.  Stress tests passed.  I have to give thanks to this forum post as I hadn't thought to downgrade BIOS until I read that here and in the link posted at the top. 

I'm disappointed in the product.  I purchased a different PSU and RAM to eliminate variables, then lost four weeks of use while it was at the store before it was fixed via (what I considered) a long shot off a forum post.  I would have been happier overall just ordering something like a b450m and replacing the board as was my first inclination back in October.  Overall I can't recommend this particular unit as the issue is board level and the fix methodology is beyond a normal user.

whatsinaname

TSTDavey said:

Hello @Ernest we apologize for just now responding to your post. We have more resources now dedicated to Community Forum Posts. So we're now better able to reply to posts on the Forum. I'm not sure if you have found the answer to your BSOD errors. One thing you can do is update you Graphic card drivers. Seem like its giving a BSOD when playing a game which will increase your graphic card usage which could get you the BSOD when playing Minecraft. The drivers may need to be updated.
Another area to look at is the motherboard chipset driver.  Looks like the Asrock a320M has a AMD Chipset Driver update. You could also download and install that chipset driver update as well. Make sure your windows is update as well. After looking at those few items mentioned above and it still gives you the BSOD. The last option would be to do a PC reset to reinstall windows internally or do a clean install of windows if you have a installation disk or USB.

I did update the graphics driver.  It helped but I am still having the issue, just not as much.  I will look up the driver for the Asrock.