ASRock X370 Gaming X difficulties: Which BIOS for Win10 v2004?

Friends I'm trying to get clean install on a gaming rig using ASRock X370 Gaming X board with Ryzen 5 installed, and part of my concern is its old BIOS, which is dated in 2018, version P4.60. The latest they show on their support site is 6.0.0
If any of you have such, can you advise as to the path forward? There is a warning on the ASRock site concerning this model and the 6.0.0 that reads
" ASRock do NOT recommend updating this BIOS if Pinnacle, Raven, Summit or Bristol Ridge CPU is being used on your system. *Before updating this BIOS, please also read the description in previous BIOS version. "


I assume this implies that the Ryzen 5-equipped board should be OK with this BIOS? Is that true? And may I move directly from BIOS P4.60 to this version 6.0.0 ?

Dude said:

Ryzen 3 1200—Zen (14nm), Summit Ridge (desktop CPU)
Ryzen 3 1300X—Zen (14nm), Summit Ridge (desktop CPU)
Ryzen 5 1400—Zen (14nm), Summit Ridge (desktop CPU)
Ryzen 5 1500X—Zen (14nm), Summit Ridge (desktop CPU)
Ryzen 5 1600—Zen (14nm), Summit Ridge (desktop CPU)
Ryzen 5 1600X—Zen (14nm), Summit Ridge (desktop CPU)
Ryzen 7 1700—Zen (14nm), Summit Ridge (desktop CPU)
Ryzen 7 1700X—Zen (14nm), Summit Ridge (desktop CPU)
Ryzen 7 1800X—Zen (14nm), Summit Ridge (desktop CPU)
Ryzen Threadripper 1900X—Zen (14nm), Whitehaven (HEDT)
Ryzen Threadripper 1920X— Zen (14nm), Whitehaven (HEDT)
Ryzen Threadripper 1950X—Zen (14nm), Whitehaven (HEDT)
Athlon 200GE—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (desktop APU)
Athlon Pro 200GE—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (desktop APU)
Athlon 220GE—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (desktop APU)
Athlon 240GE—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (desktop APU)
Ryzen 3 2200GE—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (desktop APU)
Ryzen 3 Pro 2200GE—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (desktop APU)
Ryzen 3 2200G—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (desktop APU)
Ryzen 3 Pro 2200G—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (desktop APU)
Ryzen 5 2400GE—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (desktop APU)
Ryzen 5 2400G—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (desktop APU)
Ryzen 5 Pro 2400G—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (desktop APU)
Athlon Pro 200U—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (mobile APU)
Ryzen 3 2200U—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (mobile APU)
Ryzen 3 2300U—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (mobile APU)
Ryzen 3 Pro 2300U—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (mobile APU)
Ryzen 5 2500U—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (mobile APU)
Ryzen 5 Pro 2500U—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (mobile APU)
Ryzen 5 2600H—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (mobile APU)
Ryzen 7 2700U—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (mobile APU)
Ryzen 7 Pro 2700U—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (mobile APU)
Ryzen 7 2800H—Zen (14nm), Raven Ridge (mobile APU)
Now here's a list every second-generation Zen+ (12nm) processor to date:

Ryzen 3 2300X—Zen+ (12nm), Pinnacle Ridge (desktop CPU)
Ryzen 5 2500X—Zen+ (12nm), Pinnacle Ridge (desktop CPU)
Ryzen 5 2600E—Zen+ (12nm), Pinnacle Ridge (desktop CPU)
Ryzen 5 2600—Zen+ (12nm), Pinnacle Ridge (desktop CPU)
Ryzen 7 2700E—Zen+ (12nm), Pinnacle Ridge (desktop CPU)
Ryzen 7 2700—Zen+ (12nm), Pinnacle Ridge (desktop CPU)
Ryzen 7 Pro 2700X—Zen+ (12nm), Pinnacle Ridge (desktop CPU)
Ryzen 7 2700X—Zen+ (12nm), Pinnacle Ridge (desktop CPU)
Ryzen Threadripper 2920X—Zen+ (12nm), Pinnacle Ridge (HEDT CPU)
Ryzen Threadripper 2950X—Zen+ (12nm), Pinnacle Ridge (HEDT CPU)
Ryzen Threadripper 2970WX—Zen+ (12nm), Pinnacle Ridge (HEDT CPU)
Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX—Zen+ (12nm), Pinnacle Ridge (HEDT CPU)
Athlon 300U—Zen+ (12nm), Picasso (mobile APU)
Athlon Pro 300U—Zen+ (12nm), Picasso (mobile APU)
Ryzen 3 3200U—Zen+ (12nm), Picasso (mobile APU)
Ryzen 3 3300U—Zen+ (12nm), Picasso (mobile APU)
Ryzen 5 3500U—Zen+ (12nm), Picasso (mobile APU)
Ryzen 5 3550H—Zen+ (12nm), Picasso (mobile APU)
Ryzen 7 3700U—Zen+ (12nm), Picasso (mobile APU)
Ryzen 7 3750H—Zen+ (12nm), Picasso (mobile APU)
And finally, here are the newly announced third-gen Zen 2 (7nm) processors. This list is short at the moment, but will undoubtedly grow in the near future:

Ryzen 5 3600—Zen 2 (7nm), Matisse (desktop CPU)
Ryzen 5 3600X—Zen 2 (7nm), Matisse (desktop CPU)
Ryzen 7 3700X—Zen 2 (7nm), Matisse (desktop CPU)
Ryzen 7 3800X—Zen 2 (7nm), Matisse (desktop CPU)
Ryzen 9 3900X—Zen 2 (7nm), Matisse (desktop CPU)

Main reason i got rid of my B350 you can upgrade the Bios but other chips will not work after and for small amounts of gains it's not worth it

Selecting the bios for update for your particular cpu isn't that hard but you do need to update the bios with your current cpu to a current one that supports the new cpu and from there use the new cpu update it again to the full newer version it's pretty much the only way you can do it

Skipping to the latest might cause Bricking and if you do that and it's not a dual bios board say goodbye because you just made it a paper weight

what the bios shows is Ryzen 5 1600 Six-Core, 3200MHz, Microcode update 800F11/8001136

To clarify a bit: I'm trying to get this stable for the owner, so basic office tasks can be done on it without it bailing, and hopefully be able to keep up with Windows updates etc. What I'm seeing now that I have been executing on trying to clean install, or otherwise, move to Windows 10 v2004, is multiple codes being thrown that appear hardware related like "IRQ Not less or Equal", and "\Windows\System32\drivers\vmbus.sys Error code 0x0000221"
And about 4 or 5 others. I did succeed in doing an inplace upgrade to v2004 and kept an image of that one using Macrium, but it was no more stable than the prior v1909, so I disconnected other drives [backup] and just kept the boot drive, removed the high end NVIDIA card and put a very simple older GT520 in, and tried to clean install, nuking the original boot drive. After several fails it finally got all the way to the user-interface screen, selecting options etc , then bailed repeatedly on restarts with that vmbus.sys error.

At any rate if anyone knows of a stable installation on this exact Mboard with the same processor, I'm all ears....
Is this a known good motherboard at all? were many sold? popular? junk?

thank you much

cognus said:

what the bios shows is Ryzen 5 1600 Six-Core, 3200MHz, Microcode update 800F11/8001136

To clarify a bit: I'm trying to get this stable for the owner, so basic office tasks can be done on it without it bailing, and hopefully be able to keep up with Windows updates etc. What I'm seeing now that I have been executing on trying to clean install, or otherwise, move to Windows 10 v2004, is multiple codes being thrown that appear hardware related like "IRQ Not less or Equal", and "\Windows\System32\drivers\vmbus.sys Error code 0x0000221"
And about 4 or 5 others. I did succeed in doing an inplace upgrade to v2004 and kept an image of that one using Macrium, but it was no more stable than the prior v1909, so I disconnected other drives [backup] and just kept the boot drive, removed the high end NVIDIA card and put a very simple older GT520 in, and tried to clean install, nuking the original boot drive. After several fails it finally got all the way to the user-interface screen, selecting options etc , then bailed repeatedly on restarts with that vmbus.sys error.

At any rate if anyone knows of a stable installation on this exact Mboard with the same processor, I'm all ears....
Is this a known good motherboard at all? were many sold? popular? junk?

thank you much

Sounds like the motherboard might be the issue i had a Asrock z370 that all of the sudden it decided it didn't want to use 32GB of ram anymore and the other slots BSOD like crazy i am almost thinking this is your exact issue

I don't know how much memory you are using but try selected slots and see what happens i had to test a couple kits to find out it was defective slots not the ram

that's a good tip. I had suspicion and had read one other post similar. Will give it a shot.
also had read, surprisingly, about issues arising from some SSD's including some Samsung models. So right now I'm trying a clean install on an old conventional notebook drive I have in my shop collection. At least got as far as setting up primary user account which is better than when I tried the same on the samsung ssd.
,
one other thing you might comment on: there is a stack of basic drivers that ASROCK posts, sorted by model, which I have downloaded. I'm a bit timid about running their installer. If you have any wisdom on WHICH of those is essential to load, and at what point, pls advise. It seems that when the system first initiates a new user account, before the windows catalog is probably ping'd for drivers, anything I touch results in an immediate bluescreen. Search, file explorer, browser, notification panel ... any kind of invocation of resources whatsoever. That must be due to some driver not having loaded, because if I just stay with it, after a few restarts and some time on the network, it does get better. Not cured, but longer intervals between bluescreens.
And I'm still not at the "full list" of bluescreen codes/causes. Probably took shots of 8 or more, with only one repeat... all different. Some telling ones like "Driver Overran stack buffer".....

cognus said:

that's a good tip. I had suspicion and had read one other post similar. Will give it a shot.
also had read, surprisingly, about issues arising from some SSD's including some Samsung models. So right now I'm trying a clean install on an old conventional notebook drive I have in my shop collection. At least got as far as setting up primary user account which is better than when I tried the same on the samsung ssd.
,
one other thing you might comment on: there is a stack of basic drivers that ASROCK posts, sorted by model, which I have downloaded. I'm a bit timid about running their installer. If you have any wisdom on WHICH of those is essential to load, and at what point, pls advise. It seems that when the system first initiates a new user account, before the windows catalog is probably ping'd for drivers, anything I touch results in an immediate bluescreen. Search, file explorer, browser, notification panel ... any kind of invocation of resources whatsoever. That must be due to some driver not having loaded, because if I just stay with it, after a few restarts and some time on the network, it does get better. Not cured, but longer intervals between bluescreens.
And I'm still not at the "full list" of bluescreen codes/causes. Probably took shots of 8 or more, with only one repeat... all different. Some telling ones like "Driver Overran stack buffer".....

You have a hardware default after you check your memory check the SSD that could be the culprit they fail just like a HDD even though it's flash memory

If it is Blue screen on installing it is for sure a bad drive even if the memory is bad you should still be able to install something before getting a BSOD

Keep in mind hardware related meaning a Hard drive Rom drive Network card Sound card Motherboard faulty you have to run through the main things going on most likely a drive though if you get instant BSOD

ok, i think I have a grip on the main source of errors. This board has a quickly-abandoned Enmotus/Fuzedrive SATA Controller/RAID subsystem that has to have its own drivers loaded, and as i received the sickly one it had no such animal - just the generic MS Standard SATA, but I think the RAID function is burned into firmware on the controller chip AND is reliant on the drivers. As long as only one drive is attached to one of the six headers, it is quite stable, though I think the USB drivers are also suspect
The ONLY SATA drivers ASROCK is showing is via the 'Floppy' zip file and that is WRONG. dead wrong drivers for some other product. The correct drivers were long ago available but now gone from Asrock's site, AMD's, and Enfuze
This page cryptically tells the end of it all StoreMI Upgrade
I'm asking the original buyer if he has a disc laying around somewhere
If you happen to have a clue for me, it would be much appreciated. Until then, it isn't going to function well.
I do have a clean-installed drive up and running as long as its the only one, and have taken an image of it so I can clone it to a new SSD when all is well.

solarstarshines said:

You have a hardware default after you check your memory check the SSD that could be the culprit they fail just like a HDD even though it's flash memory

If it is Blue screen on installing it is for sure a bad drive even if the memory is bad you should still be able to install something before getting a BSOD

Keep in mind hardware related meaning a Hard drive Rom drive Network card Sound card Motherboard faulty you have to run through the main things going on most likely a drive though if you get instant BSOD

cognus said:

ok, i think I have a grip on the main source of errors. This board has a quickly-abandoned Enmotus/Fuzedrive SATA Controller/RAID subsystem that has to have its own drivers loaded, and as i received the sickly one it had no such animal - just the generic MS Standard SATA, but I think the RAID function is burned into firmware on the controller chip AND is reliant on the drivers. As long as only one drive is attached to one of the six headers, it is quite stable, though I think the USB drivers are also suspect
The ONLY SATA drivers ASROCK is showing is via the 'Floppy' zip file and that is WRONG. dead wrong drivers for some other product. The correct drivers were long ago available but now gone from Asrock's site, AMD's, and Enfuze
This page cryptically tells the end of it all StoreMI Upgrade
I'm asking the original buyer if he has a disc laying around somewhere
If you happen to have a clue for me, it would be much appreciated. Until then, it isn't going to function well.
I do have a clean-installed drive up and running as long as its the only one, and have taken an image of it so I can clone it to a new SSD when all is well.

These are all the drivers and Bios pages right here ,I don't know why the site isn't showing you the same results
ASRock > Fatal1ty X370 Gaming X

What do you have for a PSU? Also, looks like time to reset the CMOS.