Asus Prime B450M-A or Prime B450-Plus headless?

[zimano]

Hello folks,

I'm wanting a Ryzen 1700/1700x/2700/2700x based system combined ideally with the B450 chipset. I also want to have it running without having to use a gfx card.

All admin on the machine will be done via SSH so gfx card not required at all, will just have a network cable and a power supply plugged into the machine. I believe this is called running the machine 'headless'. The following motherboards are the ones I have found searching on the web that allows this (according to their owners):

Asus Crosshair VI Hero
Asrock AB350m
Asus Strix X370-F (Bios 1001)
MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon

It appears what prevents a motherboard booting without a gfx card is the BIOS. Seems some motherboards see there's no gfx card and just halts everything where others will just give out a beep then continue. Anyways, does anyone know if any of the motherboards mentioned in the thread title will work headlessly? Or perhaps you have another motherboard based on the X470/B450 chipset that you know works without gfx card installed.

Thanks for reading.

 

[zimano]

For those in the future that might find this thread in a search. The Asus Prime B450-Plus will boot up using a Ryzen without needing a gfx card installed - the only difference is it'll do a few extra beeps during POST.

 

[loaky]

For those in the future that might find this thread in a search. The Asus Prime B450-Plus will boot up using a Ryzen without needing a gfx card installed - the only difference is it'll do a few extra beeps during POST.

Hi Zimano, did you find an answer for the Asus Prime B450M-A specifically? I was looking at that as I have an mATX case. Thinking of using in a headless server with a Ryzen 5 3600.

EDIT: If you see this an answer might still help others if known, though I went for the GIGABYTE B450 AORUS M as there was more postings around to support that working headless.

 

[Kesten]

Hi Zimano, did you find an answer for the Asus Prime B450M-A specifically? I was looking at that as I have an mATX case. Thinking of using in a headless server with a Ryzen 5 3600.

EDIT: If you see this an answer might still help others if known, though I went for the GIGABYTE B450 AORUS M as there was more postings around to support that working headless.

Hi, were you able to POST with your B450 Aorus M? If so, could you please share any BIOS settings or setup that you had to do? I am currently getting the red VGA light on the mobo on mine. Would appreciate any response, mate.

 

[loaky]

Hi, were you able to POST with your B450 Aorus M? If so, could you please share any BIOS settings or setup that you had to do? I am currently getting the red VGA light on the mobo on mine. Would appreciate any response, mate.

It worked a treat mate, the first time I set the server up I installed an old graphics card to set things up. I was a bit worried it wouldn't have the latest BIOS on supporting the 3600 but it had. After installing Windows Server 2019 and setting things up to to manage remotely I removed the card and it booted fine. I can't remember any settings specific to being headless that I changed. See if there's any settings like 'halt on errors'. The next time I shut the machine down i'll add the card and find a monitor if you like but might be a little while.

EDIT: Just looked at the BIOS section in the manual and nothing jumps out that I changed.

Is it POSTing fine with graphics card installed? Which BIOS version is installed? Did you flash it or did it come with that? Which CPU is installed? I remember seeing a video on youtube about flashing BIOS revisions seemed a bit of a minefield. Thankfully I haven't needed to.

 

[Kesten]

It worked a treat mate, the first time I set the server up I installed an old graphics card to set things up. I was a bit worried it wouldn't have the latest BIOS on supporting the 3600 but it had. After installing Windows Server 2019 and setting things up to to manage remotely I removed the card and it booted fine. I can't remember any settings specific to being headless that I changed. See if there's any settings like 'halt on errors'. The next time I shut the machine down i'll add the card and find a monitor if you like but might be a little while.

EDIT: Just looked at the BIOS section in the manual and nothing jumps out that I changed.

Is it POSTing fine with graphics card installed? Which BIOS version is installed? Did you flash it or did it come with that? Which CPU is installed? I remember seeing a video on youtube about flashing BIOS revisions seemed a bit of a minefield. Thankfully I haven't needed to.

Cheers, loaky. I had a friend do the same (as the PC is remote to me), plug in a GPU and do initial set-up manually. After removal of GPU, PC just booted fine, same as you . We didn't have to change anything specific in the BIOS as well, at least my friend didn't notice anything. I don't have the BIOS version, but we didn't have to flash anything over. So basically everything's great, it seems the unattended install flash drive (that we tried initially) just didn't do it's job. Also I should note that mobo does still have the EZdebug red led for the VGA (but it has booted successfully).

Build is:

- B450 Aorus M
- Ryzen 2700X
- Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x16GB 3200MHz