Since yesterday, I finally have my R3 2200G installed in my AB350 Gaming-itx/ac and, in a way, got it up and running.

I say in a way, because of one annoying issue that has kept me busy for hours, yesterday: I can't install the correct display drivers without Windows (W10 - 64bit) freaking out and becoming unussuable (display get warped - usually just displaying a single field of blue or gray).

While usable with the default W10 display driver that get loaded automatically (which I've also removed manually once before installing AMD display drivers for my chip - no cigar), it's not an ideal situaiton for something that's going to be used as a HTPC.

On a side note: W10 is installed to a Plextor M6e m.2 in a Plextor PCI-e riser card. I managed to upgrade the EFI with the help of an AMD Boot Kit, but 4.40 failed to recognise the native m.2 slot, so I tried the Plextor+riser instead. Under 4.43 my Crucial MX300 is seen again (and the temperature bug - 127,4 C cpu temp - is gone!), so today on I'll try to clone my install from my Plextor to the Crucial in the native m.2 slot and see if that helps...

Has anyone ever seen or heard of such an issue before? Could running something like DDU under safe-mode prior to installing the correct display drivers maybe work? Or could this be a sympton of a faulty APU or mobo?

Any bright ideas would be greatly appreciated and many thanks in advance for any help and advice anyone might have!

I would try DDU under safe mode as you mentioned then install the driver version AMD recommends for the APU. From what I have seen with reviews on the R3 and R5 APUs this is not an uncommon issue. Many reviewers complained about how difficult it is to get these APUs working properly. 

As for the M.2 slot issue, it may have something to do with Ryzen APUs not having as many PCIe lanes as regular Ryzen CPUs, the M.2 slots are usually designed to utilize spare PCIe lanes so as not to take away from the x16 slots. If the APU has less PCIe lanes then it is quite likely that the M.2 slot is trying to use lanes the CPU does not possess. 

That doesn't help and sounds like a rant. If you describe your problem then someone might be able to help you.

Thank you for your reply.

The M.2 issue was BIOS/EFI related: 4.40 didn't see it - 4.43 does. I'll try DDU this weekend when I've got a bit more time to fiddle with my system as it is functional, right now, just far from optimal as a HTPC without display drivers.

Yep. At least: have tried to. And always get the distorted display output the moment the display drivers are installing. Maybe DDU can be of some help this weekend.

It's on my bucket-list for this weekend, before safe-mode + DDU.

While I can't put my finger on what exactly did the trick, I'll list the 3 consecutive  steps I took.

First off, I flashed my UEFI to v4.50. 

Secondly, I cloned my OS drive from the Plextor M6e in it's m.2->PCIe adapter to my Crucial MX300 in the native m.2 slot. Rebooted and set the boot order to load from the MX300 (and removed the M6e from the boot order completely) to test it. Succes, so I powered down and removed the Plextor from the system.

And the third step was to reinstall the chipset-drivers for good measure (+reboot after that) and Google how to boot into safe mode under Windows 10 (last time I've ever had to use safe mode was under W7, so a while back...). In safe mode, I ran DDU, which removed the Microsoft default display drivers and blocked their reinstallation on reboot (a nifty trick, that, and one of the major factors in the solution of my issue, I feel), and on reboot, made a system-restore-point for good measure and installed the AMD display-drivers again.

Needless to say, certain muscles in my body clenched during the installation, but the display came back on and I was so relieved :D

On a side note: is it normal to have an extreme Vcore like 1.45v by default? I can't remember what the 1600X in my gaming system rocked by default, but I know it can handle 3.8GHz at 1.325v.

So I decided to undervolt my 2200G, too, using the AMD CBS by -0.100mv.

If I had more fine grained control instead of steps of 0.050mv at a time, I'm confident I could lower it even more. 

I used CBS, because the Asrock option in the UEFI didn't seem to do a thing - I set my target max-clocks and Vcore (3000 and 1.325ish) and nothing changed.

Oh well, all in all, I'm very happy with the board and chip -- a major up-grade from my Kabini based Athlon 5350 I was using before :D

Either way, glad to see you have it up and running, enjoy your new build 

I hope my messing about with my new system can be of help to you. Keep us posted!