Motherboard BIOS Flashback Advice

[nheather]

Hi,

Just received my MSI B450 Tomahawk Max from OCUK today.

First question - I have been advised that I will need to flash the BIOS because I am going to fit a Ryzen 5 3600. However, I notice that the box lid has a red label which says “AMD Ryzen 3000 Desktop Ready” so does this mean that I don’t need to flash the BIOS first because this is a newer batch with a suitable BIOS.

Anyway, assuming flashing wouldn’t do any harm I have followed the instructions

1) formatted a USB drive using FAT32
2) downloaded the latest BIOS, version 3.5 dated 7th November 2019
3) copied it to the USB drive and renamed it to MSI.ROM
4) connect CPU_PWR1 and ATX_PWR1 to the motherboard
5) inserted the USB drive into the correct port
6) powered on the PSU (I have a question about this later)
7) pressed the flash button and nothing, no flashing lights, no sign that anything is happening

About PSU power, I have watched some videos and they just show the PSU being switched on. There is no case switch connected to the motherboard. The PSUs that I have used have always needed the case switch to bring the PSU fully to life. Or is that not needed here. Should the PSU just be switched on or does it need to be fully activated by using the case power switch?

Many thanks,

Nigel

 

[Danny75]

What components do you have connected to the motherboard?

Your setup sounds good as long as you have no RAM or CPU etc installed. You don't need a motherboard power switch for the BIOS Flashback. As long as the PSU is set to ON, the flashback will take place when you press the little flash button. If it begins (and ends) successfully, you can then switch the PSU to OFF and drain all power from board if you want (I did with no ill effects) with a screwdriver flat tip resting on the two PWR pins for about 10 seconds.

Possible cause (among others) could be the USB drive. Is it 16GB or less? Can you use another PC to go into Diskpart and list disk and select it, and convert it to MBR, first, then format to Fat32. You can do it all within Dispkpart as shown here. Some have reported this helping.

 

[nheather]

Thanks for the advice.

I have tried a couple of usb flash drives, one 1GB and one 2GB. Initially I formatted them using FAT32 on a windows 10 PC.

I have tried both with PSU just turned on and with it fully activated using the case power switch.

With the PSU just turned on there are no lights lit on the Motherboard. With the PSU activated with the case switch I get the red light near the ATX power cable and the ambient RGB lighting. I assume it is the latter which I need.

But in each case pressing the flash button does nothing - the light by it shows no sign of life.

Then I read about the MBR discussions, some saying that the USB must be formatted with an MBR others just saying that standard FAT32 format was fine.

So wanting to try everything, I have gone through the diskpart process - but the result is the same. No sign of life.

Cheers,

Nigel

 

[Danny75]

Can you confirm no components are installed, i.e. it's just the board and the CPU power cable and the ATX power cable?

When I did it, there were no lights on the board either, only lit up when the flashback began. So it's fine that you don't get lights with the PSU on. Obviously it's not fine that nothing happens when you try to flashback.

Is the motherboard resting directly on its box? The anti-static wrapper it came in should not be touching it or used.

Try taking the CMOS battery out for 10 minutes. Also unplug CPU and ATX power, and plug them back in again.

 

[nheather]

Yes sat on the box, nothing shorting.

Nothing installed, no CPU, no RAM, no graphics card. Just the CPU and ATX cables and I have a test switch to simulate the case power switch if necessary.

The CPU and ATX cables have been unplugged and reseated several times.

So just to check, the power supply should not be activated - PSU only switch on fully when they get a signal from the motherboard via the case switch. So I just need the PSU turned on, nothing more?

The only thing I haven’t tried is removing the battery, will give that a go.

One question, pressing the flash button - is it just a short push or hold it down. To be honest I’ve tried both but makes no difference.

Cheers,

Nigel

 

[nheather]

Well left the battery out for 10 minutes and then refitted. No joy, still nothing happening with the flash.

I’m about to go out so have removed the battery and will try later. The battery will have been out for 3 or 4 hours. If that doesn’t work I am at a loose end - would have to conclude that it is a duff board though that would surprise me.

Cheers,

Nigel

 

[Danny75]

Thanks, you've evidently been thorough. I think I'm all out of ideas, other than remove that test switch* and see what happens in case there's some grounding issue or something. You don't need it at all to begin the flashback. Just the PSU switched on. And then if it ever does flashback, you can short the PWR pins with screwdriver flat tip to drain all power from the board after switching the PSU off.

* And/or drain all power before attempting flashback again. As the board has been "on" if you've seen the leds and what have you.

If it doesn't succeed in flashback, I'd just try the existing BIOS and attach other components, see if it actually works or not, and whether a BIOS flash through another method is successful. Might help you make up your mind on whether to return the board or not.

One question, pressing the flash button - is it just a short push or hold it down. To be honest I’ve tried both but makes no difference.

Just a press. Shouldn't be a need to hold down.

 

[Quartz]

First question - I have been advised that I will need to flash the BIOS because I am going to fit a Ryzen 5 3600.

No, you don't need to flash the BIOS - the MAX motherboards don't need it.

 

[gupsterg]

I'd concur with Quartz.

nheather check the MSI product page, if you check download section first release of UEFI is 7C02v30, if you check the compatibility section, 3000 series CPU is supported from that release of UEFI.

 

[nheather]

Thanks, yes was my first question, because of the label on the box whether a pre-install flash is needed at all.

So I could wait until my CPU turns up and see if it works.

But even if it does still leaves me a little nervous that at least part of it (the flash button) might not be working properly.

There is a lot on google about the precise format of the USB drive but I’ve just watched a video where even pushing the button with no USB drive present causes the light to flash a few times. I don’t get any sign of life.

Cheers,

Nigel

 

[nheather]

I’m also still puzzled that the PSU does not need to be activated. Until it is, by shorting Pin 16 to ground (which is done by the motherboard via the case switch) there is minimal output from the PSU. In fact the only voltage present is 5v on Pin 9 (5VSB 5 volts standby). There is nothing on any of the other power pins including the CPU cable.

The 5VSB maybe okay to power the flash circuitry but if that is all is needed then why plug in the CPU cables because they are dead until the PSU is enabled. Unless the flash circuitry enables the PSU by shorting ATX(16) to ground.

If that is the case then there is clearly something wrong with my flash circuit because it is doing nothing.


Cheers,

Nigel

 

[gupsterg]

You don't need PSU powered on like when PC would normally be active.

You just need wall socket to be on and say switch on back of PSU to be on, which from what I can tell of your posts you have. In this state the motherboard/PSU is in "standby" power mode, this is why when you use things like wake-on-lan, resume from sleep, etc the system will fire back up. In this "standby" mode flashback will work.

I have not had a MSI board with flashback, but have had several ASUS boards. I have read MSI board will do flash codes to signify fault with flashback, so does seem odd you have no LED activity.

Sorry don't know what to suggest differing to what advice you already have in thread.

 

[wazza300]

Wait till you get your cpu,install it along with the ram and gpu,it should just work out of the box no bios flashing needed

If it doesnt work then take things from there

 

[nheather]

Wait till you get your cpu,install it along with the ram and gpu,it should just work out of the box no bios flashing needed

If it doesnt work then take things from there

Yes that is certainly one approach that has occurred to me, but what if it does work. That’s slightly worries me, would you, would I be happy accepting and using a product that you suspect to be faulty but it doesn’t matter because you doubt that functionality will ever be needed. An the worry bead is that if I know that part is faulty then what other parts aren’t working correctly.

I do get what you mean, just not entirely comfortable using a product that I suspect is faulty.

Cheers,

Nigel

 

[Joxeon]

Yes that is certainly one approach that has occurred to me, but what if it does work. That’s slightly worries me, would you, would I be happy accepting and using a product that you suspect to be faulty but it doesn’t matter because you doubt that functionality will ever be needed. An the worry bead is that if I know that part is faulty then what other parts aren’t working correctly.

I do get what you mean, just not entirely comfortable using a product that I suspect is faulty.

Cheers,

Nigel

You won't know if it's faulty till you build it, once fully built you then test the flashback again as it works the same regardless of what component are installed.

I own the tomahawk max and it should work with the r5 3600 without a bios update, I would still recomend updating the bios to the new v35 as this fixes a lot of early bugs and improves ram compatibility.

 

[nheather]

The mind-worm is that at the moment I strongly suspect that it is faulty, well at least part of it. I am also confident that if I built the rest of it then it would work. And even though I may never have the need to use it I will know that that functionality at least is faulty.

In my mind I don’t get the “you don’t know it is faulty until you build it” because I can demonstrate that part of the MoBo at least does not work now - FlashBack does not work with components installed. Once you have components installed and can POST you would not use FlashBack you would use one of the other two interactive methods.

The other off putting thing is that I intend to use the stock cooler with the pre-applied thermal paste. I know it’s not huge in the scheme of things but I am not keen to screw that up just to test a motherboard that I already suspect is faulty in part.


I’ll give OCUK a call tomorrow to see what they think.

Cheers,

Nigel

 

[nheather]

Reckon the micro-switch is dead. Just put a continuity tester across the contacts. Shows 500 ohms unpressed, would expect it to go to zero when pressed but nothing, stays at 500 ohms.

Cheers,

Nigel

 

[Alex h]

Reckon the micro-switch is dead. Just put a continuity tester across the contacts. Shows 500 ohms unpressed, would expect it to go to zero when pressed but nothing, stays at 500 ohms.

Cheers,

Nigel

Any update on this nigel

 

[nheather]

RMA’ed, going a little slower than I hoped. Although I dropped it off at 08:30 yesterday morning, DPD didn’t collect it until today - will be delivered to OcUK tomorrow.

Hopefully, OcUK will turn it round quickly.

I asked for a replacement, but thinking I should have asked for a refund and bought another as it would have been with me by now.

Cheers,

Nigel

 

[Alex h]

RMA’ed, going a little slower than I hoped. Although I dropped it off at 08:30 yesterday morning, DPD didn’t collect it until today - will be delivered to OcUK tomorrow.

Hopefully, OcUK will turn it round quickly.

I asked for a replacement, but thinking I should have asked for a refund and bought another as it would have been with me by now.

Cheers,

Nigel

Hopefully you'll be up and running in a few days you've had some bad luck recently mate hope it goes well for you