Solved: MSI X570 Tomahawk WiFi - Not Posting

[Cadder]

Hi everyone, I hope you are all doing well. Or at least, better than I am.

I have just built my PC today. it is:

Ryzen 7 5800X
MSI X570 Tomahawk WiFi
Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti
32gb 8Pack DDR4 RAM
Seasonic Focus PX-750

I haven't once managed to get it to connect to two different monitors on DisplayPort or HDMI on GPU or HDMI on the Mobo.

What I have tried:
Stuck the latest stable BIOS for the mobo on a USB drive, renamed the file to MSI.ROM and stuck it in the flash USB port on the mobo. I powered up the PSU and pressed the flash button. It did its own thing, cycled through, running all fans and everything. It ran, powered down for a couple of seconds and powered up again. I left it a few minutes and the USB stick wasn't flashing anymore, everything was quiet. I waited an extra 5 minutes or so and then powered down via the PSU.

I have powered the PC up again and the monitor hasn't reacted at all, so no display output on PC. The mobo debug "Boot" LED is on constantly.

Any advice? Should I just try and stick the Windows 10 USB in and see what happens?

 

[Cadder]

Some progress. I have a BIOS screen.

I powered down the PC, loosened the CPU cooler a little (BQ Dark Rock Slim). It would have tightened forever so I wondered when to stop.

I also switched the monitor from mobo HDMI to GPU HDMI. Powered on and like I say, there's a BIOS screen

 

[snips86x]

Did you tighten with fingers?

 

[Cadder]

Did you tighten with fingers?

CPU cooler? No, screwdriver. I didn't go mega overboard I just noticed it would keep going and the bridging arms would bend. Although I held back it looks there was more scope to further hold back..

Installing Windows 10 now.

 

[Cadder]

Up and running now. Windows installed really quick.

Looks like I am sorted. Mods please feel free to delete this thread.

 

[freddie64]

Some progress. I have a BIOS screen.

I powered down the PC, loosened the CPU cooler a little (BQ Dark Rock Slim). It would have tightened forever so I wondered when to stop.

I also switched the monitor from mobo HDMI to GPU HDMI. Powered on and like I say, there's a BIOS screen

Good to hear you got this sorted.

As that CPU + mobo has no onboard graphics, switching HDMI to the GPU will probably be why it now works.

 

[Cadder]

Good to hear you got this sorted.

As that CPU + mobo has no onboard graphics, switching HDMI to the GPU will probably be why it now works.

Ah that makes so much sense. What a numpty I am. It being my first build I had been over thinking and assumed the mobo would be the first thing to connect to.
Turns out there's not really much more to it than flashing BIOS and installing OS.
I was really expecting a nightmare but it worked out well. My UserBenchmark scores are impressive and everything about the pc is rapid - installs, boot times, running games. I love it.
I expected to regret the 3060 Ti but it is really good.

 

[freddie64]

Been doing a lot of reading about pretty much the same upgrade and believe me you are not the only one who has done this.

My 5800X is coming tomorrow, got the RAM and RTX 3070.

Just need to decide on the motherboard. Will be either the X570 Tomahawk or B550 Tomahawk, maybe even the Asus B550 Strix Gaming F/E.

 

[Cadder]

I don't know much about mobos but the X570 Tomahawk has WiFi and was really easy to set up. It was also incredibly easy to change xmp profile for my RAM

 

[Foskr4]

Hi everyone, I hope you are all doing well. Or at least, better than I am.

I have just built my PC today. it is:

Ryzen 7 5800X
MSI X570 Tomahawk WiFi
Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti
32gb 8Pack DDR4 RAM
Seasonic Focus PX-750

I haven't once managed to get it to connect to two different monitors on DisplayPort or HDMI on GPU or HDMI on the Mobo.

What I have tried:
Stuck the latest stable BIOS for the mobo on a USB drive, renamed the file to MSI.ROM and stuck it in the flash USB port on the mobo. I powered up the PSU and pressed the flash button. It did its own thing, cycled through, running all fans and everything. It ran, powered down for a couple of seconds and powered up again. I left it a few minutes and the USB stick wasn't flashing anymore, everything was quiet. I waited an extra 5 minutes or so and then powered down via the PSU.

I have powered the PC up again and the monitor hasn't reacted at all, so no display output on PC. The mobo debug "Boot" LED is on constantly.

Any advice? Should I just try and stick the Windows 10 USB in and see what happens?

Hi does the motherboard have to re boot? mines just flashed for 5 mins but didn’t do a power cycle i don’t think so now i’m not sure what to do :/

 

[Cadder]

I realised I hadn't renamed the BIOS file in the USB. Once I sorted that it was all good. Here's a YouTube video I followed - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsA14iHVkYw

 

[Foskr4]

I realised I hadn't renamed the BIOS file in the USB. Once I sorted that it was all good. Here's a YouTube video I followed - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsA14iHVkYw

Ah i had renamed mine to MSI.ROM. Mine flashed for 5 mins then stopped but didn’t power cycle - is it done or?

 

[clv101]

Been doing a lot of reading about pretty much the same upgrade and believe me you are not the only one who has done this.

My 5800X is coming tomorrow, got the RAM and RTX 3070.

Just need to decide on the motherboard. Will be either the X570 Tomahawk or B550 Tomahawk, maybe even the Asus B550 Strix Gaming F/E.

B550 Gaming Edge WiFi is the board to go for if you need WiFi/BT.

 

[Cadder]

Ah i had renamed mine to MSI.ROM. Mine flashed for 5 mins then stopped but didn’t power cycle - is it done or?

Mine did the power cycle. Are you doing it exactly like he's doing in the video?
Which BIOS are you using? At the time of flashing, the latest was a beta so I used the version prior. Haven't done it since.

 

[freddie64]

Ah i had renamed mine to MSI.ROM. Mine flashed for 5 mins then stopped but didn’t power cycle - is it done or?

Mine rebooted. Maybe try with a different USB stick.

B550 Gaming Edge WiFi is the board to go for if you need WiFi/BT.

Ended up getting the X570 Tomahawk.

 

[Foskr4]

Mine did the power cycle. Are you doing it exactly like he's doing in the video?
Which BIOS are you using? At the time of flashing, the latest was a beta so I used the version prior. Haven't done it since.

Hi,

Motherboards really are funny aren’t they - I used 2.0 sandisk 16gb worked but didn’t power cycle etc. Found some old usb stick from 2008 with 466mb on it and that’s what made it work It blinked for around 6 mins - then power cycled and i left it for another 5 and turned it off - fingers crossed it works!

 

[Cadder]

Yeah that sounds like it did the job. Maybe it didn't like something about the first USB - formatting or whatever. Hopefully that is you sorted now. It was easy enough to switch XMP profiles in the BIOS but that's about all I did with the mobo.

 

[Timothy Carr]

System:-

Ryzen 7 5950X
MSI X570 Tomahawk WiFi
Nvidia GTX 980 Ti
32gb crucial DDR4 RAM 3200

Replaced 2700 with 5950x and tried all the latest bios versions 14 - to the latest beta.

version 14 - 15 stuck on boot LED beta version stuck on CPU

Placing the 2700 back in all is fine except for the beta bios which was stuck on CPU (LED debug indicator)

Turns out that the NVME (samsung gen 3 not 4) drive was the issue. Moved from the top slot to the second slot and the system now posts just fine.
It is worrying that the motherboard manual does not mention this oversight. I remembered that the intel Z590 boards would not post with an NVME gen 4 in the top slot unless the processor is an 11 series.

Just placed this information here incase others experience the same boot LED issue with NVME in the top slot. Guess if this was a latest gen 4 version drive all would be well.
Wish I had tried this at the start instead of flashing bioses and replacing ram kits, cpu and GPU's, live and learn.

Hope this information saves people with the same issue a lot of time going forward.

Tim

 

[FrankJH]

two things for note just in case anyone else gets stuck

I have flashed two different Tomahawk Wifi boards multiple times (if anyone is interested this is down to AMD USB bug I suspect more in relevant thread) and ;

1) I never had to rename the MSI bios update , just transferred the two files direct to a blank usb stick and it worked straight away (took about 2 -3 mins each time, and yes it rebooted, but didnt have to actually turn off/ turn on manually)

2) Ive had two NVME drives installed since I built the original 6 weeks ago and replaced the mobo this weekend (one windows drive and one storgage) and Tomohawk wifi had no issue with Windows drive being in either as far as I can tell (maybe wrongly but I got from the manual it would be beneficial using windows drive in the slot nearest to the CPU socket, cant remember why now though haha) - but didnt have an issue the other way round either on the original board.

 

[Timothy Carr]

Hi Frank,

Yes it caused quite a few headaches yesterday with the NVME drive (gen 3 samsung) in the top slot and the latest beta bios would not work with either 2700 or 5950x (stuck on CPU debug LED indicator). We had to rename the file to MSI.ROM with USB stick and the flash button route to get back to previous stable bios, as we could not post or get a display with this beta version.

The 2700 would then post and boot into windows (NVME in top slot) but the 5950x would just sit with the boot LED indicator and no display or post. Placed NVME in bottom slot after changing ram kits and GPU's to no avail and this has now worked. I am loath to mess with the bios anymore because this board seems to fail to post and does not recover the same as the intel boards (Asus, gigabyte) I am familiar with. Now it is stable I will just leave as is, the NVME performance does not seem to have taken a hit in the bottom slot.

I am a little worried incase this is a fault with the 5950x?

Tim