Flashing BIOS correctly - killed my motherboard last attempt

oHAMBURGLARo

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Jun 2, 2015
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I have an MSI Z87M Gaming motherboard that I had tried to update the BIOS and ME. I booted from my USB drive with the files on them and choose to update the BIOS and ME (although I don't really know what the "ME" is). It was flashing the BIOS and then seemed to hang. Eventually the computer restarted and just displayed a black screen. I let it sit for about 90 minutes until I decided something was wrong and forced the power off. When I went to try turning the power back on, the motherboard seemed to briefly power up and the fans spun for less than a second, and then it seemed to just lose power. After about 3 seconds, this process repeated endlessly. I tried changing the power supply, cords, removing and replacing the little battery (I think it's called the CMOS) and removing my GPU and running of the integrated graphics, but nothing fixed the problem.

I eventually RMA'd the board under warranty and just received the replacement. What do I do this time to ensure I don't end up with another dead board when trying to flash the BIOS?
 

weilin

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BIOS flashing does come with risks... They're very minor now but every once in a blue moon it can go wrong... A few things to keep in mind.

NEVER flash BIOS in Windows unless there's absolutely no other method.

Flash using the built in BIOS flashing utility found in the BIOS itself (for Gigabyte boards, it's called Q-Flash, I'm not too familiar with MSI BIOS unfortunately) if possible

Make sure the Flash drive you're using to flash BIOS with is freshly formatted and formatted to FAT32 (this is important, most BIOS can't read NTFS or exFAT or EXT* and MAY do something unpredictable)

Pray that the power doesn't cut out during the flashing process (not much you can do for this one)

After flashing, have BIOS reset to optimized defaults, save and exit and then go back in again to tune your settings.

Best of luck!
 

oHAMBURGLARo

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Jun 2, 2015
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4,510


Thanks. Assuming the replacement board has the original BIOS, I will have to at least flash it to a revision that allows me to use my CPU (i5-4590). I did freshly format the USB drive, although I'm not positive I used FAT32 and I can't remember the settings I used. The only other thing I can think of that might have contributed was plugging the USB drive into the USB 3.0 ports on my case instead of directly into the motherboard exposed in the back of the case.
 

weilin

Distinguished
Oh right, forgot to mention that one, plug the USB key into the back of the motherboard. Avoid if you can the "hi-current ports" or the USB 3 ports (it shouldn't matter but i like simple). look for a vanilla USB 2.0 port. I avoid the front panel as well (once again it shouldn't matter but why complicate things...), go straight to the board. That's probably your best bet.