MSI B550-A PRO Fried my cpu after bios update?

[smets.lode9157402e4]

Hey,

Usually I don't upgrade my bios, but my previous version was 7C56vAF

After a bios update with MSI dragon center my pc did nothing (no fanspin, no debug led,...) (to v 7C56vAK)

I tried bios flashback. But with a bunch of usb sticks. With a lot of them the led just kept on blinking (for mor than an hour). So I had to try a lot of times, eventually I found an usb stick where after 30s the pc would come to life. Sadly the white led just stays on.

I tried rolling back my bios with the usb stick to v 7C56vAF.or even older versions still the CPU led stays on.

Did the update (or the many power cuts because usb flash was stuck) kill my CPU or my motherboard?

I don't have a spare board or CPU laying around to just test with.

What should I replace first? Or what else can I test before ordering new parts?

 

[smets.lode9157402e4]

I have a ryzen5600x cpu

 

[citay]

Most likely something went wrong during the update, so the BIOS is corrupt, but your board and CPU would be ok, hardware-wise. So with any luck, once you manage to flash the BIOS properly, it might work again.

With the Flash BIOS Button method, under a minute of flashing, or more than ten minutes, and it didn't work. After ten minutes it will never finish, you can just turn it off then. As you have done, I would then try with different USB sticks, the boards can sometimes be annoyingly picky in which one they will accept for flashing.

The procedure also has to be followed 100%:
1. Download the latest BIOS from the MSI support site for your board and extract it. I'd try with the very latest beta version.
2. Take a USB stick and format it to FAT32 (it's best for it to have a size of 32 GB or less). You can also try Rufus for formatting, as FAT32 non-bootable.
3. Rename the extracted (!) BIOS file to MSI.ROM and save it to the root of your USB flash drive / USB stick (not in a subfolder).
4. Plug the USB flash drive / USB stick that contains the MSI.ROM file into the marked Flash BIOS Port (!) on the rear I/O panel.
5. With the PC off, press the Flash BIOS Button, and the LED should start flashing for about 5-8 minutes and then the board reboots.

Please also list the rest of your components that are currently installed, so PSU model, CPU cooler, RAM kit, SSD, GPU. The GPU, SSD, and even the RAM could be ruled out by simply leaving it out, even though I don't think they have much to do with this. But still, it's good to know the models of everything. And the PSU, if it's an overly old and/or bad model, can have something to do with it.

Don't order anything yet. If this is "just" a corrupt BIOS, then it only needs to be flashed properly, if you can't get the Flash BIOS Button to work, then with an external flash programmer. And if it turns out your PSU is not adequate in age/quality, then that could be the only thing that needs outright replacing, because the BIOS flashing could be sensitive to whatever is wrong with a PSU that's too old or low-quality.

 

[smets.lode9157402e4]

Most likely something went wrong during the update, so the BIOS is corrupt, but your board and CPU would be ok, hardware-wise. So with any luck, once you manage to flash the BIOS properly, it might work again.

With the Flash BIOS Button method, under a minute of flashing, or more than ten minutes, and it didn't work. After ten minutes it will never finish, you can just turn it off then. As you have done, I would then try with different USB sticks, the boards can sometimes be annoyingly picky in which one they will accept for flashing.

The procedure also has to be followed 100%:
1. Download the latest BIOS from the MSI support site for your board and extract it. I'd try with the very latest beta version.
2. Take a USB stick and format it to FAT32 (it's best for it to have a size of 32 GB or less). You can also try Rufus for formatting, as FAT32 non-bootable.
3. Rename the extracted (!) BIOS file to MSI.ROM and save it to the root of your USB flash drive / USB stick (not in a subfolder).
4. Plug the USB flash drive / USB stick that contains the MSI.ROM file into the marked Flash BIOS Port (!) on the rear I/O panel.
5. With the PC off, press the Flash BIOS Button, and the LED should start flashing for about 5-8 minutes and then the board reboots.

Please also list the rest of your components that are currently installed, so PSU model, CPU cooler, RAM kit, SSD, GPU. The GPU, SSD, and even the RAM could be ruled out by simply leaving it out, even though I don't think they have much to do with this. But still, it's good to know the models of everything. And the PSU, if it's an overly old and/or bad model, can have something to do with it.

Don't order anything yet. If this is "just" a corrupt BIOS, then it only needs to be flashed properly, if you can't get the Flash BIOS Button to work, then with an external flash programmer. And if it turns out your PSU is not adequate in age/quality, then that could be the only thing that needs outright replacing, because the BIOS flashing could be sensitive to whatever is wrong with a PSU that's too old or low-quality.

Hi, thanks for the quick reply.
I will try more USB sticks (I have to pick up some from work, because I tested everyone I have at home).
The usb drives I have at home fall in to 2 camps: those that will go on forever, and those that after 1min power on the pc (and the cpu led shows then). I found posts saying it would be 5-10min, but I thought because of the poweron it was successfull quicker, but apparently not.


I have an MSI B550-A pro, amd ryzen 5600x, cooler master air cooler (I don't know the exact model), 4 sticks (totalling 32GB) corsair vengance DDR4 RAM (but for the flashing I took it out, just to be sure). MSI RTX 3070 gaming X trio, Crucial P1 1TB M.2 SSD, Samsung 860 EVO 1TB SSD, Gigabyte Aorus P750W PSU (80+ gold rating).

I build the PC in december 2020 (all new parts, no old from previous build). And I was just updating my bios.

I also tried clearing CMOS (just to be sure).

But I will try with even more usb sticks.
Quick question, if usb bios flash fails (keeps on running), what should I best do: unplug usb, plug other one in., press button again. Or should I unpower psu, and power back on, and press button with new USB?

 

[citay]

The usb drives I have at home fall in to 2 camps: those that will go on forever, and those that after 1min power on the pc (and the cpu led shows then). I found posts saying it would be 5-10min, but I thought because of the poweron it was successfull quicker, but apparently not.

Yeah, both ways are no good, there's an LED that has to keep flashing for 5-8 minutes and then it reboots. Otherwise the flashing didn't succeed.

For updating the BIOS in normal times, I would always use M-Flash in the BIOS directly, not via MSI Center. Of course, now you have no choice but to try the button method until you have success. I don't think anything is wrong hardware-wise other than a corrupt BIOS, guessing from experience.

Quick question, if usb bios flash fails (keeps on running), what should I best do: unplug usb, plug other one in., press button again. Or should I unpower psu, and power back on, and press button with new USB?

The latter. Complete power-cycle so it can truly start from scratch, not hot-swapping.

 

[smets.lode9157402e4]

Yeah, both ways are no good, there's an LED that has to keep flashing for 5-8 minutes and then it reboots. Otherwise the flashing didn't succeed.

I'm afraid my board is completely bricked. I have 5 usb sticks where it takes forever (no automatic boot), and 2 where the board boots after 10s , and then the led keeps blinking for 30s and then it stops.

I'm almost through all the usb sticks I could find.


Just a question: does the block size matter? I usually select: 8192 (default)
Also in rufus: partition, should it be GPT or MBR?

 

[smets.lode9157402e4]

Should the LED keep blinking at the same speed, or should it go faster after x sec?

 

[citay]

MBR, also see here. I've seen a report of a "Kingston DataTraveler 100 G3 32GB" working where some other sticks have failed, and another report of a "SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0 drive, 32 GB" having worked. Personally i've used a "Sandisk Extreme USB 3.0" with 32 GB successfully, see here. Also read here and here. The older and smaller, the better.

The blinking, for me (the one time I used that method) first it had some slower blinks (less than ten), then it blinked faster, like twice a second. This keeps on going for 5-8 minutes, and if you have a USB stick with an activity LED, that will also blink for this time. Then you'd get the reboot.

 

[smets.lode9157402e4]

I think I'm going to give up, and order a new board.

I found my old USB stick (the one I used to flash the bios when I built the PC) And that one is also not working.
I also found an usb stick with an LED, and the LED is just blinking for the first 10-30 sec, and then the LED does nothing

Thank you very much for the support, sadly it seems to be fully bricked.

 

[citay]

As mentioned, even with the button method failing, the BIOS chip can still be flashed externally. Here's the location of the BIOS chip on this board, should be a Winbond or MXIC chip:

And you can also flash via the JTPM1 header to the left of it, that pin header connects to legs of the BIOS chip, and the BIOS chip is always quite near to that header (on some boards it's called JSPI1 instead of JTPM1, but it's basically the same thing).

Check this thread for further information, I linked a few things there. The usual programmer is called CH341A, they're not expensive, you just have to read up on the proper method, for example with guides like these, https://archimago.blogspot.com/2023/11/how-to-resurrecting-bad-bios-update.html

Also, you can ask local PC shops if they offer this as a service. Should be much cheaper than a new board. If they know their stuff, they can flash the latest BIOS on there pretty quickly with such a flash programmer.

 

[podkaracz9159502e4]

As mentioned, even with the button method failing, the BIOS chip can still be flashed externally. Here's the location of the BIOS chip on this board, should be a Winbond or MXIC chip:

View attachment 209587

And you can also flash via the JTPM1 header to the left of it, that pin header connects to legs of the BIOS chip, and the BIOS chip is always quite near to that header (on some boards it's called JSPI1 instead of JTPM1, but it's basically the same thing).

Check this thread for further information, I linked a few things there. The usual programmer is called CH341A, they're not expensive, you just have to read up on the proper method, for example with guides like these, https://archimago.blogspot.com/2023/11/how-to-resurrecting-bad-bios-update.html

Also, you can ask local PC shops if they offer this as a service. Should be much cheaper than a new board. If they know their stuff, they can flash the latest BIOS on there pretty quickly with such a flash programmer.

Can you find me the chip location for MSI B550 UNIFY-X motherboard? I am curious where to look for it in case of emergency.

 

[ericj159802e9]

Can you find me the chip location for MSI B550 UNIFY-X motherboard? I am curious where to look for it in case of emergency.

The answer was already given in citay's post:

the BIOS chip is always quite near to that header (on some boards it's called JSPI1 instead of JTPM1, but it's basically the same thing).

That's where I would start. It might be (partially) covered by one of the heatsinks.

 

[citay]

Yes, there is always a good start. On your board, above the first M.2 slot, there's the JTPM1 header, to the right there's "HDMI" lettering, then to the right is the BIOS chip.

 

[podkaracz9159502e4]

Yes, there is always a good start. On your board, above the first M.2 slot, there's the JTPM1 header, to the right there's "HDMI" lettering, then to the right is the BIOS chip.

If i want to flash bios on b550 unify-x which programer and software do i need? When I connect ch341a + asprogrammer without desoldering it says "error connecting" no matter what i do

 

[citay]

Check the various guides. If you cannot clamp onto the chip properly, you may have to go via JTPM1, it connects to the pins of the BIOS chip, the diagram is in some thread I linked.

 

[podkaracz9159502e4]

Check the various guides. If you cannot clamp onto the chip properly, you may have to go via JTPM1, it connects to the pins of the BIOS chip, the diagram is in some thread I linked.

Yea i found it but how do i connect the clips of the ch341a when the diagram shows different order on the JTPM1 and different on the chip? Do i need different clip than the one 1.8v provided with ch341a that has the same layout as the chip or do i need to somehow clip it. Is there a video of someone doing this JTPM1 flashing with ch341a?

 

[citay]

You would use individual cables that you put on the correct pins of the JTPM1 header, like on the second photo here. Also see here.

 

[podkaracz9159502e4]

You would use individual cables that you put on the correct pins of the JTPM1 header, like on the second photo here. Also see here.

Do you maybe have an guide on how to connect nuvoton programmer to a JT1 header? I've found forum that says the only way to fix led firmware is by clearing the data region that stores the corrupted settings and to reinitialize it we have to clear it. I was able to recover the board bios with the flash back button but the rgb is perma bricked as described on that forum that states once its bricked there is no connection with the mobo except the direct flash from programmer.

 

[citay]

I'm not sure about that. But if you found someone on a forum that has done it before, it's a good idea to ask there about the procedure.