MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Plus Bios chip location

[christoph.urba128d02aa]

Hello,

my motherboard got bricked after updating the Bios to the latest version through Dragoncenter (I know, blame's on me and I should have done some further research on the dangers of updating through Dragoncenter).

Anyway after the Bios update was "successfully" completed (it went to 100 %) my PC just kept idling and nothing happened (just a black screen). When I restarted the PC everything was powered up (fans, graphic cards, etc.) but the black screen remained and my PC wouldn't post (keyboard and mouse didn't get any power and it's just a black screen).

I tried removing both rams, one ram bar and resetting/clearing the cmos by removing the onboard battery and shorting JBAT1 but all to no avail.

Now I have no choice but to use a CH341A eeprom programmer to flash the bios chip manually.

Can anybody tell me where I can find the Bios chip on the MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Plus? A quick screen shot would be highly appreciated.

thank you for reading my post and your help!

 

[darkhawk]

CH341A doesn't support 3.3V EEPROM's directly, which means you'd need an adapter.
If the EEPROM is 1.8V based, the CH341A doesn't support it at all, and you'll need a much more expensive programmer.

I don't know off the top of my head what EEPROM is on the Z490 series, but I'm guessing it's either 3.3V or 1.8V. I know Z390 was 3.3V yet, but I'm not sure in regards to Z490.

The BIOS chip should be relatively close to the JSPI1 connector. This connector isn't generally shown on documentation though, so you might have to search and find it.
More info : https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?...ific-to-z270-but-applicable-to-others.288150/

 

[christoph.urba128d02aa]

many thanks for the link hawk and as far as I know the z490 has a winbond 3.3V but i'm not 100 % sure either. btw i have the same programmer and the cable adapter as presented in your guide