Bricked my mobo during flash z270 MSI pro carbon.

Efour

Efour

Efour

Caporegime
Joined
8 Sep 2005
Posts
30,491
Location
Norrbotten, Sweden.
Oh my bloody god.

So on a 100% random impulse I decided to flash the bios/whatever it's called, a process I've done 50x over 20 years and yippee I lose power to the system. Of all the random chances and bs for this to happen. Anyway deal with it.

It's not posting. I have a no CPU warning light on the debug.
I can't get a signal from my 1070gtx no CPU kinda an issue......
I've reset CMOS, shorted jumpers, no change, no cpu, in guessing it's royaly buggered. (This hasn't done a thing) ive tried about 10 times and will try 20 more tomorrow evening.

What are my options here? Everything seems kinda grim if it think it's CPU 6700k less I'll never get a display, there's no onboard video.

I've followed an MSI guide using a flash drive with a bios on it in a usb2 port but again without CPU it's not getting anywhere.

I'll physically rebuild the machine tomorrow, reset the CPU. In quite sure I have a z170 board somewhere I can try it on. ( Maybe I'll just use that until a full upgrade)

So pee'd off.

Do you think buying a bios chip off the bay is advisable? In not a soldering master but it's only 8 pins.

In a bit all over the place, hopefully you guys can suggest something else.

I guess I need to establish why there th display and hopefully take it from there.

Very tired
 
Retry the MSI flash with a different flash drive. Some boards are fussy with certain drives. Also try different usb ports.

I doubt it's the CPU. The BIOS chip would be a last resort if nobody else can solve your issue.
 
I'll retry the bios flash. It needs a 8gb flash drive or less... No idea why. All mine are 16gb. Unless I can format it to only be 4gb?

I pretty much faced up that I'll be buying a new board it's just so much easier..... Time efficient.
 
Efour said:
I'll retry the bios flash. It needs a 8gb flash drive or less... No idea why. All mine are 16gb. Unless I can format it to only be 4gb?

I pretty much faced up that I'll be buying a new board it's just so much easier..... Time efficient.
Click to expand...

Maybe it needs FAT32 formatting? Rather ham format a drive and leave the space unallocated, I’d just get the smallest drive you can off Amazon.

I was about to offer to desolder the old chip and fit the new one for you, then I saw your location :D
 
WantoN said:
Maybe it needs FAT32 formatting? Rather ham format a drive and leave the space unallocated, I’d just get the smallest drive you can off Amazon.

I was about to offer to desolder the old chip and fit the new one for you, then I saw your location :D
Click to expand...
In coming to London next week for 2 weeks. If you are serious, and in still desperate
I might take you up on that lol.
 
WantoN said:
Maybe it needs FAT32 formatting? Rather ham format a drive and leave the space unallocated, I’d just get the smallest drive you can off Amazon.

I was about to offer to desolder the old chip and fit the new one for you, then I saw your location :D
Click to expand...

It does need fat 32 format, Im sure I did it.
You should be able to flash without a CPU these days right?
 
In the past I believe the drive needed to be FAT32 formatted when I did it. See if you can wipe a flash drive, make a single FAT32 4GB partition and leave the rest unallocated, then try that.
 
Do they have to be bootable or is it literally format fat32 then put the bios on that?

That's what I did but without getting a screen output there's no way of knowing if the magical happened.
 
Efour said:
Do they have to be bootable or is it literally format fat32 then put the bios on that?

That's what I did but without getting a screen output there's no way of knowing if the magical happened.
Click to expand...

Just place the bios file, and I mean just the bios file itself on the root of the USB stick, not in any folders or anything, and not the zip file either. Format it FAT32 as others have said, just a 4gb partition, leave the rest unallocated.

I dont think it will work though, you might get lucky, but looking at the MSI site, the board doesnt have any bios flashback built in to it.

if it doesnt work with the same bios thats on the board already, then you have a dead board.
 
Efour said:
In coming to London next week for 2 weeks. If you are serious, and in still desperate
I might take you up on that lol.
Click to expand...

I’m about an hour south of London. If you can have all parts required, and spare time to come down to me, then I’d have no problem at all doing it for you mate. With the proviso that I’m not responsible for damage blah blah. The Mrs prrobably wouldn’t like the idea of a stranger coming to the house, but we can work around it.

I’ve worked in electronics for years, and repairing very damaged high end parts was a big part of my job for a while, so replacing a chip shouldn’t be too much of an ask. Coincidentally my main iron’s just broken, but I’m sure I can sort it by then.

Rather than derail, send me a trust if you want to discuss further.
 
I've given up for now and rebuilding on a z170 have. Tried onboard gfx ports, 1070 on hdmi and dp and DVI. Never got a picture.

I have a terrible sense that something bad has happened to the CPU but not sure why or how....
 
I dont know if msi are the same, but on the Asus motherbord cds that come with in the box they have a recovery bios named differently to a normal bios update worth a check.
 
It's all working on the z170.
I'll check the msi cd.
Busy at work and planning trip back to UK so I need a pc that just works now for the time being.

Thx all for calming my nerves and the kind offer of help.
 
Efour said:
It's all working on the z170.
I'll check the msi cd.
Busy at work and planning trip back to UK so I need a pc that just works now for the time being.

Thx all for calming my nerves and the kind offer of help.
Click to expand...

Not a worry mate. If you end up needing the help just let me know, its an open offer. Give me some warning though as I need to sort the catalyser on my iron!

Good to know the chip survived, I hate that feeling of uncertainty when you’re rebuilding after catastrophic failure, you never know what’s blown, and if it’ll take anything else with it when you rebuild.
 
Some closure.

I finally got time to resolder the bios chip.
I did it with the hot air tool from eBay and it worked well. The new chip was a little wonky but all the pins were connected nicely.

I've just spent 2h rebuilding and trouble shooting, it didn't work as I had hoped but it has highlighted what must be the real problem.

Now instead of a solid no CPU found led it powers on, fans spin, 1 red flash wait 2 seconds, loses power, restarts in a loop.

Seeing as the CPU, ram and everything else function fine on the z170 board, there must be some kind of voltage fail on the ATX 12v CPU area. I tried two PSUs. Both same results.

It's probably sometime extremely trivial, a blown fuse or resistor MOSFET? Is that what they are?

I've given up, I can't really return it to msi now because of the bodgejob bios :p

No matter it was fun trying and I have a lot of new soldering toys for next time.

In also pretty flush for cash now and have a good excuse to waste it on a new pc soon.
 
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