updating bios on skylake MSI board

mrsim · 3 Oct 2018 at 19:47

hello there the forum,hope everyone is ok
just looking for a little advice about updating the bios on my MB,i have a MSI Z170A KRAIT GAMING MS-7984 attached is the sysinfo pic,and am worried that i may brick my machine if i attempt to update the bios on it below i will also leave a link to the MSI bios page where i think the updates,(of which there are plenty), are available
how do i tell if i have the correct bios and if it's going to affect my system badly,(i.e. brick), or not and if i do flash a bios,(am a bios flashing virgin),reverting back to my old bios will restore all my system and settings...?
and lastly will flashing a new bios affect my CPU's overclock will i have to re-overclock the CPU after flashing a newer bios
just for added info this is an overclockers system i purchased back in mar 2016
Titan Dark Zone - Gaming PC For The Division - Intel Core i7 6700K @ 4.5GHz, GTX 980Ti 6GB

MSi bios page linked below
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/Z170A-KRAIT-GAMING

pastymuncher · 4 Oct 2018 at 10:41

With a MSI motherboard I would normally say leave it alone if everything is working fine because it used to be very common for MSI boards to brick when updating the bios by any method (not so much on the latest boards but anything up to and including Z97 was a nightmare). However, the latest bios update for your board includes the security fixes for Intels cpu's so it would be adviseable to do it. Updating the bios will reset everything so write your settings down before flashing. Normally I would say use the bios flashing tool built into the bios (M-Flash) but being MSI there is no guarantee that it won't brick the board no matter if you use the bios tool, the forum tool (you have to sign up to their forums to get it) or the Live Update windows tool (as a rule never use a windows based tool to flash the bios as it has the highest chance of going wrong). If you do decide to go ahead then flash to the very latest version which in your case is 7984vAF. You don't need to update though each and every release. Each version has all the fixes that came before it plus the latest ones.

Avalon · 4 Oct 2018 at 10:54

I’ve literally flashed 100’s of BIOS images since the 90’s on motherboards, graphics cards, controllers, STB’s and drives, in that time i’ve only permanently bricked one board (A-Open MX3W which was a socket 370 job from the late 90’s). Everything else has either gone to plan or been recoverable.

Follow the process MSI has in place and you should be fine, as above don’t flash under windows, that’s a bad idea. Also read the manual, it’ll explain the rescue process if you have an issue - it’s easier to prepare for the situation now with a working PC than have to try and sort it afterwards, especially if you only have access to one PC and the process requires you to for example download a file or prep a USB boot image etc.

Reminds me, I need to update my X99 board later

*Edit* Even if it goes horribly wrong, you should have dual bios on most recent boards

mrsim · 4 Oct 2018 at 22:18

wow guys thanks for the advice i will download the bios 7984vAF and give it a go after first creating all the necessary backup/recovery
precautions

EsaT · 5 Oct 2018 at 13:19

mrsim said:
wow guys thanks for the advice i will download the bios 7984vAF and give it a go after first creating all the necessary backup/recovery
precautions

Also one thing to do for minimizing risks would be dropping CPU to stock speed before flashing.

Avalon · 5 Oct 2018 at 14:06

In all honesty, I did my update last night, it probably took less time than replying to this thread. I have to admit to sitting watching the progress thinking ‘Oh how people will laugh if this goes wrong after that post’

mrsim · 6 Oct 2018 at 10:42

Avalon said:
In all honesty, I did my update last night, it probably took less time than replying to this thread. I have to admit to sitting watching the progress thinking ‘Oh how people will laugh if this goes wrong after that post’

PMSL...i know it's funny when you have never done anything like this before it seems so daunting especially when you already have your operating system and machine up and running for the last year or two the feeling you could risk losing everything just makes me hold back a little for a more detailed process or youtube vid...LOL

EsaT said:
Also one thing to do for minimizing risks would be dropping CPU to stock speed before flashing.

this makes a difference because...??? only asking because i guess that the system gets reset anyway so it shouldn't matter what clock speed the CPU is at no...!!!!

mrsim · 6 Oct 2018 at 10:55

and lastly before i dive in after unzipping the bios do i have to drop it into the main partition on my usb stick or can i access it through the folder it was unpacked into once i boot into the bios section of the system

Avalon · 6 Oct 2018 at 11:56

I dropped it into the root folder for simplicity, iirc my X99 SLIPlus has no issues navigating folders, but it was quicker/easier anyway. The reason knocking the CPU to stock is suggested is simply stability, in reality if it’s run as it is for several years, it’s highly unlikely to suffer an issue now, still consider it best practice.

mrsim · 6 Oct 2018 at 13:46

so i booted into the bios just to take a look around and it seems that OcUK have made some OC profiles i guess when they clocked the CPU to 4.5ghz i will average a guess and say will i be able to save this proffile to my usb stick then re-add the profile back after updating the bios...it seems it is showing me the option to be able to save profiles...or should i manually just add back the settings like i have them in the pictures...so many questions and so much to learn...LOL...almost wish it was a system i was building from scratch then i would'nt worry...LOL

so below in this pic you can see where is shows that i can save the OC profile to usb...profiles 2/3/4/5/6 are all the same as profile 1...not sure whats going on there...???

Avalon · 6 Oct 2018 at 14:17

As pastymuncher said, make a note of your settings. Backing them up to USB is also a good idea, but essentially all OCUK did was pre-overclock the system to a state that was expected to work based on a sample test and then do a burn test to make sure it didn’t crash for 24hrs. Save profile one (and either take a photo of the settings or write them down) and you’re good to go.

mrsim · 6 Oct 2018 at 14:20

Avalon said:
As pastymuncher said, make a note of your settings. Backing them up to USB is also a good idea, but essentially all OCUK did was pre-overclock the system to a state that was expected to work based on a sample test and then do a burn test to make sure it didn’t crash for 24hrs. Save profile one (and either take a photo of the settings or write them down) and you’re good to go.

dude thanks a bunch you guys have really reassured me to go ahead with the update...thanks so much for your help

mrsim · 6 Oct 2018 at 21:14

ok so i didn't go ahead yet as i can find no way to reset the CPU back to stock settings...i attempted to follow a guide online but it advises me to use the CPU multiplier feature to reset the CPU back to stock...i can find this feature nowhere in the advanced bios section can anyone maybe point me in the right direction as i really do not want to fudge this up

https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-to-reset-the-cpu-speed-to-the-correct-values

pastymuncher · 7 Oct 2018 at 13:28

Either clear cmos or set to optimum settings. Both will reset all settings to the bios default. Don't forget to back up the profiles or write down your settings first.

mrsim · 7 Oct 2018 at 14:49

pastymuncher said:
Either clear cmos or set to optimum settings. Both will reset all settings to the bios default. Don't forget to back up the profiles or write down your settings first.

this is the issue i am having...in the bios profile settings there is an option to save to usb but as you can see in the pics i posted above this saves the file as an 'MsOcFile.ocb' on the usb stick i am not sure if the actual profile has been saved or not as the only option to save from the profile options is 'oc profile save to usb' i do not know if profile 1 was saved as there is no option in profile 1 to save to usb...sorry for my noobishness but this is my first time attempting to do this and my MB user guide is either bloody terrible and explains nothing not even how to clear cmos whatever that is....@pastymuncher can you explain how to get this done rather than just telling me what i should do...or can anyone actually give some type of tutorial i can follow which puts me more at ease and doesan't make me feel like i am blindly attempting to do stuff...thanks

pastymuncher · 7 Oct 2018 at 19:20

I have no idea how to save a profile to a usb stick on your board so maybe someone that has a MSI board can take you through it. I downloaded your manual and as you said, it doesn't even mention how to back up the bios profiles.

To set the board to optimised defaults go into the bios and press F6, save and exit.

As for clearing cmos, if you turn to page 25 of your manual it gives you a diagram of the board layout with a table of the abbreviations on page 26. Immediately to the right of the motherboard battery you can see a two pin jumper labelled JBAT1. That is your cmos jumper. You should have a very small plastic jumper that goes on those two pins in your motherboard box which shorts the pins out and clears the bios. If you can't find it then a screwdriver or anything metal will do the same thing, just make sure that there is no power to the board and you only short those two pine. You can also clear it by removing the battery for a few minutes, again make sure no power is going to the board.

mrsim · 7 Oct 2018 at 20:34

@pastymuncher
thanks again for a more detailed explanation...i was bricking it to carry on without first being reassured,(would have ordered you an uber to be here to hold my hand...LOL),so the box had no jumper so i had to pull the battery which managed to do the trick then decided to clean my machine whilst i was inside it...and like the noob that i am decided why not change the thermal paste on my kraken cooler and CPU so cleaned off the old gunk...could i find my thermal paste...HAHAHA...so with half an hour to spare i had to shoot over to PC world and get an emergency tube will order some grizzly later and replace asap...so finally i decided to go aheadafter cleaning everything...put the battery back into the MB...switched it on....and....it booted no problems with the CPU back to normal stock settings...so i booted into the bios and flashed the updated bios...machine booted again no problems...next back to the bios once more and to the supposed saved profiles on my usb stick,(i also didn't know how to save the set profile so i just tried what was on offer like in my pics above),...attempted to load the saved profile and the MB told me in no uncertain terms to **** off...LOL..so i thought ok i had taken pics of the overclocked settings with my phone let me apply these and see if it works,(by this time i was so overconfident i was feeling like i was 8pack..haha),so with the old settings applied i rebooted and voila everything is working,(he says whilst wiping sweat from his forehead),i will keep an eye on the temps with my cam software...whats funny is on stock and idle i was showing 21' degrees lovely and cold after applying the overclock settings i am now sitting at around 31' degrees idle...i guess this is acceptable or should i now play around with voltages and see if i can drop temps without losing any clock speed...and of course how do i go about doing that my jedi master...your young padawan awaits...also thank you so much for all of the help so far...bloddy awesome of you to take the time and for your patience with me

pastymuncher · 8 Oct 2018 at 10:17

The flash did actually erase the saved overclock profiles then? I knew it would reset the bios settings but wasn't sure that it would erase the profiles which is why I said to write everything down. So from stock settings to overclocked settings you have a 10 degree rise in temps at idle? It sounds like the voltage and/or clockspeed isn't dropping at idle. If you download and fire up cpu-z what does it say the clockspeed and voltage is at idle (give it a couple of minutes once fired up to give the board a chance to go into idle)?

mrsim · 8 Oct 2018 at 19:06

pastymuncher said:
The flash did actually erase the saved overclock profiles then? I knew it would reset the bios settings but wasn't sure that it would erase the profiles which is why I said to write everything down. So from stock settings to overclocked settings you have a 10 degree rise in temps at idle? It sounds like the voltage and/or clockspeed isn't dropping at idle. If you download and fire up cpu-z what does it say the clockspeed and voltage is at idle (give it a couple of minutes once fired up to give the board a chance to go into idle)?

not sure where the voltages are in CPU-Z but here is a screen shot after a few minutes idle
EDIT: found HW monitor from cpuid which seems to be what is needed

and also from CAM

pastymuncher · 8 Oct 2018 at 19:51

In cpu-z your voltage is shown in the box labelled Core Voltage and is showing as 1.392v which seems rather high for only 4.5Ghz. I would expect it to be more in the 1.32-1.35v region. It would seem that the voltage and clockspeed isn't dropping at idle which is why your temps are now 10 degrees higher. I don't know my way around a MSI bios at all and no doubt some settings have different names than my Asus bios but I will try to help although you would be better off with someone who is familiar with MSI's bios.

Let's have a go at sorting the clockspeed first as that's usually pretty simple. When you set the multiplier to 45x I presume it had a setting to apply to all cores? There should be one close to it for setting the minimum multiplier which should be set to 8x. That and setting the power options to balanced in windows (type control panel in windows search, then click on Power Options and set to balanced) should have the clocks dropping to 800mhz at idle again. Fire up cpu-z and give the pc a couple of minutes to settle down and hopefully it will show the cpu running at 800mhz.

The voltage is more complicated as you have to apply it as a offset or adaptive voltage and I couldn't get this to stick at what I set it to on my own board let alone a board that I don't know my war around it's bios but I will try. Basically to set a offset you take the stock voltage and subtract it from the voltage you need for your overclock and the result is what you need to set the offset. Say you have a stock voltage of 1.226v (probably not far off actually) then you subtract that from your 1.392v that gives you a difference of 0.166v so that is what you set the offset to. To find out your stock voltage you need to reset everything to stock again. Save your current settings as a profile and then select load optimised defaults, save and reboot into windows. Fire up cpu-z and write down the Core Voltage which should hopefully be around that 1.226v mark (it may be more or it may be less). You will need to put some load on it if it is showing something around the 0.892v mark. That will be your stock voltage. Go back into the bios and load up your overclock profile again. Go into your settings and subtract the stock core voltage that you just got and subtract that from the 1.392v you need for the overclock. Change Vcore mode from Fixed to Offset and then in the box that has now appeared enter the difference as a offset, save and reboot. Fire up cpu-z again, put some load on the cpu and double check the max voltage. Hopefully it will be 1.392v. If it's higher then I have got it wrong and you should reset it to your fixed 1.392v and I will try to find a overclocking guide for your board.