updating bios on skylake MSI board

[mrsim]

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

 

[mrsim]

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

 

[mrsim]

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

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]

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

 

[mrsim]

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...???

 

[mrsim]

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]

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

 

[mrsim]

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

 

[mrsim]

@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

 

[mrsim]

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

 

[mrsim]

TBH i just copied the settings i had taken pics of from the OCuK profile that they had set up remember you are talking to a noob so when you say things like "when you set the multiplier to 45x" i go looking in the bios and i don't see what you are saying...i think it did show something along those lines in regards to 'apply to all cores' when i set it to 45 but in all honesty i cannot remember...i will leave some screen shots of the bios as it is ATM...i attempted to save something but as you can see from the screen shots it doesn't seem to be as simple as that from my profile settings as although i set all the settings based off of pictures i took navigating even the profile parts of this board are throwing me because i don't remember saving the setup as a profile or even being prompted to do so...yes you will see that there are apparently the old OC profiles listed but the system tells me that they do not exist when i attempt to use them so not sure why they are there





CPU features below which i also copied over from pictures below



and here is what happens when i attempt to save the current settings...not sure if it is saving the current settings or not as it creates a file (MsOcFile) a file which i also have from attempting to save the profile last time before the updated bios was installed on my usb stick









and below if i type 'NO' it will start the save process all over again i have yet to type yes as if my memory serves me correctly this file also refuses to load into the bios as well

 

[mrsim]

unfortunately the OC bios seems to be missing even though it's showing up in the profiles section when i try to load it it throws some dodgy message at me that it's not actually in the profiles...odd i know...anyways i will attempt to follow a couple of OC guides for this chipset and board,(sort of),maybe they will work ok i regards to keeping it stable with decent temps at 4.5ghz

this was the best one so far
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bjrKFiIWlU

 

[mrsim]

so i followed this guys guide in the video in my last post and decided to experiment and leave the voltages at stock and clock in 4.6 suprisingly,(havn't stressed tested yet),am hitting 800mhz on idle with around 26'/27' degrees...looking ok am off to work in an hour,(school bus driver),so will attempt a test for a little while when i get home...i guess this guy was using an older bios seeing as the video was uploaded a little while back..also i think a different board slightly...but the principle are the same no...?

 

[mrsim]

what do you recommend i set it too or do you think i should drop down to 4.5 again

 

[mrsim]

what do you recommend i set it too or do you think i should drop down to 4.5 again

crap...LOL so much for noobish experimentation...LOL after clearing cmos here are the stock info settings with no overclock i also cleared all of the profiles as they seem to be doing nothing...i thought i had named some profiles like stock and the 4.6 OC but the names and profiles didn't seem to stick for some strange reason...i purposfully saved a stock profile to load if needed yet once again the save feature on this board is terrible...bloody odd as OcUK seemed to be able to do it no problem...LOL

below are the stock 4.0 voltages what i did notice was that this stock voltage of 1.304 changed after updating the bios,(can't remember what the original one was before i updated i just remember noticing that this was different)...is that normal as i did clear cmos before updating

 

[mrsim]

With regards to the stock voltage changing after the bios update, did it increase or decrease? A lot of the time early bios version can overvolt the cpu and they fix this by adjusting it when they launch a new bios.

if i remember i think it decreased which is why i remember noticing it

 

[mrsim]

so i figured what the hey and set my CPU to 4.5ghz and set a voltage of 1.34 and all seems to be ok so far...what say you... ???

 

[mrsim]

That's more like it. Downclocking and dropping voltage at idle too.

yes seems much better now and all i did was just adjust those two aformentioned parameters no offsets or anything else...also hopefully the profile also saved although saving said profiles to usb or in general still seems an issue...LOL...but am happy until i manage to get my first build up and running...just funds holding me back for that one

and once again thank you for all your support and help...very much appreciated mate

 

[mrsim]

crappy dappy do dah....i think my kraken X62 might be up the blink...fell asleep watching netflix and woke up in the morning and the PC had put itself to sleep,which is unusual as it should still be on i set it to sleep after an ammount of hours,didn't think nothing of it...then in the afternoon went to turn it on and all the fans kicked in full blast sounded loud as hell....once the screen had kicked up i noticed that my CPU temp was puching 80c plus and at that point i started sweating,rebooted and the same thing happened again only this time it was pushing close to 100c,so did the usual popped off the AIO...cleaned and replaced the thermal paste and same thing again...so i thought maybe it's the crappy thermal paste i got from PC World...went up to my local PC shop and he gave me a dolop of his thermal grizzly...same thing again only this time it looked like it had cooked the thermal paste off of the CPU and AIO altogether the temps were so hot again pushing 100c so not sure how to test an AIO to see if it's working or not i put back my original CPU alpenfon broken II cooler and temps seem to be back to normal...anyone know how i can go about testing my AIO to see if it's broken...unfortunately i do not have another PC here to test it on and when i attach it to this PC it overheats so much it actually crashed the PC and shuts down just after boot up...is it a dead AIO or fixable...the lights on it still work,the fans still rotate so i guess it must be the pump which is faulty

 

[mrsim]

You should just be able to connect the pump power lead to test it. If it's working you should feel some vibration or hear the pump spinning. if it has a tcho lead connect it to a motherboard fan header and read what rpm the pump is spinning at. All this should be achieveable with the Kraken out of the system.

sounds like a plan...just one question where do i see these pump RPM readings will CPUID or the cam softwear show this just by pluging in the pumps power lead...???