MSI B550 플래시백 - MSI B550 peullaesibaeg

  • #1

Hi,
I recently purchased a B550 Tomahawk to be used with an AMD 5800 and an MSI RTX 3080. The bios simply refuses to flash with a usb drive, and I am at my wits end as to what to do. I don’t have any older AM4 cpu so updating the bios that way is a no go.
I’ve reset the CMOS by removing the watch battery and draining it of any power, and have plugged in only the power supply to the cpu power and main power.
I’ve tried downloading two different bioses to four different usb drives all formatted to FAT32 (128Mb, 4Gb, 8Gb, 16Gb) With the file renamed to MSI.ROM.
Each time, after I hit the flash bios button, the LED flashes 16-22 times (depending on which Thumb drive is connected) after which the Main LEDs on the board turn on, and the light flashes 5 more times and then stops.
If anyone has any idea what the issue might be I’d greatly appreciate it, I’m starting to think I might have a defective board, which would be sad.

MSI B550 플래시백 - MSI B550 peullaesibaeg

  • #2

Some directions for you
I only use USB 3.0 drives of a known brand not mystery drives.
It appears that cheap mystery drives may be problematic.
FOR FAILED BIOS FLASH
PC must be turned off for BIOS Flashback to be started do not turn on your PC the Bios Flashback will do it for you
If that Fails see directions below.
Following Directions are for windows based OS
Right Click on the Downloaded Bios Zip File, if you see the message this file is blocked by windows tick the box to unblock and click OK.
When in windows File Explorer make sure that you select the View tab and Tick the box Show Hidden Files and File Name Extensions.
Extract the BIOS file from the Downloaded ZIP file Open the folder it was extracted to.
Right click on the BIOS file, select copy and then paste it into a USB drive Formatted to FAT32,
When in Windows File Explorer make sure that you select the View Tab and Tick the box Show Hidden Files and File Name Extension.
Now rename the BIOS file to MSI.ROM
There should be no other files or folders on the USB drive, just the BIOS file you have renamed to MSI.ROM

OK turn off and PSU and remove the power cord. Carefully take the PC apart remove all the components from the case as well as the Motherboard Place on a cardboard box or insulated surface, and plug in the 24 pin and the CPU power plugs for the Motherboard. Do not plug in any other leads to the board.
Plug in and turn on the PSU
Wait about 2 minutes before next step just in case there is a power on and off cycle when you turn on the PSU
Plug the USB Drive in to the USB port just below the Bios Button,
Do not touch any Jumpers on the Motherboard
Push the FlashBack button and then release it,
About 5 seconds later a led just above the USB port will start to flash, after 15 seconds of so the speed of the flashing light will double this is the writing to the BIOS period.
Once done writing to the it will stop flashing and PSU will turn off
For 16MB BIOS it will take about 4 to 5 minutes, and flashing stops.
For 32MB BIOS it will take 6 to 7 minutes, and flashing stops.
People have said that it may turn back on if so just turn off and unplug the PSU.
And Bios should be flashed if just one of these steps does not happen it is a failed flash.

Just to check out if the MB even understands the drive itself I have also made some testing:
Wrong file format: (Ie. ExFAT, NTFS etc) the drive flashes, but no power to the motherboard.
Wrong file name: The USB drive led flashes few times, the flash LED flashes few times, but no power to the motherboard
Correct file format and name but other error: the USB LED flashes few times, The flash LED flashes few times, power turns on, USB flashes again few times, flash LED flashes two times and then turns on and stays on.
Successfull flash: same as above except flashing keeps on for several minutes, until the flash LED stays off

I always strip any partitions out of USB drives when I buy them, Delete the partition or Volume and then make a new simple volume and Format to FAT32 I do this with every USB drive I get as I detest the formatting and software on them done by the Manufacturers is more trouble than they are worth.

I Normally do this with Windows Disk Manager

However if you are having trouble Deleting the Partitions on you USB drive or you have a failed attempt pleas download and use Partition Magic to remove all partitions on the USB and then create a new a single partition formatted to FAT32

MSI B550 플래시백 - MSI B550 peullaesibaeg

  • #3

What is your LED status like? Does it stay on or just go off after 5 blink?

  • #4

The LED just shuts off after the five blinks, and never reaches the point where it blinks faster indicating the BIOS is writing. I think it is having difficulty recognizing the BIOS on the drive, but I have tried every drive that anyone I live with owns and have reformatted all of them to FAT32.

  • #5

Some directions for you
I only use USB 3.0 drives of a known brand not mystery drives.
It appears that cheap mystery drives may be problematic.
FOR FAILED BIOS FLASH
PC must be turned off for BIOS Flashback to be started do not turn on your PC the Bios Flashback will do it for you
If that Fails see directions below.
Following Directions are for windows based OS
Right Click on the Downloaded Bios Zip File, if you see the message this file is blocked by windows tick the box to unblock and click OK.
When in windows File Explorer make sure that you select the View tab and Tick the box Show Hidden Files and File Name Extensions.
Extract the BIOS file from the Downloaded ZIP file Open the folder it was extracted to.
Right click on the BIOS file, select copy and then paste it into a USB drive Formatted to FAT32,
When in Windows File Explorer make sure that you select the View Tab and Tick the box Show Hidden Files and File Name Extension.
Now rename the BIOS file to MSI.ROM
There should be no other files or folders on the USB drive, just the BIOS file you have renamed to MSI.ROM

OK turn off and PSU and remove the power cord. Carefully take the PC apart remove all the components from the case as well as the Motherboard Place on a cardboard box or insulated surface, and plug in the 24 pin and the CPU power plugs for the Motherboard. Do not plug in any other leads to the board.
Plug in and turn on the PSU
Wait about 2 minutes before next step just in case there is a power on and off cycle when you turn on the PSU
Plug the USB Drive in to the USB port just below the Bios Button,
Do not touch any Jumpers on the Motherboard
Push the FlashBack button and then release it,
About 5 seconds later a led just above the USB port will start to flash, after 15 seconds of so the speed of the flashing light will double this is the writing to the BIOS period.
Once done writing to the it will stop flashing and PSU will turn off
For 16MB BIOS it will take about 4 to 5 minutes, and flashing stops.
For 32MB BIOS it will take 6 to 7 minutes, and flashing stops.
People have said that it may turn back on if so just turn off and unplug the PSU.
And Bios should be flashed if just one of these steps does not happen it is a failed flash.

I always strip any partitions out of USB drives when I buy them, Delete the partition or Volume and then make a new simple volume and Format to FAT32 I do this with every USB drive I get as I detest the formatting and software on them done by the Manufacturers is more trouble than they are worth.

I Normally do this with Windows Disk Manager

However if you are having trouble Deleting the Partitions on you USB drive or you have a failed attempt pleas download and use Partition Magic to remove all partitions on the USB and then create a new a single partition formatted to FAT32View attachment 144274

I have done all of this, except I didn't think to check the partitioning. I'll try that and reply if it works, thanks.
edit - All my drives only have one partition so that isn't the issue.

Last edited: Dec 29, 2020

MSI B550 플래시백 - MSI B550 peullaesibaeg

  • #6

just for giggles Reformat one of the Drives to NTFS and put the BIOS on it and see if it accepts it like that

MSI B550 플래시백 - MSI B550 peullaesibaeg

  • #7

This doesn't get mentioned much, but most people do not go into Windows 10's File Explorer options and change things. You have to go in to Windows 10 File Explorer by right-clicking the Start Menu and click "File Explorer". Then the "View" tab, then "Options" all the way to the right. With a new window that pops up, click on the "View" tab and then UN-check the option that says "Hide extensions for known file types". Click Apply, OK, etc.

What's happening is if you don't do that, you are actually naming the ROM file MSI.ROM.123 because you can't see the extension after the dot. You need to be able to see the full file name so that you can rename it properly to just MSI.ROM. Many people are having this issue thinking it's a USB stick or any other number of other problems. But this is an easy fix.

  • #8

I'm having the same problem and I know for a fact that I did everything right but I'm really not sure why this sis happening. Is there any way I could resolve this without having to return the board?

and if I were to try to cancel the process what would i do? just turn off my psu?