How to check your motherboard bios and update if need be

[mattamomo]

Hello
I have ordered a B350 Tomahawk and have never adopted this early in before so I have no idea what the process is to make sure when you are building a new PC the bios is up to date.
I don't want to brick anything do any help is appreciated

 

[neblogai]

1. Go to your motherboard page at MSI, go to 'service' tab. There, you will find information what is supported on your mobo, drivers, applications, as well as bioses. It should be here- doublecheck to be sure it is your motherboard: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/B350-TOMAHAWK.html#down-bios
2. Download latest bios. Do not download previous bios- people have problems with it. Right now, latest one is 7A34v13, with AGESA to 1.0.0.4a update
3. At the same page, at the very bottom, are guides how to flash it.

 

[DRagor]

You should update BIOS only when something is not working. If all system boots without problem, you know you have BIOS you need. Keeping BIOS 'up to date' is not good idea - it is not a driver.
If you want to find out what exactly BIOS version your board has, just note down it's serial number and contact MSI customer support - they should be able to tell you that exactly.

 

[Mister_MO]

You should update BIOS only when something is not working. If all system boots without problem, you know you have BIOS you need. Keeping BIOS 'up to date' is not good idea - it is not a driver.
If you want to find out what exactly BIOS version your board has, just note down it's serial number and contact MSI customer support - they should be able to tell you that exactly.

Wrong, that is true only for intel platform. As this is amd new platform every bios update increases compatibility and stability by quite large margin. Just memory support went from 2666mhz average in first release to 3200mhz average in last one. So in his case bios update is needed. You don't know what bios version he have but it is quite possible to have older one.

 

[mattamomo]

You should update BIOS only when something is not working. If all system boots without problem, you know you have BIOS you need. Keeping BIOS 'up to date' is not good idea - it is not a driver.
If you want to find out what exactly BIOS version your board has, just note down it's serial number and contact MSI customer support - they should be able to tell you that exactly.

I did mean to expand on that, I heard some of the earlier bios's were very poor. The Tomahawk was sold out most places and awaiting stock so the fact I ordered one i would assume was from the previous stock which might be problematic if it has an earlier bios.

I didn't know you could check through MSI so I will do that. I haven't put the build together yet so can't know for certain if it will run problem free. I wanted to make sure I had everything ready before I start putting it together so will contact MSI.

You should update BIOS only when something is not working. If all system boots without problem, you know you have BIOS you need. Keeping BIOS 'up to date' is not good idea - it is not a driver.
If you want to find out what exactly BIOS version your board has, just note down it's serial number and contact MSI customer support - they should be able to tell you that exactly.

Wrong, that is true only for intel platform. As this is amd new platform every bios update increases compatibility and stability by quite large margin. Just memory support went from 2666mhz average in first release to 3200mhz average in last one. So in his case bios update is needed. You don't know what bios version he have but it is quite possible to have older one.

That is my worry. I have Trident Z 3200 CL16 RAM that I believe is Samsung E die which has been harder to run at faster speeds on earlier bios

 

[DRagor]

You should update BIOS only when something is not working. If all system boots without problem, you know you have BIOS you need. Keeping BIOS 'up to date' is not good idea - it is not a driver.
If you want to find out what exactly BIOS version your board has, just note down it's serial number and contact MSI customer support - they should be able to tell you that exactly.

Wrong, that is true only for intel platform. As this is amd new platform every bios update increases compatibility and stability by quite large margin. Just memory support went from 2666mhz average in first release to 3200mhz average in last one. So in his case bios update is needed. You don't know what bios version he have but it is quite possible to have older one.

Does not matter what platform it is: if it works as it should, you don't update BIOS. Plain and simple.

 

[mattamomo]

So checking on my system summary the bios says American megatrends 1.00.

I am about to try and increase my RAM speed as it is stuck very low but I assume I will need to update my bios.

 

[Mister_MO]

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/B350-TOMAHAWK.html#down-bios
Version 1.0 is release version, so i being your would update as there is improved memory compatibility and ryzen5 optimization.

 

[mattamomo]

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/B350-TOMAHAWK.html#down-bios
Version 1.0 is release version, so i being your would update as there is improved memory compatibility and ryzen5 optimization.

I'm slightly worried about how to set up a bootable pen drive.
I used something called Rufus but that left it with multiple files on where as MSIs demonstration video had nothing on the drive.

 

[Mister_MO]

You shouldn't need bootable drive, just download and extract bios to usb flash and then in bios select m-flash. On that link is pdf file (SOP download) that shows you how to do it.

 

[mattamomo]

You shouldn't need bootable drive, just download and extract bios to usb flash and then in bios select m-flash. On that link is pdf file (SOP download) that shows you how to do it.

So if I format the drive, because I don't know what Rufus did to it, shall I just set it to defaults (FAT)?

 

[Mister_MO]

It shouldn't matter as long as it is not ntfs but most of time you just go with fat32 to be sure.