How to Flash MSI BIOS
Flashing the BIOS on your MSI mainboard may be necessary if your computer is not running correctly or if more recent BIOS versions address issues with your computer. You can flash the MSI BIOS through a utility in Windows provided for free by MSI or by manually downloading the correct BIOS file, creating and booting to a bootable floppy disk and flashing the BIOS through a DOS prompt.
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Instructions
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Flashing Through Windows
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Download and install the MSI Live Update program available for free at http://www.msi.com.
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Run the Live Update program and select the "Live Update" button located at the top of the window. Make sure that "Automatic update" is checked and then click the "Search" button located near the lower left of the window. The program will search for any available BIOS updates for your particular motherboard automatically.
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Check the box with BIOS listed as the type and click the "Download" button. Once the application finishes downloading your BIOS update, click the "Save Path" button to go to the location the update was downloaded.
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Close all open applications and then launch the update program previously downloaded. Follow the prompts that appear on screen. Once the application finishes flashing your BIOS the computer will restart.
Flashing Manually With A Floppy Disk
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Determine the model of your MSI motherboard, for example MS-4567. The model number is on the motherboard user guide and on the motherboard itself, usually located somewhere near the PCI slots.
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Navigate to msi.com and select MSI Global as your location choice. Then select the Mainboard button underneath the Products drop-down.
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Run a product search for the model of your motherboard. In the search results, select the Downloads tab. Select the Bios button for the model of your particular motherboard from the results.
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Download the zip file of the most recent driver and extract the contents to c:\bios. Write down the file names of the executable file and any other non-.txt or .doc file.
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Place the empty floppy disk in the floppy drive and navigate to My Computer. Right-click the A: drive and select Format. In the window that opens check "Create an MS-DOS start up disk" and click format.
After Formatting Floppy Disk
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Boot your computer to the A: drive by restarting. By default most computers will try to boot to the A: drive first but if your computer ends up booting to Windows then you need to edit the BIOS settings to make it boot to the A: drive before it boots to the hard disk. If successful you will come to a prompt that reads A:\.
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Type the following commands at the prompt:
cd c:\bios <enter>
c: <enter>
<executable filename> <bios update filename> <enter>
Type the filenames without the "<" or ">" characters. The executable filename and the bios update filename are the filenames that you wrote down earlier.
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Run through the prompts that appear after executing the program and wait for the BIOS to finish flashing. When the update finishes, remove the floppy disk and restart the system to boot back to Windows.
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Tips & Warnings
Flash through Windows if you can because it is much easier and there is less of a chance that the motherboard will be damaged.
Do not interrupt the flashing process in either the Windows program or the DOS program or you risk permanently damaging your motherboard.
Even by following the directions exactly there is always a chance the BIOS flash will fail and you could ruin your motherboard.
References
- Photo Credit computer image by peter Hires Images from Fotolia.com
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Comments
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thank you msi.
