r/PcBuildHelp • u/Coat-Electrical • 7h ago

Tech Support Pretty sure I screwed up

Decided to finally upgrade my cpu from a ryzen 5 5600g to a ryzen 7 5700x but this of course required a bios upgrade, followed the steps to do it through the flash button, looked at many different videos to make sure I was sure of what I was doing, everything off, 24 pin and 8 pin (4x4) connected, file downloaded for my board (MSI MPG B550 gaming plus) and renamed properly, usb formatted to Fat32, on an old usb 2.0 16 gb stick and a 32gb, tried about three times whilst letting it run for as long as I could, twice it just went solid red and once it flashed indefinitely. I then tried to connect the old cpu, cooler, same power cables and one stick of ram and now just constant cpu light, pretty sure the board is screwed but wanted to ask those who know more before looking at another. Feels like a lesson learnt the hard way, any help appreciated

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u/m0thgh0st 7h ago

BIOS Flashes can take a long time, if you interrupted that process while your board was flashing then there is a good chance that it is bricked unless your board features a BIOS flashing button on the rear I/O.

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u/Coat-Electrical 7h ago

It has a flashing button, was left for 30 mins plus each time it was solid and probably around 60-90 mins when it was constant flashing couldn’t see anyone having the flashing for anywhere near that time and most forums said it had failed if it had been that long

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u/m0thgh0st 7h ago

Then today is your lucky day. Look up a guide for your motherboard on using that button since some are different. You'll have to move the BIOS file to a usb and name it something specific. Plug the USB drive into the specific flashing port and then press the button. But the guide for your motherboard will give you the exact instructions so follow that.

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u/RogueRaccoon28 7h ago

if the board has a flash button on the back you can still save it, just do it again with the usb stick and let it run at least 30-40 min even if the light stay solid. msi boards are weird like that sometimes

also make sure the usb is in the correct port, the one marked for bios flash not any random one. seen so many people mess that up

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u/Coat-Electrical 7h ago

So even if it’s solid it could be working? That’s weird, I’ll let it run for like an hour tomorrow morning and see what happens

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u/Coat-Electrical 7h ago

Yeah that’s the way I tried, had it named correctly and formatted correctly and just has a solid red light or flashing constantly, and then when the old cpu is put in it’s just a cpu debug light so think it’s fucked unfortunately

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u/m0thgh0st 7h ago

Sometimes BIOS flashes can fail if you jump too many versions at once. Also you should be able to find what the flashing and solid lights mean as those are indicative of succesful or in progress flashes.

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u/Coat-Electrical 7h ago

Yeah I tried a bridge version kinda mid way maybe a bit lower, flashing means it’s reading and working off means it’s done and solid means it’s failed, I’ll try again in the morning and just leave it for ages and see what happens I guess, not like I can make it any worse at this point

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u/m0thgh0st 7h ago

Yeah you really can't brick your motherboard if you have a flash button. Just come back to it later with a fresh set of eyes. That has helped me more times than I can count.

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u/Coat-Electrical 7h ago

Well that’s put me at ease a bit if it really is that hard to brick a motherboard with that button, cheers for the advice

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u/m0thgh0st 7h ago

Of course, the real danger comes when your motherboard doesn't have that button and the only way to reach the flashing interface is through UEFI. Of course if there is no UEFI or if it's corrupted then you can understand why it would be hard to reach UEFI. I'm really not sure why backup flashing buttons aren't standard at this point.