Rant A simple BIOS update - that's all it was

Every once in a while I'll buy an MSI motherboard, have a torrid time with it and swear off them. Then, a few years later, I think I see one that looks like good value and I convince myself it'll be alright. This time.

Nope. This is the last one. Ever.

There was a new bios update available so, as I always do, I leave it for a couple of months to make sure they have time to fix any whoopsie releases and then i update.

The update finishes and the system reboots, but it takes about 3-5 minutes to boot to Windows. Maybe it's just some post update jiggery-pokery, I'm sure it'll be fine. Hold on, why it this so loud? The fans are really ramped up.

No bother, the BIOS update probably just cleared the fan curves, I'll nip in there and re-configure...

Yeah... nope. The system isn't POSTing, or rather it is POSTing but very slowly - I can't get into the BIOS/UEFI. Reboot and try again - nope. I let it boot into Windows - five minutes! So, it isn't actually bricked, it just boots really slowly. I decide to be patient and try the BIOS again - took about 8 minutes. Everything is horrifically slow - input lag is off the scale so the mouse pointer is jumping all over the place but creeping it across the screen, a millimetre at a time, finally lets me select functions and check things out - everything is reset but the bios interface runs like a single core under heavy load.

OK then, flashback time - I download the previous BIOS on my laptop, put it on a USB stick and insert it. I painstakingly navigate to BIOS flash utility and select it. Three minutes later is asks me if I want to enter M-Flash. Yes. Another 3-5 minutes and the PC reboots, eventually, into the Flash utility and I select the older BIOS then agree to continue:

BIOS is updating

Don't shutdown or restart the system until update process is complete
Notice! Mouse and keyboard will be locked out during update.

Update progress: 0%

That was half an hour ago - it's now on, let me check.... 0%

It hasn't locked up - the fan speed and temp readouts on the bottom of the screen are fluctuating marginally, so it's just taking it's sweet time..

[Edit] Yep, 90 minutes in and we're at 1%. We'll have this thing ticketty-boo in a little over six days! I ****ing hate MSI.

 

See, that's where you went wrong... right there...

 

No argument here.

It has sped up considerably - a further 2% in the last 30 minutes!

We be flyin' now!

 

Send the bloody thing back.

 

Yeah - I have a mind to, but if I shut it down during the update I'd be intentionally bricking the board. No way are they putting this on me.

 

Been fighting one for a week now. The slow booting thing is usually something usb it doesn't like (in my case a JBL Go! Speaker).

But yeah, it's literally one step at a time fixing things, getting them working and moving on praying you don't need to clear CMOS and start all over again .

I've also wasted £50 on vertical risers that don't work, due to the board not having any extra power connectors for the pcie lanes. On a £450 RRP motherboard.

Asus for me from now on. Or Asrock, if I want the ultimate CPU support.

 

Re: Asrock -- have they got better at making 'boards, or did they get a s**t rep. (in my mind) on the back of a cpl. duff review samples a 'substantial' while ago...?

Gigabyte 'boards are my usual flavour of choice, unless they're a bit steep, cost-wise at the time I 'need to buy'.

 

ASRock did have a rep for being cheap chinesium tat [ECS i believe now have that mantle]... but they have shed it in recent years, they're also the only ones mad enough to do **** like an x299 mITX board...

 

May need to re-evaluate... cheers.
I'm not 'mad enough' to stray from mainstream use cases... Mad (at times), yes - but not that mad.

 

Asrock's bios team are the best on earth. Their boards support every single CPU that will fit the socket, even all of the Xeons and ES. I used to talk to them directly they're a amazingly friendly bunch. I even got a couple of private bios for the 6 core Thubans.

They've come a long way for sure.

 

IIRC, they're also the only ones mad enough to do a TR4 mATX board.

 

Indeed...

 

Yeah I've had that pain before - a forgotten USB hub hanging of the back of the PC causing chaos.

This thing is speeding up now - up to 23% - still, 3.5 hours spent on what should be a five minute task.

Asrock are my first choice but, more often than not, the board I want is never available when I'm ready to buy.

Not a fan of Asus - they make good boards but the prices are stupid and, if you have a problem, the customer support is appalling. Gigabyte have worse BIOS engineers than MSI, if you can believe that.

Yeah, a long time back they did funky little crossover boards that could support newer CPUs with older RAM or boards that supported two types of RAM (although not at the same time obvs) - which was actually a reasonable idea for upgrading when the RAM prices went through the roof.

 

I had one of those P4 boards that supported ddr and DDR2 lol. madness.

 

It's done! Almost four hours, to the minute.

I'm no longer happy with my PC though - this thing will linger in my mind, and piss me off until I replace the board, even though everything appears to be absolutely fine now.

 

My usual problem w/ finding a 'board is based around whether it has the right amount of sockets for the 5.1 speaker setup I use.
When I had a set that used optical S/PDIF, that was the 'must have' that would be the decider.

 

I think that limits you to Asrock then as my penultimate Asus motherboard fried a 4960K (or whatever the 4xxx version of a 5930K was) with a known bug that was never fixed in BIOS.

 

4930K

 

yup screw MSI, would never touch the brand again.

 

Asus has the best build quality. The bioses can be a bit iffy though. They don't support Xeons or ES either unless you buy their WS which are stupid money.

Gigabyte are improving now. Maybe they can get back to their UD3 glory days. that would be nice.

But yeah, Asrock have the best CPU support and after care IMO. They even do requests, if you know who to ask.

Asus are terrible for that. They make really expensive WiFi and sound cards then ditch support after ten minutes. I've got a red WiFi card that was nearly £200 and it won't work at all in Windows 10. Have they fixed it? Nope.