MSI X99S Gaming 7 Motherboard - Recovery

[JrClocker]

I figured I would post my experience here in case somebody has the same issue that I did...

Last night I was playing around with various memory overclock settings on my motherboard. Lucky me, I found a combination that caused my motherboard to get into an endless reboot cycle...would not even post into bios.

Fearing that I had bricked my motherboard bios, I decided to try the following:

1. Powered off the computer
2. I hit the "OC Genie" button on the motherboard (which was a PIA as I had to remove my 2nd graphics card as it covers up these buttons)
3. Power on computer...it started the post process.
4. When I got into BIOS, I turned off the "OC Genie" through the BIOS option
5. I loaded a stable overclock setting
6. Saved and rebooted...the motherboard posted
7. Got into BIOS and turned off computer
8. Turned off the "OC Genie" button on the motherboard, reinstalled the graphics card, rebooted
9. Went into BIOS and reloaded my stable overclock setting

Phew...didn't brick the BIOS.

Not sure if this will work for other MSI motherboards, but it kept me from having to do anything fancy.

I hope this helps someone!

 

[EarthDog]

Sounds convoluted? Any time I was in a boot loop, I just reset CMOS and pulled the battery for a few minutes... put the battery back in, voila!

 

[Mandrake4565]

Sounds convoluted? Any time I was in a boot loop, I just reset CMOS and pulled the battery for a few minutes... put the battery back in, voila!

This^^^^^ It's hard to bork a BIOS, the only times I've done so were when messing with my Ram.

 

[EarthDog]

That is the one caveat with MSI boards, their BIOS likes to corrupt a bit more frequently it feels. Don't worry, the XPower has two.

 

[JrClocker]

Yeah - the process was convoluted...but I made it up on the spot and it worked!

I was originally looking for the CMOS battery when I saw the "OC Genie" button and said "hrmmmm...".

The motherboard has 2 bios slots as well...just didn't go there as this worked!

 

[Mandrake4565]

That is the one caveat with MSI boards, their BIOS likes to corrupt a bit more frequently it feels. Don't worry, the XPower has two.

Now you tell me

 

[EarthDog]

Well, truth be told, that was early out of the gate with previous generations. In overclocking the BCLK and memory with that board, I had ZERO issues. Hopefully they turned the page on that...

 

[Woomack]

I don't know if you know but most new motherboards automatically enable "safe mode" when you hold power button for couple of seconds or push power button and then instantly push it again and hold for couple of seconds. After that you get info that board couldn't boot or overclocking failed and it runs at default settings. When you enter BIOS then you see previous settings that couldn't boot.
It's much faster way to reset BIOS without clearing all settings.

On some boards boot fail count is set to 3 tries ( ASRock ) or you can change it manually. On latest ASUS boards have to shut down board 2-3 times holding power for 4-5 seconds till BIOS enable default settings or can use buttons on board. I don't remember how it was set on X99 MSI but on Z170 MSI 1-2 tries are working.

It's also usefull when you are overclocking something that freezes just after boot or when you are entering BIOS. Board sees it as successful boot so it won't enable default settings.

Regarding BIOS corruption on X99 MSI ... on one of my boards BIOS instantly died when I set 172 bclk+. When I was in the middle of RMA process but I was still using that board then 2nd BIOS chip died. MSI didn't know how to fix it so I got new board. It's still working in my friend's PC but he is not setting high bclk
Dual BIOS is almost never working good for some reason. On Gigabyte Z87 I had corrupted 1st BIOS chip and it caused additional issues on 2nd chip. At the end both were damaged. On Z97 I couldn't make recovery so one of the BIOS chips wasn't working.
I also had 2 new ASUS boards with already dead one of the BIOS chips. On one of them 2nd BIOS died after 3-4 months of mainly benching. Even though both BIOSes had issues then support fixed only one of them.
It's maybe only my experience but I barely see any difference if board has 1 or 2 BIOS chips. Personally I like much more 1 BIOS + recovery like ASUS has from flash drive.

 

[Mandrake4565]

I don't know if you know but most new motherboards automatically enable "safe mode" when you hold power button for couple of seconds or push power button and then instantly push it again and hold for couple of seconds. After that you get info that board couldn't boot or overclocking failed and it runs at default settings. When you enter BIOS then you see previous settings that couldn't boot.
It's much faster way to reset BIOS without clearing all settings.

On some boards boot fail count is set to 3 tries ( ASRock ) or you can change it manually. On latest ASUS boards have to shut down board 2-3 times holding power for 4-5 seconds till BIOS enable default settings or can use buttons on board. I don't remember how it was set on X99 MSI but on Z170 MSI 1-2 tries are working.

It's also usefull when you are overclocking something that freezes just after boot or when you are entering BIOS. Board sees it as successful boot so it won't enable default settings.

Regarding BIOS corruption on X99 MSI ... on one of my boards BIOS instantly died when I set 172 bclk+. When I was in the middle of RMA process but I was still using that board then 2nd BIOS chip died. MSI didn't know how to fix it so I got new board. It's still working in my friend's PC but he is not setting high bclk
Dual BIOS is almost never working good for some reason. On Gigabyte Z87 I had corrupted 1st BIOS chip and it caused additional issues on 2nd chip. At the end both were damaged. On Z97 I couldn't make recovery so one of the BIOS chips wasn't working.
I also had 2 new ASUS boards with already dead one of the BIOS chips. On one of them 2nd BIOS died after 3-4 months of mainly benching. Even though both BIOSes had issues then support fixed only one of them.
It's maybe only my experience but I barely see any difference if board has 1 or 2 BIOS chips. Personally I like much more 1 BIOS + recovery like ASUS has from flash drive.

I'm sending you a rabbits foot Woomack.