MSI X870E Tomahawk Wifi

BIOS Flashing Procedure

USB Flash Drive Requirements

You'll need a 32GB or less USB 2.0 flash drive with an MBR (otherwise known as "msdos) partion table and formatted as FAT32. A quick way to tell is to look at the connector. It should have black plastic.

Formatting the USB Flash Drive

This step is only required of your drive is not formatted as FAT32.

Use DiskPart (Windows) or GParted (Linux) to create the partition table and format the drive. You may have to delete the existing partition before you can create a new one. Note that both require administrator permissions to use. Be very careful. Be sure you've selected the correct disk.

DiskPart


LIST DISK
SELECT DISK x
CLEAN
CONVERT MBR
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
FORMAT FS=FAT32 QUICK
EXIT

Gparted

In Gparted you queue up operations to perform on a drive then apply the operations by clicking the check button, or Edit -> Apply All Operation, or CTRL-RETURN.

Ensure the drive is unmounted in File Explorer. If it has no eject button it isn't mounted.
Run GParted and use the dropdown upper right to select the flash drive
If a partition exists delete it.
Create an "msdos" partition table using Device -> Create partition table.
Create a FAT32 partition.
Format the FAT32 partition.

The BIOS Update File

Download the BIOS file from MSI. Ensure that the zip filename matches the motherboard model number shown in your BIOS (assume 7E59v2xxx where xxx is the BIOS version), otherwise it won't work. Extract/copy the BIOS file (E7E59AMSI.2AC4 at the time of this writing) to the USB flash drive root folder.

Flashing BIOS

Plug the USB flash drive into a USB port.

Reboot and either press CTRL-F5 at the BIOS screen or DEL to go into BIOS, then enter M-FLASH mode.

Select the file to flash on the USB flash drive. As soon as you press YES the system will appear to hang for several minutes. Look at the digital display. If it is displaying 02 then you're good; it's just checking the file. The flash will begin after the file is checked.

Notes

From what I've read you should only use the flash button on the back (with the USB flash drive in the red Flash BIOS Port) if you're working with the motherboard before various components are added to it. If you try to use the flash BIOS button on a built system it will turn on, do some BIOS checks, then turn off. It will not flash this way with components installed.

There is a bug I've been experiencing on my motherboard. On reboot it has a tendency to hang on certain checks, but shutting down and restarting all checks pass. I think it's either a bug in the BIOS software or a hardware incompatibility. Either way it's not a big issue, but thought I would mention it.