Bios update for G436 (MSI Z490 Plus MB)

Hi.  I purchased the PowerSpec G436 this afternoon and could not find any information on the MS-7C98.   Where would I download the BIOS updates and find more information on this board? I'm not comfortable going to a Chinese website for updates.
Thank you.
Tim

well my problem with the board is that it wont install its own rgb software, probably because the bios is out of date or this board does not exist. Their is no ms-7c98 motherboard on their website and the the link @TSTDavey posted above, for me at least none of the downloadable software(i.e. updates/utilities) work at all. 
it seems microcenter is trying to get rid of old obsolete parts but still charge a premium. 

I just bought this same system and I too am having trouble with the RGB software. It was deleted while trying to install the Dragon Center package and I've tried several times to re-install and I get the same message as fracture 96. Please help as my RGB is stuck on a very fast oscillating pattern and it's painful, seriously I need to cover the glass as it's giving me a headache.

Thanks TSMikeW. Will give it a try and report back.

@DMA

That's not something I've tested and it's fairly likely installing a version of Dragon Center will uninstall the Mystic Light standalone RGB software. What features are you looking for that Dragon Center provides?

downloading the motherboard driver package does not work for me it says dragon center not installed

Sorry to hear this did not work for you. My problem was resolved immediately upon downloading the above package. However I do feel your pain and I'm somewhat of the same thought. The ONLY reason I bought this unit was because of the 3070. I've been searching for the past three months for a decent GPU and they are simply not to be found unless you get really lucky. This system is pretty much like a Frankenstein but it's still better than the Asus computer it's replacing. I couldn't even find a motherboard for that one that would fit in the case. Kinda like a Dell I had years ago. Came time to replace the PSU and the absolute only thing that would fit in that case was, you guessed it, another Dell PSU. 

stm said:

TSMichaelB said:

stm said:

I too need to update the BIOS as I get a Graphical Output Protocol error whenever I boot the PC. Has something to do with UEFI mode. PC will still boot after the error. As otheres have mentioned, the z490 board we have is different than the ones on the MSI USA website, but can we use that BIOS update? I am sure our rtx3070 will perform better with the newest BIOS update. Anyone that has updated the BIOS on this chinese version of the board please let us know which update you used.

Welcome to the community forum. I know a few of you in this thread have inquired about BIOS updates for the MSI Z490 Plus motherboard used in our PowerSpec G436 and have been unable to find the board on MSI's website. This is due to the fact that the board itself is not a  "retail" motherboard. This board is sold exclusively to system integrators for mass production and doesn't have end-user support from MSI on their official support pages.

With that said, your specific error is definitely a concern I would like to address as it should not be present with how the hardware is configured on this system. Typically you would only see this error if you are attempting to use a graphics card that lacked UEFI support on a BIOS with CSM Legacy OP ROM options disabled. Our BIOS has CSM disabled by default, meaning only UEFI devices are supported, however the RTX 3070 graphics card that ships within your system should function perfectly fine with this configuration. If you can provide any details as to when this error started occurring and any changes that may have taken place around the time the error started to appear, we can work together to get to the bottom of it.

As for those of you looking for BIOS updates, I do not anticipate that a BIOS update will be available for this board unless one is required to address a specific security or compatibility issue with the board. For boards like these, we go through a very strict qualification process to make sure everything is working perfectly (USB ports are mapped correctly, secure boot functions properly with/without keys loaded, TPM functions, board/chipset features perform as advertised, etc) and BIOS updates can often break these functions inadvertently.

With that said, I am happy to work with any of you to address any concerns you may have. Should a BIOS update be required to address any concerns, we will explore those options as they come about.

Thank you for the response. I first encountered the Graphical error when I rebooted my PC after owning it for a week. I did not experience it on the initial boot when I first purchased the system. I usually put the PC to sleep and then press the power button to wake. The very first time I rebooted I encountered the issue and have not been able to replicate it again. When it happened my monitor lost connection when the PC power came back on. I had to press and hold the power button multiple times to shut it down, turn it back on, and repeat. After doing this several times I was presented with the Graphical Error. If I encounter the issue again I will report back.

That is quite odd, but thank you for bringing it to my attention. I'll keep my eyes out for more reports on this, though so far this appears to be the first of its kind. If you do see it again, we can go over your BIOS settings and make sure everything was configured correctly and that none of the settings have changed inadvertently.

Kenjori said:

I thought I'd report how things are going. I got the motherboard drivers and installed those and after that the mouse has been found on boot.
Before I got things settled I did try the Dragon Center stuff. It was doing this odd thing where it would set some graphic preferences so everything was really dark. You could see it come up normal and then get darker as it started. I read around and that software doesn't seem to be perfect. I uninstalled that and just ran just the light program to control that. Since then, things have been great.

I am just a customer, but I understand the frustration of having things not work. Do know that it can work just fine and the machine is really fast.

Thank you for the feedback. Part of our decision making process behind going with the lighter, cut-down version of the Mystic Light software was that it was easier to use and didn't exhibit any of the issues we saw others experiencing online. Most of the feedback we saw online showed that customers wanted an application that simply controlled lights without additional features added in, so we requested custom software for this particular board to accommodate that request.

Speaking of feedback, I wanted to touch upon this subject a little more with everyone. I want everyone to know that we do read the feedback we get on our systems and we do take everything into consideration. While we feel great when we get a positive response with our systems and it bolsters our pride when customers share their great experiences, we also want to hear the critical feedback that may hold our products back. I encourage everyone that has experienced our work first hand to share their experience and let your voice be heard on the subject. Not only do you help your fellow Micro Center customers make better, more informed purchasing decisions, but you give us the opportunity to provide a better product to you all going forward.

Jcwillis4 said:

First, Thanks to the OP and to the MC folks who have been so active on this thread.  It's great to see active support in a retail tech forum.  I came here because I wanted to find out if I had the latest BIOS, and was glad I didn't end up downloading the wrong stuff since the Z490 gaming plus does have new BIOS from Dec and I didn't want to brick my rig.  I don't recall ever owning a PC that didn't have BIOS updates at least once a year, so I find it strange MC doesn't expect there to be any.  But I don't buy a lot of prebuilt, so that could be it.

In the spirit of feedback and answering some questions others have posted in the thread, here's my experience.  I bought this PC in late Nov, and I've had no issues with the setup out of the box.  However, I also wanted to get Dragon Center working, modify/spruce up the PC, and try some gentle overclocking.  I've run across a few things here and there.

Dragon Center (working, but what a pain).  Needed Dragon Center in order for Razer Chroma to connect to Mystic light.  The first install stalled out on first load, I'm thinking because some of the components are already installed by the standalone Mystic Light software.  Doing an uninstall did not remove all the Dragon Center files, SDK, or registry keys.  You have to go uninstall the MSI SDK shown in the add/remove programs menu specifically in order to remove it. In my case, even that wasn't enough to get rid of all the files, so I had to use Revo uninstaller (free trial) to nuke the program by pointing it at the MSI\One Dragon Center folder and having it scan everything that refers to it (there was a lot).  Once I did that, I installed the most recent Dragon Center (2.0.96.0) from MSI with zero issues.  It does connect to Razer synapse as it's supposed to and works ok, but you have to play with it to get it just right (MSI/Razer clunky software, not the hardware).  Dragon center also boosted my performance by hitting their Extreme Performance user scenario (just turn off software fan control in DC or it will run fans at 100% ALL THE TIME), which got me a few hundred extra points in the 3dMark benchmark.

BIOS screen changed on me (not a big deal).  I popped in an additional 32GB of ram (video editing and I needed some sweet sweet RGB) from GSkill, matching the speed and timings.  The Ram works great, but the American Megatrends splash screen that loads during bios phase of startup has been replaced with a simple text that says PowerSpec ever since I put the Ram in.  Don't think there's any real impact, but what's up with that?

Feedback -

• The PC is really good, and I'm enjoying the hell out of it.  It's the first pre-built I've bought in 15 years simply because I couldn't get the card otherwise and I really needed an overall upgrade to my gaming rig.  I had Cyberpunk in mind when I bought it, and it's handled it pretty well out of the box, and even better than that after some tuning via MSI afterburner.  I've been running it at 4K with DLSS and RT on and I'm very happy.  I've gotten it up to 14,275 points on the 3dMark TimeSpy benchmark, which seems really decent for the specs in this PC.
• Parts sheet.  This thing is built to look like a gaming PC and specifically has one of the hardest to get graphics cards out there, plus it's water cooled with a GIANT CLEAR WINDOW on the side.  A lot of the customers buying it are likely going to be enthusiast gamers who want to open the hood and start making changes, or at least learn about what they have.  It would be super helpful to have a full spec sheet listed somewhere/in the box so we can refer to things like model numbers for the AIO or case fans if we want to upgrade.  I've gone crazy adding RGB stuff just because, including some ram, LED strips, and I'm thinking about swapping the fans for something addressable.  It would be great to know the details about what I have in here in a quick reference.
• Modular PSU.  In the theme of making the looks better, I wanted to change out the rainbow power cables for something all white to let the lights pop, but the power supply isn't modular for the main CPU cables.  It's such a simple upgrade that shows off your PC if the PSU is modular, and I'd highly recommend using fully modular PSU's in future gaming PS PCs.
• The case could be prettier.  This one is the most boring of the Lian Li 205's in my opinion.  The flat black front just makes me sad vs all the stuff going on behind it.  The 205 mesh from the same line would have been so much prettier and shown off the case fans.  I'm actually going to reach out to Lian Li to see if I can cheaply buy one of the mesh fronts for the 205 mesh if it will fit just to pretty up the front of the case.  If not, my wife's vinyl cutting will come to the rescue.

• No bloatware! Thanks for not making this a bloatware monster.  Other than the antivirus spammer (which I understand), it was a very clean install.

Lastly,  I've been primarily a Fry's shopper for years because MC was just a little bit farther away from wherever I happened to be living.  Fry's is a ghost town these days and looking really sad, so I gave MC a shot for the first time in probably 10 years.  I've been in the store probably 4 times since Nov because of the selection and the people.  Terrific work, thanks!

-John

John,

This is some fantastic feedback. Your insight on the uninstall process for the pre-installed Mystic Light application is extremely valuable and something we will be taking into consideration when we make custom software requests like this going forward. Your solution with Revo Uninstaller is also helpful to know, should others stumble across the same issue. I appreciate you taking the time to share that.

As for the feedback on having a parts list available, that is appreciated as well. I'll pass that along to the powers that be and hopefully we see some progress on that. In the meantime, I am happy to provide information about the components installed in these systems.

As for the modular PSU, this has been a tricky area to dial in on. We personally prefer modular PSU's as well as they are easier to build with (less cables to tie off/store out of place) and decided to include the spare modular cables in accessory kits. Unfortunately we ended up in situations where accessory kits would get tossed out accidentally or lost, or customers would return/exchange their units and forget to include the accessory kits in the system box, resulting in modular PSU's with missing PCIe/SATA power cables. It was eventually decided that the safest course of action was to simply plug all of the cables in and safely tuck them out of the way of fans/components and let customers grab the cables as they needed them. The downside to this is that it adds time having to install the cables, and creates a bit of a "rats nest" in front of the PSU, which might be less aesthetically pleasing for some. The upside is that nobody ends up missing random cables with their system and typically has everything they need. Since the cables were going to be plugged in anyways, going with a semi-modular or even a non-modular PSU would save time for the production team and cost for the customer since the component itself is less expensive for a non-modular. Still, the more feedback we get on this subject, the better our likelihood of seeing change in this area. 

As for the chassis, this unfortunately will always be a subjective area that is difficult to address. Depending on who you ask, some want gaming-class performance without it looking "too gamer-y", while others would like to see the system embrace the target demographic entirely and go all in on the "gamer aesthetics". The mesh front panel design is a good idea, though it would warrant additional acoustic testing as that is yet another area of concern that we often come across, especially with these higher end systems is fan noise. Compromising between raw performance, acoustic tolerance and aesthetics can be a difficult balance to achieve and can often change depending on who it is you are asking. Still, feedback is always valuable nonetheless and having a consensus on this is never a bad thing. My personal systems are always on open-air test benches with loud fans, so I am typically the last person to ask when it comes to "does this sound quiet enough?", lol.

As for the lack of bloatware, this is something we are still very proud of, and something we do not intend to compromise on. The only software we try to include with our systems are RGB control software, a free trial for ESET's antivirus program (which is not pre-installed, it's simply an offer that you can then install should you wish to take advantage of it), and on rare occasions for systems such as our laptops, we may have a unique control panel for the laptop fans and RGB keyboards. Aside from that, we don't want anything else bogging the computer down or getting in the way of the customer experience. 

Again, thank you for the feedback, it is always appreciated.

As for the change in your BIOS splash screen, I can actually answer this question. There are two splash screen configurations for any given BIOS on any given system. One for Legacy, one for UEFI. For our PowerSpec systems, we typically keep CSM Compatibility Mode disabled, which disables the Legacy BIOS, which should disable the American Megatrends splash screen. If you were seeing this before, it is likely that the setting wasn't correctly disabled on your system prior to you receiving it. You mentioned adding memory, which likely meant you cleared your BIOS defaults to remove the XMP profile (this is just a guess, but I'd wager that it's a likely situation, given what you've described). If this was done, CSM Compatibility will be disabled again, meaning the UEFI splash screen will load by default, which is our PowerSpec splash screen. This isn't going to harm your computer in any capacity, we simply prefer keeping CSM disabled as most people do not load Legacy operating systems anymore. Even Windows 7 can be installed under UEFI, and most modern chipsets don't even have legacy drivers anymore, so it makes sense to have it disabled for the sake of faster boot times and less clutter in your boot options for devices that have both legacy and UEFI boot parameters.

Hopefully that made some sense of the weird quirk you ran into. As always, we are happy to address any concerns anyone may have with their systems. Feel free to reach out anytime!

Hello, as Michael states above "I do not anticipate that a BIOS update will be available for this board unless one is required to address a specific security or compatibility issue with the board."

If there are indeed any updates when/if that time comes, information will be surely posted to here or on the Micro Center / PowerSpec websites about it.

This is a good question.

I am going to quote myself from a different thread for a different model, but the context is quite similar:

This feature in and of itself would not warrant the request and requalification of a new BIOS as the feature cannot be utilized without also flashing the VBIOS of the video card which is currently unavailable at this time with no real ETA as to when we will actually see a VBIOS update. Some GPU board partners have started rolling them out (Gigabyte & Galax being the most notable) but so far no word from others yet.

The big concern with having to update a VBIOS to make use of this feature is the risk of bricking a card during the process. Unlike traditional motherboard BIOS updates, NVFlash does not have a "crash-less" feature. It's done live in the OS through a flashing utility, and anything that can interrupt the process will result in a bricked card. This wouldn't be too much of a risk for cards with dual-VBIOS support, but the cards we ship in the G436 do not have dual-VBIOS support. Once the VBIOS is flashed, it's done.

Lastly, I want to talk about the motherboard BIOS in general. Retail MSI motherboards have access to the M-Flash utility for BIOS flashing, but System Integrator boards with SI BIOS support does not use M-Flash natively. If we were to release a BIOS update for these boards, they would have to be flashed via EFI which can be incredibly risky. EFI flashing does not offer any write protection, meaning the BIOS will flash whatever is on the drive that you point it to. The risk of bricking the board increases exponentially in this scenario. I won't rule out the idea of releasing a BIOS update for aforementioned stability/security or compatibility issue with the board, but I do not anticipate releasing a BIOS update to accommodate new features in GPU technologies, especially when they are still ironing out the support for those technologies across other platforms.

I hope this answered your question. As always, if you have any additional questions, please let us know!

As stated previously, I do not anticipate going through qualification efforts for a new BIOS for this feature. I can understand the desire for it, but it's currently not in a state that is finalized across all vendors nor would it be feasible to introduce a flashing method for the cards we've included with our systems without the potential to brick the graphics cards, rendering them inoperable.

There is also the risk with performing a BIOS update on these particular boards, as it's not a simple M-Flash update. It requires performing an update with write protection disabled, which dramatically increases the likelihood of something going awry during the flashing procedure and resulting in a bricked board.

Our priority for our systems is to make sure that the systems are completely stable and operating as designed in their original hardware configuration. Releasing BIOS updates for third party hardware/software support sounds great, but the amount of time required to qualify and get these BIOS's up to our standards would hinder future product development, especially if it were done across all of our product models. BIOS qualification is not as simple as replacing the splash screen with our PowerSpec logo, it involves tedious testing that includes but isn't limited to:

• USB port mapping - Making sure your USB ports enumerate correctly and that your devices are recognized the moment they are plugged in
• TPM functionality works without issue - Ensures that the processors integrated TPM functionality is working and enabled to take advantage of Windows 10's more in-depth security features
• Secure Boot functions - Makes sure Secure Boot is working properly, keys can be cleared/loaded and that you can enable & disable it at will
• Memory trains without issue - This is one of the most tedious and difficult tasks as it differs per BIOS update. We make sure that many different kits of memory work on this board & BIOS combination in the event that customers wish to upgrade or change their memory configuration. This includes the use of single rank/dual rank kits, higher capacities (32GB, 64GB, etc) and various frequencies (2667mhz, 3200mhz, 3600mhz, etc) in said aforementioned capacities. Every BIOS needs to be requalified as every BIOS can potentially change the way your memory controller trains memory. What was once stable may no longer be stable after a BIOS update, this is especially true when running 3600mhz kits or dual-rank kits as they are higher on your CPU's IMC by default.

That's just a very short list of what actually goes on during our BIOS qualification efforts, but it's required for every single BIOS update. It also ignores the quirks we run into sometimes that need to be addressed. Those can include RGB color assignment being completely backwards (red = green, green = red), XMP context menu not functioning at all (lets you load XMP, but saving settings doesn't actually do anything or commit any changes for XMP) or Secure Boot's menu prompting you to discard changes the moment you change the secure boot status. Some of these quirks actually find themselves in live BIOS updates which is why we often recommend not to update the BIOS unless absolutely necessary.

Make no mistake, I do understand the frustration of everyone here when it comes to this subject. It's an unfortunate side effect of prebuilt systems when it comes to future upgradability & expandability, but that is one of the benefits of custom built PC's that we often struggle to emulate in this industry. Many of our other PowerSpec models offer the option to use vendor-supplied BIOS updates (albeit without the benefits of our custom efforts as described above) but those systems do not use System Integrator boards. The G436 and B745 are unique as they use System Integrator boards designed for use in mass production and are not sold in retail stores like the boards we use in our other systems. This allows us to meet the demand for these systems when board supply is a bottleneck, but it does come at a cost of future support for those that would choose to use a vendor BIOS over our own, as there are no vendor BIOS updates available for this SI board that we are aware of.

While I cannot promise support for third party hardware & features with our system, I can promise that they will be free of defects and issues during the warranty period of the system. Even beyond that period, I can promise that we will be here to answer any questions and provide support for issues you encounter with your system that is preventing it from operating as it was originally shipped.

I hear you loud and clear on this, and it's definitely feedback I'll be passing along to the rest of my team. The most difficult part of this hardware shortage in general is trying to figure out a way to get people the hardware they are looking for and figuring out where best to compromise in order to do so. Compromising on GPU/CPU performance is often a no-go as that's often the two components most directly involved with ones gaming performance, but compromising on the platform itself can also impact the future upgrade potential of those very components, so it can be a tedious balancing act to maintain. The G436 as configured allowed us to get a lot of these highly sought after cards into the hands of a lot of customers while providing excellent performance as a whole.

At the end of the day, customer feedback is our best shot at improving our products. It's why we take our product reviews seriously and why we enjoy interacting with you all on this forum. If there are areas that we still require improvement on for our PowerSpec systems, we would like to hear about them so that we can better improve our products going forward. Trust me, we'll be keeping an eye on these threads and we always take everything into consideration.