• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

MSI Releases Special Motherboard BIOSes for Crypto-currency Mining

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
47,217 (7.55/day)
Location
Hyderabad, India
System Name RBMK-1000
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
Motherboard ASUS ROG Strix B450-E Gaming
Cooling DeepCool Gammax L240 V2
Memory 2x 8GB G.Skill Sniper X
Video Card(s) Palit GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GameRock
Storage Western Digital Black NVMe 512GB
Display(s) BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch
Case Corsair Carbide 100R
Audio Device(s) ASUS SupremeFX S1220A
Power Supply Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W
Mouse ASUS ROG Strix Impact
Keyboard Gamdias Hermes E2
Software Windows 11 Pro
With the rise of bitcoin/ethereum mining, AMD graphics cards once again became one of the top-selling graphics card series in the market. However, it is relatively harder to acquire the economic mining motherboard due to the fact that Intel slowly discontinued the H81 and B85 chipset, and this caused the shortage of mining motherboards in the market. Users found a new way out along with the release of the 100-series chipset, yet many of them found that when they attached 6 AMD graphics cards on the 100-series motherboard, even though the board successfully recognized 6 graphics cards, there were always exclamation marks on 3 or 4 graphics cards within device manager in the OS. And, of course, the cards with exclamation marks would not function properly during mining. MSI consistently heard such inquiries from customers.

Hence, MSI does a series of tests for its products and picked a couple motherboards including Z170-A PRO, Z170A SLI PLUS, Z170 KRAIT GAMING, Z170A KRAIT GAMING, Z170A KRAIT GAMING 3X, Z270-A PRO, H270-A PRO which fit the purpose of mining. There are few things that need to be done before mining and it will be explained in the paragraph below using MSI Z270-A PRO as example.



DOWNLOAD: MSI Motherboard BIOS Update for Mining Builds

Update BIOS
MSI has patched solutions especially for PCIE device recognition on the boards which are mentioned above. The "above 4G decoding" option is added to BIOS which allows the motherboard to efficiently allocate resources for all 6 graphics cards.

Download BIOS, E7A71IMS.120 which supports bitcoin/ethereum mining -> Copy it to the root folder of USB pen drive -> Connect USB pen drive to motherboard USB port -> Start the system and enter BIOS -> Choose M-Flash -> Select Yes to continue BIOS flash. System will reboot and enter M-Flash user interface. Please find the USB pen drive on the left panel, select the USB pen drive and the BIOS file will show up on the right panel. Choose E7A71IMS.120 and click yes to start the BIOS flash.

System Installation
After BIOS flash, boot up the system with CPU integrated graphics without adding any discrete graphics cards. Use Win10 professional 64 bits as your preferred OS and install all the relevant motherboard drivers after the OS installation.

Graphics Card Driver Installation
Under BIOS setup, set Settings\Advanced\Integrated Graphics Configuration\Initiate Graphic Adapter to be IGD as below:

After it is done, turn off the machine and connect one graphics card only. Please note: do not insert the discrete graphics card right onto the PCIE slot on the motherboard. Instead, please use mining adapter (ex. x1 to x16 PCIe adapter) as an intermediate between motherboard and the external graphics card. Proceed to enter OS and install the latest driver for the graphics card. After that, you should find both integrated and discrete graphics could be recognized in device manager without any exclamation mark (under display adapters).

Upon ensuring both integrated and discrete graphics cards are properly recognized, right-click on the desktop icon and select "Power Options" to enter power options settings. Disable "fast startup."

Reboot to enter BIOS setup, set Settings\Advanced\PCI Subsystem Settings\Above 4G memory/Crypto Currency Mining to "Enabled" as below:

Save the BIOS settings and shut down the system. Add the remaining 5 graphics cards to the motherboard one by one. It is recommended to do the following steps:

Add one graphics card to the motherboard

Boot into system to allow the motherboard to recognize the newly attached graphics card

Do these steps repetitively until user attaches all graphics cards

The reason behind it is that if user attaches all graphics cards at once, the system might have a huge delay when trying to detect every graphics card on the motherboard. When the delay occurs, the monitor would stay black screen and could possibly mislead users to believe that the system cannot boot up.

Please refer to picture below for MSI Z270-A PRO which successfully picks up 6 graphics card

View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 
Joined
Aug 2, 2012
Messages
1,984 (0.44/day)
Location
Netherlands
System Name TheDeeGee's PC
Processor Intel Core i7-11700
Motherboard ASRock Z590 Steel Legend
Cooling Noctua NH-D15S
Memory Crucial Ballistix 3200/C16 32GB
Video Card(s) Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti 12GB
Storage Crucial P5 Plus 2TB / Crucial P3 Plus 2TB / Crucial P3 Plus 4TB
Display(s) EIZO CX240
Case Lian-Li O11 Dynamic Evo XL / Noctua NF-A12x25 fans
Audio Device(s) Creative Sound Blaster ZXR / AKG K601 Headphones
Power Supply Seasonic PRIME Fanless TX-700
Mouse Logitech G500S
Keyboard Keychron Q6
Software Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit
Benchmark Scores None, as long as my games runs smooth.
Ye, like they care of hardware goes overpriced due to miners buying it out.

Mining can't die quick enough.
 

Nkd

Joined
Sep 15, 2007
Messages
364 (0.06/day)
Ye, like they care of hardware goes overpriced due to miners buying it out.

Mining can't die quick enough.

another one wishing miners lose all their worth and mining dies out. won't happen, its here to stay. There is way too many crypto currencies to mine. Set some notifications and get your stuff its easy. I mine but I bought all my shit with hard work and research and looking everyday. I didn't just steal a bunch of shit from gamers or people trying to build pc. To me those people must not want it bad enough yet complain too much.
 
Joined
Jul 16, 2014
Messages
8,198 (2.17/day)
Location
SE Michigan
System Name Dumbass
Processor AMD Ryzen 7800X3D
Motherboard ASUS TUF gaming B650
Cooling Artic Liquid Freezer 2 - 420mm
Memory G.Skill Sniper 32gb DDR5 6000
Video Card(s) GreenTeam 4070 ti super 16gb
Storage Samsung EVO 500gb & 1Tb, 2tb HDD, 500gb WD Black
Display(s) 1x Nixeus NX_EDG27, 2x Dell S2440L (16:9)
Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo w/8 140mm SP Fans
Audio Device(s) onboard (realtek?) - SPKRS:Logitech Z623 200w 2.1
Power Supply Corsair HX1000i
Mouse Steeseries Esports Wireless
Keyboard Corsair K100
Software windows 10 H
Benchmark Scores https://i.imgur.com/aoz3vWY.jpg?2
Glad MSI is embracing mining.
 
Joined
Feb 18, 2005
Messages
5,847 (0.81/day)
Location
Ikenai borderline!
System Name Firelance.
Processor Threadripper 3960X
Motherboard ROG Strix TRX40-E Gaming
Cooling IceGem 360 + 6x Arctic Cooling P12
Memory 8x 16GB Patriot Viper DDR4-3200 CL16
Video Card(s) MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Ventus 2X OC
Storage 2TB WD SN850X (boot), 4TB Crucial P3 (data)
Display(s) 3x AOC Q32E2N (32" 2560x1440 75Hz)
Case Enthoo Pro II Server Edition (Closed Panel) + 6 fans
Power Supply Fractal Design Ion+ 2 Platinum 760W
Mouse Logitech G602
Keyboard Razer Pro Type Ultra
Software Windows 10 Professional x64
Sounds more to me like MSI screwed the pooch by not properly supporting multiple graphics cards on their boards to begin with, and are covering that up with this PR nonsense.
 

OneMoar

There is Always Moar
Joined
Apr 9, 2010
Messages
8,795 (1.65/day)
Location
Rochester area
System Name RPC MK2.5
Processor Ryzen 5800x
Motherboard Gigabyte Aorus Pro V2
Cooling Thermalright Phantom Spirit SE
Memory CL16 BL2K16G36C16U4RL 3600 1:1 micron e-die
Video Card(s) GIGABYTE RTX 3070 Ti GAMING OC
Storage Nextorage NE1N 2TB ADATA SX8200PRO NVME 512GB, Intel 545s 500GBSSD, ADATA SU800 SSD, 3TB Spinner
Display(s) LG Ultra Gear 32 1440p 165hz Dell 1440p 75hz
Case Phanteks P300 /w 300A front panel conversion
Audio Device(s) onboard
Power Supply SeaSonic Focus+ Platinum 750W
Mouse Kone burst Pro
Keyboard SteelSeries Apex 7
Software Windows 11 +startisallback
excuse me but the attitude that miners are any less entitled to gpus then you who want to sit and play video games is a bit hypocritical
 

nadrojcote

New Member
Joined
Apr 20, 2017
Messages
9 (0.00/day)
Ye, like they care of hardware goes overpriced due to miners buying it out.

Mining can't die quick enough.
Like others have said. Get on newegg and setup auto notify for the cards you want. If you really want them that is. Or just keep crying into the wind.
 
Top