MSI Click BIOS

In fact, it turned out not so simple to start our first experience with MSI Click BIOS. If you got to MSI web-site page devoted to MSI P45 Platinum mainboard or any other mainboard supporting MSI Click BIOS, you will see no mention of it anywhere.  There is nothing about it on the page with different BIOS downloads for this board, either. It turned out that you have to go to homepage of the English-language Taiwanese site where you have to locate a small 150x60 pixels banner leading to a separate section on the site discussing Click BIOS. Only here you can read about the features of UEFI BIOS, download the BIOS version and a CD disk image with additional software called MSI Extras Disc.

Reflashing the new BIOS is not that simple, too. MSI mainboards do not have a built-in utility with graphics interface for updating the BIOS. You will not be able to use Windows Live Update either. You must create a boot-up USB Flash Disc, copy BIOS file and Msiflash.exe from the same archive to it. The uncompressed BIOS is over 4MB big, so you won’t be able to use a floppy disc. When you start the system, press F11 during POST to get access to the boot-up menu and select the flash drive as your boot-up device. Boot the system, type “msiflash [filename] /p”, wait for the update to go through and reboot the system.  You will have to repeat this succession of actions if you decide to go back from UEFI to the regular BIOS. Pretty complicated, don’t you think so?

UEFI BIOS may make it easier for the beginner to get acquainted with the board, but this complicated reflashing process may scare him away. In fact, there are quite a few ways of making BIOS updating easy. For Intel mainboards you can download a self-extracting archive with the BIOS and launch it right from Windows. You will be offered to reboot and the BIOS will get automatically updated. EVGA offers to download an image file with the BIOS to be saved on a CD disc. The BIOS is updated automatically, just select the correct boot-up device. abit offers several bat-files with the reflashing utility name, BIOS file name and all corresponding keys already in them. It is much easier to type START or RUNME and then follow the system’s instructions, you are less likely to make a mistake than in case you have to type msiflash E7512ims.107 /p or something like that.

Overall, we hope that BIOS reflashing will soon become simpler. If you are not discouraged by these complications or are experienced enough not to find it difficult at all, then you will be able to successfully accomplish the BIOS updating process. After that, press F2 or Del to enter Click BIOS.

The name itself, Click BIOS, should have prompted you that besides the keyboard it will also allow you to use your mouse. The mouse support is very conveniently implemented: left click – select, right click – cancel or exit. If you roll the mouse pointer over the section icons they get animated, so everything looks very colorful, just the music is missing here :) However, at first let’s take advantage of one more Click BIOS feature, namely, select the interface language:

I have to admit that I got pretty ambiguous impression from this feature. On the one hand, it is much easier to learn some unfamiliar parameters when they are names and explained in your native tongue. On the other hand, there were a few serious flaws in terms translation, so that we had to switch the language back to English in order to figure out what certain things meant. Thos who are already familiar with the BIOS parameters are certainly more used to the English names for them.

Let’s start with the OC section, which stands for OverClocking, as you may have already guessed.

This section contains the full list of overclocking-related parameters. We can change frequencies, timings and voltages. Too high voltages will be highlighted red. At first glance it looks exactly like the Cell Menu section from the “traditional” BIOS Setup of MSI P45 Platinum mainboard. However, if you take a closer look at it, you will notice a few differences, which may sometimes be quite significant. For example, processor Vcore adjustment:

As you can notice, the minimal increment is 0.051V, which is way too big for a contemporary CPU. It has to be at least half the size - 0.025V, or even quarter the size – 0.0125V. By the way, many contemporary mainboards offer real fine tuning and use 8 times smaller increment of only 0.00625V!

Setting section contains other BIOS parameters and consists of several sub-sections:

System Status is not similar to PC Health Status, as I have thought at first, but something in-between CMOS Features and System Information from the “traditional” BIOS Setup.