MSI Tomahawk Motherboard Issues and Solutions. z790 not posting

Tomahawk motherboard not working out of the box? Here is the only fix I could find.
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#motherboard #pcbuild #msi

[deuceandguns]

Gigabyte security issue update!!! Make sure to update the Bios on your new motherboard if it doesn't have the newest one from May/June 2023. Luckily, it's super easy to update.
Links to my new computer setup. FYI - I'm still rocking an old 1060 GPU waiting for the newer versions to come down in price.
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[KnurdMonkey]

So your "solution" is not to buy it? Really nice review.

[tbrowniscool]

Just to chime in, I have had mine for about 8 months now. Not a problem at all.

[davidkim]

Thank you. Just suffered a 2nd DOA and trying to make sure I'm not missing something. So funny I recognize you from a completely different "world" :) Appreciate the post!

[jdquadrider]

I have this motherboard and I remember having to wait a long time for the initial post. I then flashed the bios and all is fine with it

[schnipslhansi]

Got that MB twice now. Both Dead on arrival. Not even a Status LED, plastic bag ripped inside the box while shipping. There has to be one container crashed in the ocean and all the broken boards were sold later, I guess. It's just impossible that some guys bought it over 5 times and it didn't work.

Very sad story because it's the only smart looking MB with promising performance and without rainbow LED and gaming phrases.

Also I do believe that it needs a more secure shipping package.

[sss-sitl]

I have the same problem with tomahawk motherboard, it seems really common for latest gen MSI boards. Used to like MSI as a brand but their quality is not it used to be.

[SVT_LIGHTNING]

Over a year now with my Z790 tomahawk ddr5. Works perfectly and always has. I have my 13700k oc pretty aggressive and ram oc to 7200mhz. All 4 nvme slot populated. I'm using everything this board has to offer. It's been fantastic. Even had the ddr4 version of this board. That one also worked great and I sold it after getting the ddr5 version. I've read up some of these MSI z790 had cracked pch. But idk. But your video is not the first I've seen about these boards. Seems msi had a bad batch or something. My msi z490 tomahawk had issue with bios updates bricking boards because of no bios flash back to revert after the failed flases. And to this day its still an issue for z490 board owners and msi has never fixed it. Msi is lousy in so many ways. But every company has it's faults.

[iammojo]

Working with a customer now that bought one from Amazon and it's completely dead in and out of the case, shipped it back for an asus motherboard. I was shocked at how much I've read online about issues. You can't Update the BIOS if you got zero lights and power. Thank you for sort of a review you have posted though.

[Lero_infestus]

Here is a solution! (Solved)
I've been fiddling with the mainboard for days. Unlike in the video, my mainboard didn't react at all, except that it flashed red when I tried to flash with USB, which of course was unsuccessful. After a really long trial and error, I wanted to send the mainboard back. But when I removed it, I wanted to know exactly what was going on and wanted to start the mainboard from scratch.

So I only had the mainboard with water cooling and PSU left on the table. It was still not working.

But now I took off the water cooling and remembered that I had used a cooling frame when building my computer to improve the temperature management. When I pulled this cooling frame loose and then short-circuited the two power pins with a screwdriver, the mainboard lit up! From then on I was able to put everything back together and it worked again. So if you are also using one of these cooling frames or have tightened the water cooling too much, try this!

My guess is that the CPU may not have been seated correctly or that the incorrectly attached frame may have exerted too much pressure on one side or something similar.

I really did remove everything else from the mainboard. No memory and no other cables except PSU, water cooling and CPU.

I hope this can help some of you.

If you dont know what i meant with the short-circuit I can explain it in few words. Normally your case is connected with this two pins to start your computer if you click the Power button. This is the signal for the mainbord to start. If you want to look fast if your mainbord works, you can connect this to pins with a screwdriver to do the same like the power button. But please do that only if you know what you do. There are more pins and you dont want to connect two pins which are not made for this.


My setup was: i9-13900, 32GB Ram (2x16 Corsair Vengeance(7200 MHz)), Arctic Freezer 2, RTX 4090

Good Luck!

[Larnsdoon]

Good heads up. Just finished a new build myself. Would not post, running 2 M.2 drives, initially thought it was a defective M.2 port or drive itself. Turns out some mobos share the 2nd M.2 port with a SATA bus and would prevent posting. Just moved some of the old SATA cables over to another bank of sata ports and voila. RMA=PITA

[osubuckeye]

crazy, I have 2 b650 tomahawks, one with 7800x3d, one with 7600x. both rock stable, no issues. I also before switching to AM5 had the b660 tomahawk ddr4, was also rock stable. none of these boards ever had no post or boot issues. apart from the common ddr5 ram training which the yellow light will remain on for a few minutes, none just straight up never posted. makes me wonder if this strictly an Intel DDR5 issue or MSI just made a bad batch. MSI is pretty much the only company I've owned products that had no issues. Gigabyte & ASUS all had their issues.

[KeithStevensMoes]

Thanks for sharing this. The "System" for help is pretty much designed to dump the problem on the buyer.

[Lateru]

Thanks for the heads up. I just purchased this board from Best Buy because my Gigabyte Gaming X Z690 shit the bed after a year of use. :) If there is any funny business with it, it will go back in the box and returned to the store. It's Christmas time now, and I didn't want to wait pass the New Year for a board.

[saadiewaadie]

Exact same issue for me. Bought off Amazon (shipped all the way to New Zealand) took over a month..aaand no booting at all...except for bios update. Bought another from local - tht had bent cpu pin.

[dimitrirouge]

yeah could be a good idea ... a make Bios udpate ... the last bios update is not reconized by the mother board ( it's starting well ), i try other version was working on flashing but I got a random BOSD ... humm not good.

[damienblackburn]

If you thought the MSI RMA process was bad, wait until you have to deal with Gigabyte's.

[Izmirkushais]

Been running system on this daily for a year, very happy with the versatility and performance. Had some issues setting up m2 drive at first, but managed to adjust BIOS settings and all works out well

[MrMayaFx]

I boght MSI MAG Z790 TOMAHAWK WIFI Z790 DDR5 in 5/22/2023 from Newegg It looks like the Motherboard has been changed Because the packaging had zero padding, no foam inside. no security sticker on box It seems that Newegg Quickly Replaced the faulty MSI Z790 board with a modified one to avoid the malfunction.
and it works fine and I also updated the Bios

[damjanforjanic]

I bought it 1 year ago, I have minor problems, like with other plates, but everything works without major problems.