[oldrailroadgeek]

Current Computer components Case: Cougar Solution AF-2 steel ATX: MB: MSI A88X-G43 FM/FM2+ AMD A88x (Bolton D4) HDMI;  PSU: Corsair CXM series CX430M 430watt ATX12V v2.3 80; APU: AMD A6-5400K Trinity 3.6GHz (3.8GHz Turbo); Ram: G Skill Ripjaws 4GB (2x2GB) 240pin DDR3 1600; HD: WD10EZEX 1TB 7200RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" internal; Optical: LG Internal Auper Multi Drive SATA Mod. GH24NSBO-OEM; OS: Win 8.1 64bit Retail version with CD & License; Monitor : 21" HDMI HDTV.

 

     I have purchased an AMD A6-7400K with Radeon R5 series graphics, 6 cores (2CPU+4GPU) 3.9Ghz Max Turbo to replace my current APU AMD A6-5400K with Radeon HD8470D graphics, 2 cores 3.6GHz (3.8GHz Turbo). Both APUs show 85 watts as power consumption and both have the frequency of 3900. My question is the procedure to follow in this upgrade.  Will I need to upgrade the bios after the installation.  When I built this computer in April of 2014, I followed the advice of Iammykyl and Phillpower 2 in the assembly of components and initial start-up and installation of Win 8.1 and have been fairly satisfied with the performance of the computer bud strongly dislike Win 8.1.

     I have an external 40gig HD that uses a USB2 port for communication with the PC on which I have copied all my files and pictures as a precaution.  I've used a 32gig USB stick for an automatic back-up of the files and pictures also.

     From going over G2G member questions and educated responses of the staff, I have a general knowledge of the process needed to be followed for the upgrade of this APU on my mother-board such as resetting the Cmos to default settings first and downloading the latest BIOS for this MB but I do not understand the MSI instructions for creating a USB stick for BIOS recovery or updating (Is this Flashing?).  Their instructions are to download the latest BIOS for my MB (which I have already done).  After downloading the BIOS, extract the BIOS file only to the ROOT directory of a FAT 32 flash drive. I have a 1gig Mobile Mate flash drive available for this process but I do not understand the FAT 32 reference or the ROOT directory.

      Now that you have an idea of my limited knowledge, could you describe the procedure I should follow to remove the old APU and install the new APU? Please.

Old railroad geek

 

 

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Will I need to upgrade the bios after the installation.

if you need to update your bios for the new cpu to work then you'd need to do that BEFORE taking out the old cpu and inserting the new one otherwise you'd find the motherboard will not recognise the new cpu and fail to boot.

 

 

 

I have a 1gig Mobile Mate flash drive available for this process but I do not understand the FAT 32 reference or the ROOT directory.

fat 32 is the file system the usb stick needs to be formatted with and not ntfs or any other type, the root directory just means not copied in to any folders on the drive and just copied straight to the drive.

Edited by terry1966, 15 August 2015 - 01:53 PM.

[terry1966]

 

Will I need to upgrade the bios after the installation.

if you need to update your bios for the new cpu to work then you'd need to do that BEFORE taking out the old cpu and inserting the new one otherwise you'd find the motherboard will not recognise the new cpu and fail to boot.

 

 

 

I have a 1gig Mobile Mate flash drive available for this process but I do not understand the FAT 32 reference or the ROOT directory.

fat 32 is the file system the usb stick needs to be formatted with and not ntfs or any other type, the root directory just means not copied in to any folders on the drive and just copied straight to the drive.

Edited by terry1966, 15 August 2015 - 01:53 PM.

[oldrailroadgeek]

Terry1966

     Thanks for your speedy response to my problem. I formated my 1gig USB Flash drive to Fat32 and I' ve extracted the new version of the BIOS from my downloads folder to the 1 gig Flashdrive using WIN RAR for the extraction and will do the APU Up-grade in the morning.  Thanks again for your assistance.

Oldrailroadgeek

[terry1966]

my pleasure.