Minisforum MS-01 BIOS

[Stiggosaurus]

My apologies and thank you for pointing that out. Somehow I was blind to that on earlier pages of this thread. That fixed it and I was able to flash 1.26 successfully. In case anyone else needs more clarity, you need to Setup > Security and set an admin password. Be sure to save and exit that screen and also allow it to save and reset everything. When you cold boot again, enter the admin password, then you can go in and disable secure boot on the same screen where you set the admin password.

FWIW, you don't need to set an administrator password. Picked up this tip on reddit recently, but you just have to INTENTIONALLY boot into the BIOS, i.e. don't let it just default to booting into the BIOS when no bootable devices are attached. Actually press DEL or ESC during boot to get into the BIOS, then no admin password is required. I've setup three MS-01's this way and it worked for every single one of them, never having to set an admin password.

 

[no_root]

FWIW, you don't need to set an administrator password. Picked up this tip on reddit recently, but you just have to INTENTIONALLY boot into the BIOS, i.e. don't let it just default to booting into the BIOS when no bootable devices are attached. Actually press DEL or ESC during boot to get into the BIOS, then no admin password is required. I've setup three MS-01's this way and it worked for every single one of them, never having to set an admin password.

I tried that many times. I was able to enter the bios no problem without an admin password but the only way I was able to actually enter the shell to flash the firmware was to create an admin password. It sounds like people have had different experiences with various nuances of this process, so there’s some trial and error here. It’s unfortunate Minisforum cannot make this process more streamlined.

 

[no_root]

Just to add, once 1.26 flashed, it wiped out the admin password completely, which I was fine with since I don’t need that on permanently. It also reset other bios settings like “always on” after power loss, so I had to change that again. No big deal. This was worth it just to get the fans to stop running non-stop. It’s significantly cooler on 1.26 vs 1.22. Maybe related to the microcode updates.

 

[cj2]

So far, so good with 1.26, coming from 1.20 or 1.22 (I can't remember). This was the 3rd firmware update. But man, I was just about throw this MS-01 (13900H) in the trash because it was unstable simply running Windows 11. Would leave it on, idling overnight and would wake up the next morning to an unresponsive MS-01 requiring a power cycle to recover. This would happen at least once per week. So far, v1.26 has been running for about 4 weeks without a crash. Knocking-on-wood and crossing my fingers it's the fix I've been looking for because I almost gave up on the POS and started looking into building a new PC to replace it.

Edit: 6 weeks so far on v1.26 running continuously on Win11 without a crash! Super stable and super happy now! But man, I will be extra hesitant of brand-new Minisforum products in the future. It should not have been released with unstable firmware! Best to wait several months after initial release for other "beta testing" customers to discover the bugs and work the kinks out.

 

[AlexHK]

Hi guys, new here and new to MS-01. My goal is to replace two old PVE hosts running on NUC8i5BEH with two or three MS01 for the homelab. The two 10GbE ports and Thunderbolt ring networking (not yet started) made me go for the MS-01.

Thanks to your posts in this thread I managed to update to 1.26 right out of the box (came with 1.22), also updated NVM on the X710 just now.

Just out of curiosity, is there a tool to save BIOS settings to file (export), or good old screenshot and taking notes?

 

[tid]

reporting similar success with the 1.26 bios update, no more frustrating random freezes (especially in sleep mode).

 

[Miguel A. Figueroa]

I had a 'no display' BIOS after changing a setting and contacted Minisforum on how to clear the BIOS given the battery is shrouded in plastic and the header is recessed under the frame. Minisforum said to disconnect the connector from the header. I managed to disconnect and reconnect the connector from and to the header with needle nose tweezers but it was not easy. I'll probably buy a connector extension so that the connector wire just sits on the board should I need to clear the CMOS again. One of a small number of design flaws in an otherwise excellent machine.
View attachment 36551

Was there a length on time to keep disconnected? I just tried it and waited a few minutes put it all together and still stuck in Secure Boot Violation and no matter how many times i tried to set/unset administrator/user passwords I cannot get Secure Boot Disabled.

 

[Avamander]

Was there a length on time to keep disconnected? I just tried it and waited a few minutes put it all together and still stuck in Secure Boot Violation and no matter how many times i tried to set/unset administrator/user passwords I cannot get Secure Boot Disabled.

Administrator password is totally unrelated to Secure Boot.

 

[flapj4cks]

The MinisForums support pages appear to be in total disarray.. anyone have a direct link to the 1.26V bios??

 

[AlexHK]

The MinisForums support pages appear to be in total disarray.. anyone have a direct link to the 1.26V bios??

https://www.minisforum.com.hk/new/support?lang=en#/support/page/download/108

From there goes to:
https://www.mediafire.com/file_premium/sgbw1ky9xbeeb7q/AHWSA.1.26_241014.zip/file

 

[SteffenAL]

minisforum

minisforum

www.minisforum.com.hk

 

[lynxss]

My MS-01 was sent with 1.26 already installed. But I've gotten stuck trying to boot anything, cant even run UEFI shell to try and flash it again.

In the Advanced menu Secure Device Support enable or disabled shows No Security Device Found. On first boot there was something there, I disabled it in this menu and it never came back.

In the Security menu under System Mode it has User: Secure Boot Enabled and Secure Boot Mode Standard but the whole page is greyed out. Unable to change anything. After looking at other forum posts I think I should have disabled it here not in the advanced menu but now I'm stuck and cant go back.

Anyone run into this issue?

 

[myn]

The latest BIOS update (version 1.26) mentions that it updates Intel Microcode, presumably to address the instability issues and CPU degregation.

However, after applying version 1.26 and checking the microcode version, it appears to be an older version that doesn't include the fixes introduced in Microcode update 0x12B, which address these instability problems.

Intel Core 13th and 14th Gen Desktop Instability Root Cause Update

Following extensive investigation of the Intel® Core™ 13th and 14th Gen desktop processor Vmin Shift Instability issue, Intel can now confirm the root cause diagnosis for the issue. This post will cover Intel’s understanding of the root cause, as well as additional mitigations and next steps for...

community.intel.com

Is this behavior unique to my system, or are others experiencing the same? For those who haven't manually applied the microcode updates but have updated to BIOS version 1.26, what microcode version are you seeing?

root@pve:~# grep microcode /proc/cpuinfo | uniq
microcode : 0x411c

 

[boggy]

If anyone is reading this and the previous posts have not fully helped with regards to updating the MS-01 BIOS, here is what did the trick for me:

• Formatted USB Drive as FAT32 (using Rufus on Windows, using MS-DOS bootable option and selecting UEFI - this will land some un-necessary files on your USB drive like autorun, etc. but they won't hurt anything)
• Copied over the 1.26 BIOS files to the root of the USB Drive
• ***Downloaded shell.zip from the bottom of this site, extracted and copied shell.efi to the root of the USB Drive (prior to doing this, I could not boot off of the USB and nothing would happen when I selected the UEFI Shell from the BIOS menu, it would just flash briefly and do nothing. I'm sure you can get shell.efi from elsewhere but this worked for me). 10/26 EDIT: Official/Clean build of shell.efi here (courtesy of @Avamander)
• Either boot using F7 at MS-01 power-on or select the UEFI shell from the BIOS
• Change into your USB directory (you cannot use 'cd', 'dir' or 'ls' commands, simply type the drive letter designation and press enter (for me it was FS0: ) <-that's a zero at the end and not an O as in oscar.
• Type this file name and press enter to start the BIOS update: AfuEfiFlash.nsh

Hope this helps.

Thank you, this worked a treat. What a pain in the ass just to update the BIOS

 

[eljojo]

The latest BIOS update (version 1.26) mentions that it updates Intel Microcode, presumably to address the instability issues and CPU degregation.

However, after applying version 1.26 and checking the microcode version, it appears to be an older version that doesn't include the fixes introduced in Microcode update 0x12B, which address these instability problems.

Intel Core 13th and 14th Gen Desktop Instability Root Cause Update

Following extensive investigation of the Intel® Core™ 13th and 14th Gen desktop processor Vmin Shift Instability issue, Intel can now confirm the root cause diagnosis for the issue. This post will cover Intel’s understanding of the root cause, as well as additional mitigations and next steps for...

community.intel.com

Is this behavior unique to my system, or are others experiencing the same? For those who haven't manually applied the microcode updates but have updated to BIOS version 1.26, what microcode version are you seeing?

root@pve:~# grep microcode /proc/cpuinfo | uniq
microcode : 0x411c

wow that’s crazy! I googled it and it’s from 2023! I wonder if anyone else is going through the same. I was considering buying an MS-01 but after reading this thread I’m completely disappointed,

 

[lynxss]

Yeah I kinda wish I had read this thread before purchasing mine..

They got back to me on my issue. If anyone gets stuck like I did this is what they said:

Please remove the SSD, then set it to disable in BIOS - Sercurity - Secure Boot, save and exit. Then reinstall the SSD.

I was able to get past it when I noticed the uefi opensuse installer was not blocked by the secure boot which I could not turn off. Once I got that installed then the options came back to turn it off and I could install something else. Anyway this 1.26 that the box was shipped with seems flaky, I dont know if the 1.26 they ship with is the same that was available from download, I may try flashing it anyway just to be sure if it will let me flash to something with the same version string.

 

[boggy]

If you are looking to do iGPU pasthrough for VM or LXCs on Proxmox

Proxmox VE 8.3: Windows 11 vGPU (VT-d) Passthrough with Intel Alder Lake -

Using Proxmox 8.2 and want to share your Intel GPU with several Windows 11 VMs? Find out how to configure Intel VT-d and share the GPU with up to 7 VMs.

www.derekseaman.com

This works great

 

[boggy]

The latest BIOS update (version 1.26) mentions that it updates Intel Microcode, presumably to address the instability issues and CPU degregation.

However, after applying version 1.26 and checking the microcode version, it appears to be an older version that doesn't include the fixes introduced in Microcode update 0x12B, which address these instability problems.

Intel Core 13th and 14th Gen Desktop Instability Root Cause Update

Following extensive investigation of the Intel® Core™ 13th and 14th Gen desktop processor Vmin Shift Instability issue, Intel can now confirm the root cause diagnosis for the issue. This post will cover Intel’s understanding of the root cause, as well as additional mitigations and next steps for...

community.intel.com

Is this behavior unique to my system, or are others experiencing the same? For those who haven't manually applied the microcode updates but have updated to BIOS version 1.26, what microcode version are you seeing?

root@pve:~# grep microcode /proc/cpuinfo | uniq
microcode : 0x411c

Seeing this version:
microcode : 0x4123

use this to update to the latest microcode

Proxmox VE Helper-Scripts

A Front-end for the Proxmox VE Helper-Scripts (Community) Repository. Featuring over 200+ scripts to help you manage your Proxmox VE environment.

community-scripts.github.io

 

[AlexHK]

Is this behavior unique to my system, or are others experiencing the same? For those who haven't manually applied the microcode updates but have updated to BIOS version 1.26, what microcode version are you seeing?

On my (recently arrived) MS-01/i5 which came with v1.26 preinstalled, I believe the shipped firmware revision was 0x00000426 before running apt install intel-microcode.

dmesg | grep microcode
[    1.426510] microcode: Current revision: 0x00000434
[    1.426514] microcode: Updated early from: ***0x00000426***

The microcode revision also depend on the CPU model, doesn't it? (hence, not all CPUs are on the same microcode revision)

Edit:
There is actually 435 for the 12th gen CPUs if you download the debian release package and install manually, instead of using apt package intel-microcode. (or just use the helper script as mentioend above)

Only my 12th gen MS-01 shipped with v.1.26. The 13th gen i9 arrived with v1.22 and it had microcode 0x0000411c before the update.

 

[cj2]

The latest BIOS update (version 1.26) mentions that it updates Intel Microcode, presumably to address the instability issues and CPU degregation.

However, after applying version 1.26 and checking the microcode version, it appears to be an older version that doesn't include the fixes introduced in Microcode update 0x12B, which address these instability problems.

Intel Core 13th and 14th Gen Desktop Instability Root Cause Update

Following extensive investigation of the Intel® Core™ 13th and 14th Gen desktop processor Vmin Shift Instability issue, Intel can now confirm the root cause diagnosis for the issue. This post will cover Intel’s understanding of the root cause, as well as additional mitigations and next steps for...

community.intel.com

You are comparing 13th/14th Gen Desktop CPUs with the 13th/14th Gen Mobile CPUs being used in the MS-01. They don't use the same versions of microcode. The 0x12B update you mention is strictly for Desktop CPUs.