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About LinkBacksRead more.Because some AMD Socket AM4 boards are experiencing boot problems.
Read more.Because some AMD Socket AM4 boards are experiencing boot problems.
Not sure why this is being made a "headline" issue. New BIOS releases have been the norm for Intel and AMD for decades whenever a new set of CPUs are released that are socket compatible.
We have to commend AMD though for the additional option of: "provide affected and qualified users a boot kit to perform the BIOS update on their motherboard".
Now that is going out of their way to accommodate those who should really be served by the place of purchase to ensure that the MB is ready to support the selected CPU.
As I said in the AMD Zen thread it's 2018 and I don't understand why you need a CPU to be able to just update a BIOS for modern AMD and Intel boards.
It was the same issue if you happened to buy a Kaby Lake CPU and bought an H110 board.
What are the odds of my 2400G working if I just put it in my recently purchased MSI B350 PC Mate motherboard, to update the BIOS? I don't have an AM4 chip to update the BIOS beforehand.
It would indeed be nice if it were able to be done without the CPU.Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
I remember when I got my Intel 875k back in 2010, it was so new that motherboards being sold needed an update to the BIOS as well. Thankfully, Scan contacted me after I had ordered, and offered to update it for me providing I was ok with them opening up some components before shipping. Still running that PC now!
I don't think that's quite possible. You still need a processor to actually facilitate the flashing of the new firmware/BIOS. However, it *should* be possible to create the boot code in such a way that the minimum functionality needed for flashing is always there independent of the version of the CPU. They are all x86/x64, after all.
But really, this story is a non-story. There's nothing here that's uncommon on a system that spans several generations of CPUs. If anything, AMD is to be lauded for how this issue is handled, going so far as to provide "boot kits" if all else fails. Intel just creates a new socket for its (not so) new CPUs. Problem solved.
EDIT: I've subsequently learned that ASUS provides a feature called USB BIOS Flashback on some of its motherboards. This seems to do exactly what you're after. I don't quite get how it's done, though. *Some* sort of processor is needed to do the actual flashing.
Last edited by azrael-; 15-02-2018 at 08:43 AM.
It isn't ideal, but I think this is better than Intel's usual new motherboard generation forced on us with each new cpu tweak.
We've really got used to being forced into buying new motherboards with each new generation of CPU quickly, haven't we.
nope. I just stopped buying CPUs. I would have upgraded twice by now but this insistence on 1156 1155 1150 etc meant I didn't.
Because the BIOS eprom is soldered onto the board. If it was plug in it could be removed and flashed in a separate device, or just exchanged for a new one. You need some form of processor to address the device and write the data to it, and what better than the main cpu on the mono?
The flash process doesn’t need much computing power so you could build a separate flashing processor onto the mono, but mono real estate is tight anyway, and only in a tiny number of cases would it ever be needed (because the system won’t boot as in this case) so it would be mostly redundant.
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I built a system with ASUS X99 board for someone and it had that feature. I was able to update the bios using USB flash drive without even installing the CPU.
All I had to do is download the bios file and rename it to specific name (Each MB has different bios name) and then insert the USB drive in a special USB port marked for USB BIOS flash and hit the bios flash button and it started updating.
You can even recover from bad BIOS flash using this method.
youtube.com/watch?v=ADcdnwMjd_I
The only problem is that this feature only exists in high end (Expensive) ASUS boards
There's that also, what i said though was more me having a sly dig at the proposition that AMD are to blame for a board not booting with a 2 series CPU because they need a BIOS update, something that used to be pretty standard fair in days gone by, something that most people building a system from new used to check before ordering.
Biscuit (15-02-2018)
my board has it and I wouldn't call it particularly high end. Maybe it was for the time, I dunnoI built a system with ASUS X99 board for someone and it had that feature. I was able to update the bios using USB flash drive without even installing the CPU.
All I had to do is download the bios file and rename it to specific name (Each MB has different bios name) and then insert the USB drive in a special USB port marked for USB BIOS flash and hit the bios flash button and it started updating.
You can even recover from bad BIOS flash using this method.
youtube.com/watch?v=ADcdnwMjd_I
The only problem is that this feature only exists in high end (Expensive) ASUS boards
yes agreed, and to those folk: new boards will likely ship with it installed, so it's old stock or people with 1st series wanting to upgrade. In the case of the latter they have a cpu to do the update with before installing the new one. This really isn't a big deal, and AMD have taken steps to sort it for all, so meh.There's that also, what i said though was more me having a sly dig at the proposition that AMD are to blame for a board not booting with a 2 series CPU because they need a BIOS update, something that used to be pretty standard fair in days gone by, something that most people building a system from new used to check before ordering.
As you say, stuff we all used to check out back in the day anyway. No biggie.
Am I the only one who misses reading up on chipset specs and northbridges and the like?.. sigh, those were the days. Unlocked CPUs, genuine choice of motherboards, decent graphics cards for £100 and not a sodding RGB LED in sight. Seems so long ago that getting a RAM upgrade to 256MB was a big deal. My HDD was 20GB and more than I could ever need, and wow check out this 128MB USB stick - it fits in my pocket man!
All this because people are getting less and less technical....
Old puter - still good enuff till I save some pennies!
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