Flasher

[Phage]

Hi All,

I was planning on flashing the BIOS of my Gigabyte mainboard tonight from F7 to F12 using Q Flash. Are there any tips or tricks I should be aware of ?
Googling the process shows that I should
1) Format a USB stick to FAT32, place the F12 BIOS on it
2) Go into the BIOS and enter QFlash (F8)
3) select the new BIOS on the USB
4) Install.
5) When finished, press Esc to go back to the BIOS, and re-boot.
6) Loading Fail-safe defaults....what is this ?

It is the first time I've flashed a board.

[Domestic_Ginger]

Can't remember if it needs to be FAT32. The bios will prompt you to reset once its done. It will also analyse the bios to make sure its okay before flashing. Apart from that I think you're spot one. With my GB I have not had a bad flash and I've done it 3 or 4 times now; unfortunately this is not going to give you any confidence wrt the restore facility!

[Funkstar]

I've never had any luck using this method, for some reason it either never picks up the USB drive, or it doesn't recognise the BIOS. I'm probably doing something wrong.

I've used the Windows BIOS flasher the past few times and never had a problem. I always figure that the windows utility can do a thorough BIOS verification once it completes and if there is a problem then the app should be more than capable of restoring or at least letting me know so I can download another BIOS and try again before restarting the PC.

Perhaps this is just my foolhardy assumption though

[Phage]

Thanks for the speedy replies. Do you know what this loading fail-safes is ? Does that appear on re-boot ?

@Funkstar - There's a Windows BIOS flasher ? Where is that ? How does it work if we've loaded the OS ?

[Domestic_Ginger]

The dual bios should get you out of the pickle. This nice man has made a video.

No idea if it works. You should backup your current bios onto your stick if you can incase of a bad flash and then you can flash back.

Forgot to say you'll need to unzip the downloaded file. You may need to save in the root directory.

I've never flashed in windows; search the GB website for the download. It is annoying they don't seem to list checksums.

[Phage]

Thanks. I've unzipped the download and it has the BIOS, a BAT file and an EXE. I was just going to take the BIOS and save it on the stick, and at root, just in case.
Good point on the backup BIOS. I'll have to go watch some videos !

[Funkstar]

Check the "Utility" download section for your motherboard, or you can get it from here (amongst other links)

http://download.gigabyte.eu/FileList...gbt_atbios.exe

And some instructions: http://www.gigabyte.com.au/MicroSite...ech_a_bios.htm


I guess it lets you do this because once the system has gone through a POST, there it no need to read from the actual BIOS chip any more. Everything will be loaded into some portion of memory, letting the system be updated from Windows. Actually, I presume this is the same for updating through Q Flash. Just because the system isn't running Windows (or any other OS) doesn't mean the system isn't booted fully, as far as these pieces of low level software are concerned at least.

[Phage]

Bah - all video sites blocked at work...

[Disturbedguy]

I used the Gigabyte QFlash facility recently and didnt have any problems.

I stuck the latest revision on my pen drive, stuck it in the PC and rebooted, pressed F8 when prompted and followed the on screen instructions.

I also backed up my old BIOS when I had the chance, just in case.

[Phage]

Heh - If you hear screaming about 8pm tonight, you'll know it didn't work

[scaryjim]

If I hear you screaming all the way from Kent, I'll be very impressed

The only time I've had a BIOS flash go bad was when I used a Windows flashing program to put the wrong BIOS on my board (I'd read conflicting accounts on who the actual manufacturer of the board was and downloaded the BIOS from the wrong site *doh* - fortunately that was back in the days when a cheap ATX mobo was only £15 ). Otherwise I've used Windows utilities, booting from a DOS floppy, and "in BIOS" flashing programs, all with no issue. Yet my heart still jumps into my mouth every time I think about flashing a BIOS... weird, isn't it

[this_is_gav]

If FAT32 doesn't work, try the older FAT when you format before you give up. FAT32 will usually be fine, but I have come across a board which wouldn't recognise the memory card (in my case) when formatted to FAT32.

Do you know what this loading fail-safes is ? Does that appear on re-boot ?

It's normally an option in the BIOS - you press a key or key combination (such as F8 or something) and it will load the default BIOS settings, eg remove any overclock, or any settings which have been changed in the BIOS.

Basically it's the same as taking the battery out of the board or however you reset your CMOS (some boards have a button to do it). The only difference is removing the battery will reset the time and date to some point in the past, as well as resetting all the settings to defaults.

[kalniel]

Always use QFlash, not @Bios.

In most cases you want to 'load optimised defaults', not 'fail safe'. Fail safe reduces all the voltages to pretty much minimum settings and can cause stability problems which isn't want you want on a fresh boot with a new BIOS. Gigabyte support always recommend optimised defaults. It's a reset option in BIOS that resets all the settings to the factory recommended ones for your hardware.

[Phage]

Always use QFlash, not @Bios.

In most cases you want to 'load optimised defaults', not 'fail safe'. Fail safe reduces all the voltages to pretty much minimum settings and can cause stability problems which isn't want you want on a fresh boot with a new BIOS. Gigabyte support always recommend optimised defaults. It's a reset option in BIOS that resets all the settings to the factory recommended ones for your hardware.

Ah - got it. Thanks for that.

[Phage]

OK - posting from the machine - so it seems to be working.
Worried me at first when it said it couldn't post due to checksum error, then promptly did !
Displays as F12 on boot, and seems to be running OK although it wanted me to format the HDD ? And it disabled CF on the GPUs and I had to re-enable. But apart from that no worries...

Are those normal symptoms ? Seems to be working OK...

EDIT: msinfo confirms F12. Was there anything to worry about ?

[Funkstar]

The checksum definitely, that's normal.

I think what happens is a checksum string is created from the BIOS data on a successful boot, when you boot next another checksum is created and compared to the previous one, this tells it that nothing has changes and there is no corruption.

When you update the BIOS, obviously some of the code has changed so the checksum doesn't match, no big deal, it just goes ahead anyway, but may take slightly longer as it isn't going to just assume things, it will check them to see if they are safe. It might be slower, but only by a tiny amount most likely so you wouldn't notice really. Next time you boot, it's all back to normal.

That's my understanding anyway.