Fubar'd BIOS: Advice needed

L31mr0d

Ok well, I recently finished my HTPC build (see log in sig). I had Vista 32bit working fine, temps within resonable values, all my HD movies and pictures copied over. I had installed a load of games to play with the game controllers (NHL'07, Tiger woods'07..etc) as I was having friends over last weekend.

I wanted to tune up my system, so I went into the BIOS and started disabling things I didn't need, like COM ports, Parallel ports, Floppy controller... etc

I also got the best timings for my RAM from the Mushkin forums and used ctrl-F1 to get into the advanced section of the BIOS. While setting the timings I noticed that there was no options for increasing the FSB or changing voltages.

So when I rebooted into Vista (memory timings didn't cause any errors) I used the bundled @BIOS software to do an update of the BIOS. It downloaded the latest BIOS for my mobo, verified it, installed it then told me everything had completed successfully. So I restarted only to be met with a black screen and no HDD activity.

When I start up the PC now, the fans spin up, the power light comes on but no picture, and there is no POST beeps.

I've tried unplugging the PC and removing the CMOS battery for 8 hours but no luck. I read somewhere that Award BIOS's sometimes will default to read from the floppy when the BIOS has been corrupted. So I attached a floppy drive with a diskette prepared with an autoexec file and the BIOS but no luck there either, after starting it up the floppy never gets read from. I've also tried burning a bootable CD with the BIOS files on it but that didn't work either.

Presently the CMOS battery has now been out for a nearly a day, and I have the jumper set to CMOS reset.

My next options are, try different memory (maybe the timing change caused the problem) or try a different CPU (longshot).

I've thought about replacing the BIOS chip but I had a look at the board and the BIOS chips are soldered directly onto the motherboard rather than placed in a holder.

From reading the manual my mobo has a "Dual BIOS" which should allow for the original BIOS to be restored if an flash fails. BUT, and heres the caveat, this can only be done THROUGH the failed BIOS, which is utterly useless imo, if I had access to the primary BIOS, why would I need to replace it with the backup BIOS???

Anyway, all help is appreciated, i've not yet given up hope that I can get this board fixed, so i'd like ideas as to other avenues I can go down.

btw: My mobo is: Gigabyte GA-965QM DS2 (rev 2.0)

Anti

Are you sure both bios chips are soldered to the board. As with gigabyte boards the main bios chip is the one you can unplug so it can be replaced. Double check and look just above the cmos battery. Is there a chip there?

This maynot be the case with your board, and i cant check as i cant find a decent enough picture of it.

If that fails try booting it with no cpu or ram. Do you hear any beeps then? Then try it with it all installed into it.

Ginger

If you want to erase CMOS...
1. Turn off the computer and unplug the power cord.
2. Gently take out the battery and put it aside for about one minute.
(Or you can use a metal object to connect the positive and
negative pins in the battery holder to make them short for five
seconds.)
3. Re-install the battery.
4. Plug the power cord in and turn on the computer

Thats from the manual .. but you said you did that alright

There is also the CMOS shorting via the pins with the battery and power in and restart the PC

That should clear it back to normal .. i would have thought

L31mr0d

Ok I tried it again last night. No luck. I had read on another forum that holding down F1 on gigabyte boards causes it to load the backup BIOS over to the primary thus restoring it. This didn't work, in fact the lights never come on on my keyboard (i've tried my USB one and my backup PS/2 one) so I don't even know if its picking up keystrokes.

I contacted Gigabyte telling them I had taken the battery out and that the automatic dual BIOS recovery feature, one of the main reasons I bought a gigabyte over other manufacturers, is not working. Here is there ever so helpful reply

Gigabyte tech guy wrote:

Hi,

1) Please clear the CMOS by disconnecting the power cord from the power supply, the power connectors from the M/B and removing the CMOS battery for 5 minutes.
2) If the problem still persists, the BIOS chip might be corrupted/defective due to unsuccessful flash; please contact your vendor for checking out the M/B or the replacement, if under their warranty.

Say what? Did he not even read my email I sent him?

Anyway i've shot off another email ONLY asking about how to get the dual BIOS to work.

Oh and Anti, i've rechecked the entire mobo, all the IC's are SMT and soldered in place. I guess gigabyte thought since they have 2 BIOS chips on board that the chances of needing a replacement where negligible

I've taken the motherboard out the pc, removed all components and power connections. I'm going to install a stick of DDR2 RAM and an old Pentium D from work and see if I can boot up.

Anti

Jesus, What a bunch of morons. I hate when they dont bother to read the email, and then have the cheek to fire off a scripted response. Hope ya get this working mate.

L31mr0d

Anti wrote:

Jesus, What a bunch of morons. I hate when they dont bother to read the email, and then have the cheek to fire off a scripted response. Hope ya get this working mate.

This is what I got from them just there...

Gigabyte tech guy wrote:

Hi,

The backup BIOS will not kick off if the main boot ROM has been damage. In future please update the BIOS with QFlash Utility.

http://www.gbt-tech.co.uk/FileList/NewTech/old_motherboard_newtech/tech_qflash.htm

:mad: So... what is the point of having a backup BIOS then? When would I ever need it if I can't use it when a flash goes wrong? Also nice of them to supply me with their @BIOS program on the install CD and then tell me to use Qflash instead.

I'm hoping I can

Anti

Time for a RMA me thinks

L31mr0d

Anti wrote:

Time for a RMA me thinks

its looking like it. I'm going to test it one more time tomorrow after its been powered down for at least 24 hours, then if it still doesn't work i'll shoot off an email to HWV and get it replaced.

youcancallmeal

Wait a minute why would you waste time tweaking the settings on the board and then update the BIOS straight after? Surely a BIOS update is going to clear all those settings anyway.

Any time I've ever flashed a BIOS I would always reset all BIOS settings to default, maybe an idea for next time?

L31mr0d

the reason I went to flash the BIOS after making changes was that a few settings wheren't available. As there was no documentation on the added features of the next BIOS release I decided to flash and see if they'd unlocked some extra options (i.e. allowing me to increase the FSB) plus I thought the dual bios feature would give me some redundancy should it go wrong... it doesn't its basically only usefull for resetting the bios values to default without clearing the CMOS

BKtje

First off, it is always recommended to reset the BIOS back to optimal defaults before flashing the BIOS. That said that doesnt really help you.

If it is indeed the BIOS thats wrong there are a few things you can still do.

1)If you have a friend with the same mobo as yourself you can borrow his BIOS chip and stick it in. Once it has booted you can do whats called a "hot swap". Basically what this means is that you remove the BIOS chip thats in the board (while it is turned on) and replace it with your faulty one. Then you reflash the BIOS and hope for the best.

2)You can order a new BIOS chips (and the tools that are recommended for changing them) from http://www.recoverybios.com/biosrecovery/En/main/main.php

Used them before without problems. That said RMA might be easier for you but i dunno what the procedure is for an RMA after you tried a bios flash (that said they mightn't realise).

L31mr0d

B-K-DzR wrote:

First off, it is always recommended to reset the BIOS back to optimal defaults before flashing the BIOS. That said that doesnt really help you.

If it is indeed the BIOS thats wrong there are a few things you can still do.

:rolleyes:

Thanks for that but i've already outlined that the BIOS chips are not easily hot swappable. They are soldered directly onto the mobo. Also, I know it is recommended by some to reset your BIOS before flashing but there is no concrete reason why this would make a difference. It's like saying you need to reset Windows to its default settings, before formatting the disk and installing a new version. The BIOS flash simply erases the previous BIOS and flashes a new one. People have had there BIOS fubar regardless of whether they reset it to default or not.

My mistake was using the windows app to flash the BIOS, i must of done it several times before without incident on other systems (I regularly update the DELL BIOS's in work this way) but from reading around due to this issue it seems flashing via windows is strongly not recommended. I'll be flashing via floppy or from POST from now on.

BKtje

It's done so that the system is at its most stable when performing the slightly risky task. Any sort of mis communication when flashing the bios generally kills it.

Apologies, i obviously didn't understand that it was soldered on, i've infact never come accross this which i guess is what lead to my confusion.