Bad flash or dead motherboard? Motherboard won't boot up after cold reboot.

Discussion in 'BIOS Mods' started by goldfinger, Aug 9, 2015.

  1. goldfinger

    goldfinger MDL Junior Member

    Dec 29, 2010
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    I have an ASRock 775i65G board that I wanted flashed. It uses AMI BIOS (not UEFI.) I downloaded the BIOS from the website but I'm not sure it was the right one. They only had BIOS files for revision 2.0 of the board and my board is rev 3.0. So there's a little confusion there.

    Anyway, I moded the BIOS using Andyp's awesome tool and got ready to flash it with the included DOS flash tool. But it wouldn't work when I tried to save the original BIOS, it said something like "couldn't find chipset interface." So I downloaded the Windows flasher tool and ran it.. Big mistake. I didn't realize the EXE file had the ROM file built in and it started flashing the BIOS immediately without any confirmation at all.

    I didn't reboot and I downloaded several versions of AFUWIN, but they couldn't read or write the flash... s**t.... I rebooted (warm reboot) and it worked fine.... Then I rebooted (warm again) to a DOS USB stick and it tried a different version of AFUDOS.. No go...

    I powered off the computer took the USB stick out to copy older versions of AFUDOS and try again. After turning it back on, the motherboard won't boot up. The IDE DVD drive activity light and the HDD activity light flash simultaneously. WTF? Did the motherboard die, or was this the result of a bad flash? Was the old flash still active after a couple of warm reboots (maybe cached in RAM?)

    TD;DR version:
    I might have accidentally flashed the wrong BIOS into my motherboard. It would boot up after warm reset/reboots, but after powering down and back on, it would not boot up again. Is it possible that the flash BIOS doesn't take affect until a cold boot, or did my motherboard coincidentally die? It's only a week old. Yes, serious a brand new 865 motherboard.
     
  2. LatinMcG

    LatinMcG Bios Borker

    Feb 27, 2011
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    i think you flash wrong ver and needs USB SPI recovery with proper bios.. RMA it.
     
  3. goldfinger

    goldfinger MDL Junior Member

    Dec 29, 2010
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    So you think the BIOS was cached in RAM during warm boot? That's my hope. The board booted up fine after warm reboot (CTRL-ALT-DEL) from DOS and reboot from W7. Only after powering off and back on did it not boot. Newer boards warm boot from the recently flashed BIOS. Actually, I never seen a board that would not boot from the new BIOS after flashing. That's why I think it might be dead.

    I have an SPI programmer, but this board uses a PLCC32 chip. Luckily it's socketed. I'm waiting for my Mini Pro to come from China. When it does, I'll post the reflashing results here. It might be useful for someone.
     
  4. LatinMcG

    LatinMcG Bios Borker

    Feb 27, 2011
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    make a backup.bin first.. might need some data from it for new bios.bin

    some bios are similar not same and might work partially.
     
  5. goldfinger

    goldfinger MDL Junior Member

    Dec 29, 2010
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    I got my Mini Pro today and I successfully flashed the BIOS. Anyway, it did not boot up so I contacted the mobo manufacturer and got the correct BIOS, which is NOT posted on their website. Flashed it again and it booted up fine.

    Just for the hell of it, I flashed it with the incorrect BIOS and did a warm boot....It started up fine.. Another warm reset and it starts up fine. I power it off and back on and it's dead. The newly flashed BIOS does not take affect until a cold boot. And maybe this is due to the System BIOS shadowing option.

    Anyway, I modded and flashed the correct BIOS and the motherboard is working fine again.