ASUS Blitz Formula BIOS Failure

[DrBB]

Short summary of events!

Board was purchased at the beginning of August, was running on factory BIOS revision.

On booting up today, the Boot-blocker utility fired up to declare the current BIOS corrupt.

I inserted the Motherbord CD and the BIOS recovered itself, seemingly to an OLDER version than the factory BIOS.

(There were errors relating to the CPU's uCode - CPU is an E6750)

I attempted to upgrade the BIOS using the ASUS utility. This utility ran through the its operations and 'failed' on verifying the new image.

I tried downloading and flashing from 2 further images from ASUS website, identical results.

The PC then locked up and required a reboot.

The motherboard now appears to be 'bricked'.

On power-on the all fans spin up, all board LED's light up and then the board power cycles after about 10 seconds, it then repeats this process in an infinite loop. No output is seen from the GFX card (an Nvidia 8800 GTS).

I have tried clearing the bios using the button on the back and press-holding the power button. No effect.

I currently have a floppy drive connected with a disk inserted with a BIOS image file on it, in addition I have the motherboard CD in the drive.

It appears not to access either of these devices before the 'power cycle' effect occurs.

I am awaiting a reply from ASUS at the moment.

Anyone have any thoughts ? 🙁

 

[DrBB]

It has been suggested that the reason for the cycle is the default recovery BIOS is unable to use the newer conroe 1333 chips?

 

[madmurph]

RMA the board. This is why few of the Formulas made it into the channel --Asus pulled them back due to to a QC prob with the bios chips, and they are being re-packaged with the X38 chip as Maximus Formula. Don't lose faith in the board, though, it's going to be the big winner when X38 falls on its face. At least, based on the few Formulas Asus did release, it could be come a collector's item, if there is such a thing in the MB world.

 

[mis33]

Not sure if we should trust Asus anymore.

I bought a P5K-Premium in end-of-August and I tried for 1-2 days but failed to install OS due to SATA issues (Trust me, I tried everything. IDE and ACHI with F6, etc). I did my research before buying the board and all the PC tech sites gave high praises to the board. Furthermore, I reviewed Toms and Hardforums and I did not see any complaints about these issues. Then I looked over to the Asus forum and I saw many complaints all the way back to early August.

For more than 2 months, no fix and no official words from Asus. So tell me, why shouldn't I loose faith...

 

[patkhc]

I just encounter the same problem with DrBB. Have you get any update from Asus? Otherwise I have to replace the motherboard.

 

[serelaw]

Did not reset bios to default before flashing
flashed to 1302 from windows
then cycles like urs
What to do what to do?

 

[Shadow703793]

NEVER FLASH BIOS FROM WINDOWS!

Download AFUDOS/AWDFLASH/UNIFLASH (any one of them depending on BIOS, i recommend UNIFLASH) to bootable USB key,etc.
Download the new BIOS and flash using DOS.

 

[serelaw]

Ok Guys i dodged a major Bullet here.
U already know I screwed up and I admit it.

Then reset the jumper.
Then unplugged the power.
Took out battery for 10 minutes.
That being said I took out two sticks of ram.
Then it booted up to default settings.
Going to put ram back in in a second.

 

[roadrunner197069]

Ok Guys i dodged a major Bullet here.
U already know I screwed up and I admit it.

Then reset the jumper.
Then unplugged the power.
Took out battery for 10 minutes.
That being said I took out two sticks of ram.
Then it booted up to default settings.
Going to put ram back in in a second.

Big trick on ASUS board is to unplug the power after a bad post. Unplugging the power resets the bios to factory after a failed post. I have built many ASUS builds.

 

[serelaw]

Ahhh, U r wise in ur ways.
I have much to learn.
Thanku for the intel